Move On Asia and Hitoshi Nishiyama’s White Out

Shibuya’s home for emerging artists offers a double dose of inspired expression

Hitoshi Nishiyama, “White Out,” 2005 Images Courtesy of Tokyo Wonder Site

No theme is too insignificant or ridiculous to be included in the five-plus hours of video in “Move On Asia 2006: Clash and Network.” Featuring 21 notable video artists from throughout the Asia Pacific region, the exhibition is a wild indulgence of ideas and images that provoke and entrance in equal measure. Better yet, it’s just one of two new exhibits currently up at the Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya.

Most memorable, perhaps, is Chusheng Lu’s History of Chemistry (2004), which moves a skillfully dispassionate narrative along at a languorous pace until the abrupt and threatening emergence of a roaring lawnmower. The beautifully crafted film features a spare and fluid soundtrack that continually implies several emotions while never stalling on any singular sentiment.

On a smaller screen in the exhibit’s main room there are the positively silly, but nonetheless disturbing antics of Hyunjoo Kim’s Styrofoam Head (2005), in which a lone figure scrapes and claws a huge block of Styrofoam covering its head. Similarly, Kawai Okamura’s AIRS (2005) is a bizarre puppet play that laughingly toys with tropes of television media coverage while mixing model-making craftsmanship with the disturbingly artificial movements inherent to the somewhat, but not really, lifelike puppets. Although immediately visually seductive, the underlying notes of unease and restrained panic in the two works are particularly absorbing.

Other artists gravitate to commenting and critiquing the art world. These works balance essentially intellectual examinations of contemporary art with a surprisingly relaxed humor that makes for the most readily accessible and entertaining in the show. Singaporean artist Tzu Nyen Ho’s series Episodes of Singapore Art (2005) are stories from the country retold through a gleefully irreverent play on contrived docudramas. Likewise, Arlo Mountford’s animation, Universal Language (2005), utilizes simplistic characters and familiar television strategies to guide viewers through a Mondrian-inspired maze filled with societal ills and modern art foils.

Kawai Okamura, AIRS, 2005

After so much staring at video screens, it’s a welcome switch to move across the hall and crawl into the sculpted cave of the other exhibition, Hitsoshi Nishiyama’s “White Out.” An enclosed two-floor installation composed of carved Styrofoam, Nishiyama’s world immediately envelops visitors in a pseudo-organic field of glacial energy. The hand-carved scrapes in the walls and various forms jutting out or caving in resonate with an intensely physical presence. Even the chemically sweet smell and squeaking compression of the Styrofoam contribute to the sense that we have entered a remote and metaphysical fantasy world.

Yet jarring amid this blank counterpoint to the videos is the questionable inclusion of several small, transparent-blue models of ocean waves. Dwarfed by the thoroughly manipulated walls and wide hollow of the space, they seem out of place and all but forgettable. The plinths that the models are balanced on are immediately more compelling works of art, as their Styrofoam forms seem to make direct stalagmite-like extensions of the floors and walls, ultimately pulling us back into the impressive whiteness of the space as a whole.

Both exhibitions fall into the not-to-be-missed category, especially the tremendous “Move On Asia.” But though “White Out” will continue until early June, the video exhibit will finish on Saturday, reemerging in Osaka in June and Aichi in July.

Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, until May 27 (“Move On Asia”) and June 9 (“White Out”). See exhibition listings (Shibuya/Ebisu) for details.

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