Thousands of visitors ago on April 20, the Tokyo: Form and Spirit exhibition opened at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to a record-breaking crowd. At a cost of more than $1.2 million, this extravaganza, which runs for three months before traveling to Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, is the largest and most expensive project organized in Walker's history and undoubtedly is one of the most complex. Co-curated by Martin and Mildred (Mickey) Friedman, a husband-and-wife team who are, respectively, the director and design curator of the museum, the planning and construction for this exhibit alone demanded regular commutes across continents, exhausting schedules for the museum and Japanese staff, and extensive funding from fifty-six organizations and individuals.
Four years ago when the Friedmans went to Japan under the auspices of a study grant from New York's Japan Society, they expected an informative, interesting trip, but not a revelation. "What struck us immediately," Martin remarked, "was the vitality of the culture, that old forms coexisted with new forms and that traditional sources were the inspiration for new ideas." They immediately began a whirlwind tour of important sites and galleries, pored through books and magazines, and met Japanese traditional and contemporary artists. Slowly, a vague idea inspired by their initial fascination with and confusion by this new culture metamorphosed into a concrete plan for building an entire show around the indigenous form and spirit that are the lifeblood of contemporary Tokyo.
After an exhausting search for contemporary artists who fit their plan, the Friedmans commissioned eleven of Japan's leading architects and designers to build room-sized environmental spaces for the museum's five galleries around seven themes selected to represent Tokyo's past, present, and future: the spirit, walking, living, working, performing, reflecting, and playing. Only those artists who retained certain traditional qualities in their work such as the non-Western uses of space, texture, quality of materials, and light were selected to build Tokyo: Form and Spirit's imaginative, visionary spaces.
The most extraordinary aspect of Tokyo: Form and Spirit is neither its international scope, its astronomical cost, nor the fact that it is the first exhibition of its kind to be organized for an American museum, but its unique ability to show the pervasive role that tradition plays in shaping the arts in Japan today. Ironically, placing the arts apart from their environment has illuminated the vitality that the Friedmans have labeled an inherent "Japanese sensibility." The exhibits in the interconnecting galleries change from whimsical and colorful to profound and serene, as if one were taking a surrealistic stroll through an imaginary Tokyo that exists only in the minds of the creators. Each one has its own personality and unwraps before our eyes to reveal an innate, inner creativity generated by the common themes of Tokyo's form and spirit.
A large sixfold screen created by Masami Teraoka, a Hawaii-based artist, shows the humorous side of cultural fusion. Teraoka's mural, at first, appears to be a traditional wood-block print. All of the "correct" images and colors are intact, until you look closely. A samurai is bending over to lace his jogging shoes, another is practicing his golf swing, and a lovely geisha is emerging from a Japanese bath after a refreshing run.
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