IN TOKYO, A CELEBRATION OF SELF-TAUGHT ARTISTS’ CREATIVE ENERGY AND IDEAS

THIS YEAR’S EDITION OF THE BiG-i x Bunkamura ART PROJECT EXHIBITION IS FULL OF DELIGHTFUL SURPRISES

2024 BiG-i x Bunkamura Art Project Exhibition
Bunkamura Gallery 8
Hikarie Building, floor 8
(near the east side of Shibuya Station, Tokyo)
August 30 through September 9, 2024

by Edward M. Gómez

TOKYO — At Bunkamura Gallery 8, a venue located on the eighth floor of the Hikarie Building, just to the east of Shibuya Station, a colorful exhibition filled with artworks in various media, representing a range of genres, has just opened. The “2024 BiG-i x Bunkamura Art Project Exhibition” features prize-winning works made by self-taught artists from around Japan and several other countries that emerged from an annual, juried, international art competition.

That contest was co-sponsored by BiG-i, an Osaka-based cultural center serving disabled people, their families, and professionals who work with the special-needs community, and Bunkamura, a cultural center in Tokyo’s dynamic Shibuya district. (In Shibuya, Bunkamura’s main building is located a short walk to the west of Shibuya Station; that venue presents film screenings, concerts, and performing-arts events.)

The exhibition is now on view at Bunkamura Gallery 8 in the Hikarie Building, right next to Shibuya Station.

The competition whose prize-winning works are featured in the current exhibition attracted 1246 entries from self-taught artists in Japan and 173 entries from other countries. The contest’s jury members included jury chairman Yuji Akimoto, a professor of art history at Tokyo Fine Arts University and a former museum director; Baron Ueda, an Osaka-based graphic designer; Hiroaki Nakatsugawa, an artist and art director who has collaborated on numerous art-related projects with workshops for disabled people in Japan; and myself, the editor in chief of brutjournal and longtime reporter about developments on the Japanese art brut scene.

Kaichi Hayashi, “Sakana,” 2023, bond sumi ink on paper, 70 x 136.5 centimeters

Appropriately, this year’s BiG-i x Bunkamura exhibition, which celebrates the diversity to be found among members of the human family, offers a wide variety of artistic creations, from drawings and paintings to an unusual uniform made with scrap paper and colored tapes, and a delicate, jewel-like sculpture made of meticulously crafted resin.

Among the highlights of this colorful survey: The young calligrapher Kaichi Hayashi’s depiction of the kanji (written Sino-Japanese character) 魚 (“sakana”), which means “fish.” In his version, Hayashi audaciously abstracts the strokes of the character to render it as an inky blob resembling a dinosaur or some other strange creature. Another unusual work, “Kiyorakana Kokoro” (“Pure Heart”), is a flat sculpture that looks like a large serving platter; produced by acco Lemuria, this transparent creation consisting of what looks like many delicate flowers is made of very carefully handled resin. Elsewhere, a little duck with big eyes, “Papier Mâché Robot Chick Nurse,” bears witness to Japan’s fondness for all things kawaii (“cute”). Made by the Ishizaki Hospital Day Care Papier Mâché Group in Ibaraki Prefecture, this brightly colored sculpture contains a motor and can actually walk.

acco Lemuria, “Pure Heart,” 2023, resin, wire, and dip liquid, 3 x 5 x 50 centimeters

Other works that caught my eye included Daiki Fujiwara’s “Setouchi Robot,” an abstract composition made up of a grid of smaller abstract elements. Fujiwara, who lives in Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku, creates each part of such a larger work by engraving a design into the surface of a thin sheet of wood, which becomes his printing plate. The artist applies watercolor paint to his etched design and then presses his printing plate against a sheet of paper to produce a finished piece. He also embellishes each small print with colored Conté crayons.

The artist Daiki Fujiwara with his abstract work “Setouchi Robot,” on the right.

Detail of Daiki Fujiwara’s “Setouchi Robot,” 2023, watercolor paint and Conté crayon on paper, 74.5 x 93 x 4.5 centimeters

Seiyamizu, a young artist from Saitama Prefecture, which lies immediately to the north of the Tokyo metropolitan region, is known for his line drawings, whose cleverness and sense of whimsy bring to mind the prominent use of line in the drawings or watercolor works of such 20th-century artists as Jean Cocteau or Jean-Michel Folon. I met Seiyamizu at the gallery, at which time he showed me a few of his large sketchbooks, in which his feverish creative energy is evident. This young artist is overdue for a solo exhibition at a high-profile venue somewhere in Japan. His small, postcard-size drawings alone could easily fill a gallery. Seen together, they are packed with inventive ideas.

Seiyamizu, “Scene of Conflict,” 2023, ink on paper, 54 x 76.5 centimeters

I was also struck by Tomomitsu Mori’s “The Costume Not Sold in the Countryside,” a large garment made of colored packing tape, glue, and poster paint. It hangs flat on a wall, but its sculptural quality cannot be missed. Various abstract works stand out, too, such as Kana Ochiai’s “Aariiarei,” a big, fluffy rectangle made up of wiry, colored-pencil strokes; Shun Ito’s “Suupaakabu,” a charcoal drawing; and Masashi Kakutani’s “Yuki,” made with sumi ink on paper, whose dense composition features a thicket of smaller marks surrounding a darker, swirling form. (In Japanese, the word “yuki,” written with the character 雪, means “snow.”)

Left: Tomomitsu Mori, “The Costume Not Sold in the Countryside,” 2023, colored packing tape, glue, and poster paint, 223 x 84 x 3.5 centimeters. Right: Seiyamizu’s drawing “Scene of Conflict”

This year’s BiG-i x Bunkamura Art Project exhibition runs through September 9. If you happen to be passing through Tokyo, it’s definitely worth stopping by to see it, not only to get a sense of the kind of art-making activity that is thriving beyond the mainstream of the Japanese art world but also to witness how this art is making its way into the broader domain of Japan’s always-intriguing, ever-effervescent popular culture.