I visited 'Art @ Agnes ' yesterday at the Agnes Hotel in Kagurazaka, just behind The British Council building in Iidabashi. This is the third time the fair has been held in this hotel and over thirty commercial galleries were showing their wares in various sized rooms. All of the galleries are Japanese and showing contemporary art.
Being a small boutique type hotel with rather narrow corridors, the place seemed teeming with art fans. I bumped into a few of my students as well as several artists and of course many gallerists. The scale of most of the work was small, no doubt due to the spaces of the hotel rooms, but nevertheless there were some wonderfully creative displays. I must admit to not being much of a fan of art fairs - is this because I go with no intention of buying? As well as the usual 'Tokyo Power Galleries' - Koyama Tomio, Koyanagi, Taka Ishii, Mizuma etc - I was particularly interested to see works presented by new, younger galleries like takefloor and Misako + Rosen . These two spaces shared a hotel room, and to my great relief, provided the only musical interlude among all the galleries - a video work showing on the hotel TV blared Jimi Hendirx songs.
The other interesting thing for me - and I must apologise for not paying so much attention to the art - was the experience of going around the fair. It required considerable contortion as one seemed to be constantly squeezing past other visitors in hotel doorways and into bathrooms through half open doors. I found this strangely pleasant and a nice change to the vast open spaces one is usually afforded in museums and galleries. There was a kind of 'Tokyo domestic' feel about this, a bit like going to a friends flat, where one is also conscious of moving around in limited spaces. Within this situation, there were some wonderfully odd displays of art work - Richter's candles placed on a pillow, like a sacrament, Hosoe Eiko's famous photograph of Yukio Mishima in a bath tub, a gold fish swimming in a bath tub, a photograph in the toilet, and my favourite, an A.R. Penck painting wedged into the hand rail by a bath tub. This last display made me think again about how painting relies on gravity, on the act of hanging - and how it begins to lose its sense of grace and gravitas once the hang is replaced. I started to ponder the idea of painting resting on the world, its weight being supported on something already existing. Manzoni's plinth supporting the world came to mind as did paintings which are propped or leant (also Japanese byobu screens) as did those huge abstract expressionist canvases which are hung very low, almost touching the floor, but still hung. Some pictures of these episodes below:
I left the hotel around 3-30pm, and by then a long queue had formed outside the entrance. I sat on a bench in a small park adjacent to the hotel and munched almonds, waiting for my artist friend Hiroharu Mori to emerge.
Nice review.
I think the piece you call the Hosoe Mishima piece is probably a Morimura photo from his recent show at Shugoarts? Here is an article on that show:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/itoi/itoi12-6-06.asp
I believe that Shugoarts had at least one of those photos at Agnes.
Posted by: Art Liker | January 15, 2007 at 12:56 AM