Okay, so today was the last day of the exhibit "Roppongi Crossing 2007: Future Beats in Japanese Contemporary Art" (which happens once every three years) at the Mori Art Museum, so I forced myself to get up at a decent hour and make it over to Roppongi (and thank God I did, I'd be kicking myself if I knew what I missed). I wasn't expecting it to be that big since its on the 53rd floor of the Mori Tower, but it was actually a lot bigger than I expected. This exhibit and "Space for your Future" kind of have the same themes going on, but "Roppongi Crossing" is less interactive and (obviously) space oriented, much more visual.
There were 36 artists on display. Deki Yayoi's neon paintings struck me as very interesting, especially because on top of already being a bit bizarre, the more you look at it, you see little details. Like using balloons to make up the body of the person and then faces of other people to make up the face. Very crazy. Tanaka Iichiro won the people's choice award, and I can see why. His stuff is kind of funny because he takes traditional things and messes them up. He did a daruma whose eyes fell out and a fish rubbing of a piece of sashimi. (hehehe.) I also spotted our family mon on Hara Shinichi's sculpture, I forgot what it was called. And Enoki Chu made this amazing city view using bolts and metal that looked stunning witht he lighting going on in the gallery. It was kind of like a mini-Tokyo City View made out of metal. My favorite thing though was, and this is going to sound extremely weird coming from me (who hates math), the Arithmetik Garden. Yup. My favorite thing was a math thing. Sato Masahiko and Kiriyama Takashi made these sensor things that look like white doorways/metal detectors that have math on the top. (ex. "x7" or "+3") Then people take these cards that have sensors on them and walk through the gates in order to try and make their number equal 7. When you leave the area, the scanner tells you with an 'X' or 'O' whether you ended up with 7 in the end. I didn't get a chance to try it since all the cards were being used, but it was hilarious to watch people walk around trying to do math in their heads. It was like a physical depiction of how I feel about math. (Hahahah~!)
After buying the exhibit book, I went to the Tokyo City View section of the Mori Tower, which was on the same floor. You can basically see all the way around Tokyo, and they give you a map that points out places like Asakusa, Tokyo Tower (which looked amazing), Harajuku, Shinjuku, etc. It was very cool to see such an enormous panoramic view of the city. I'm thinking that in summer I should go back to see fireworks from there, that would be amazing too.
All in all, it was really great. I didn't get to look around the rest of Roppongi, but I'll probably be going back, if for nothing else than to visit the museum again. I think the next exhibit is called "Art is for the Spirit". <3
(Sorry, I'll put the city view pictures up when I get the chance...)
