Welcome to the MOMAT Collection! Spring has finally arrived, and with the special exhibition Yasuda Yukihiko (March 23–May 15) taking place in the first-floor gallery, this edition of the exhibition, entitled “Spring in Full Bloom: A Nihon-ga Festival”, focuses on Nihon-ga (Japanese-style paintings) from the collection. The lineup of works assembled here is so spectacular, it honestly intimidates even us, the organizers!
Leiko Ikemura's works are shown in the room 12.
Room 12 Germination (Relation)
In this room, we present the work of Kawaguchi Tatsuo and Ikemura Leiko, both of whom focus on the keyword “relation.”
Following the accident that occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986, Kawaguchi began making works in which he sealed seeds in lead to shield them from radiation. Each of the 30 pieces displayed on the wall contain a different variety of edible fruit or vegetable seed. On the other hand, the brass pipe on the floor is filled with soil, the copper pipe water, and the aluminum pipe air. By severing the relations between these elements, the work draws attention to historical and social conditions that give rise to gaps, and raises questions about the imaginative power to reunite them.
Ikemura Leiko’s series Tree Love is based on the notion of humans and animals morphing into trees. The works are distinguished by the depiction of a disembodied head sprouting out of a seed-like form. The slightly plaintive quality of their appearance lies perhaps in their desire to encounter another person. In contrast to these solitary forms, there are also repeated depictions of two trees interfering with each other.
Artists: Ai-Mitsu, Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, Seiji Chokai, Robert Delaunay, Jean Dubuffet, Kinosuke Ebihara, Ei-Kyu, Toshikatsu Endo, Takeji Fujishima, Antony Gormley, Gyoshu Hayami, Rieko Hidaka, Shunso Hishida, Usaburo Ihara, Leiko Ikemura, Shiko Imamura, Ren Ito, Sentaro Iwata, Kiyokata Kaburaki, Tatsuo Kawaguchi, Gyokudo Kawai, Kentaro Kimura, Ryusei Kishida, Renzo Kita, Noboru Kitawaki, Paul Klee, Kokei Kobayashi, Harue Koga, Wolfgang Laib, Seison Maeda, Marino Marini, Tomio Miki, Kunzo Minami, Joan Miró, Kaita Murayama, Yoshinobu Nakagawa, Teijiro Nakahara, Ken’ichi Nakamura, Tsune Nakamura, Isamu Noguchi, Morie Ogiwara, Yuki Ogura, Kiyoji Ohtsuji, Taro Okamoto, Togyu Okumura, Seiju Omoda, Julian Opie, Pablo Picasso, Chim Pom, Auguste Rodin, Yuzo Saeki, Hanjiro Sakamoto, Kanzan Shimomura, Shoji Sekine, Issei Suda, Kishio Suga, Minami Tada, Kotaro Takamura, Konosuke Tamura, Koki Tanaka, Yasunori Taninaka, Kogan Tobari, Shindo Tsuji, Ryuzaburo Umehara, Sanzo Wada, Isamu Wakabayashi, Katsumi Watanabe, Keisuke Yanagi, Yoshitatsu Yanagihara, Sotaro Yasui, Taikan Yokoyama, Tetsugoro Yorozu.
Source: MOMAT & List of Artists
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
3-1 Kitanomaru-koen, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 102-8322
tel. +81 3-5541-8600