shinro otake

I. and I hit the Shinro Otake retrospective in its last days at the MOT - Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, located in Kiyosumi Shirakawa. K-S is at the end of the Hanzomon line, a straight shot from our home station on the Den-en-toshi line.

The building itself is very nice, lots of glass and metal and triangular shapes, and very spacious. The neighborhood isn't too built up, so I get the feeling it wasn't as difficult to dedicate some land to this project as it might have been if it was located more centrally.

The exhibition was stupendous - in the sense that I was stupefied. Four floors dedicated to one artist's work, and running the gamut from collage to painting to music and sculpture.

I was really digging it at first, espcially the innumerable sketchbooks stuffed to the gills with clippings (especially since it's a predilection I share). I also really liked a lot of the monochromatic paintings and some of the comics.

But... after a couple of hours I started to get tired. And overwhelmed. As I descended into the sculpture area, where some kitchen-sink diorama-rama type creations were roosting, music began to issue from some of them. The man himself was playing a live noise-ish set. I stayed for a few minutes and watched, but ultimately couldn't take anymore and went to meet an appointment I had made. I. stayed, though, and met Mr. Otake and chatted with him for awhile. Apparantly the man speaks excellent English and is downright nice n'cool.

Fourteen more days til this closes: if you check it out, be ready to dedicate a lot of time to it.