THE ANNELY JUDA Fine Art Gallery is currently in London’s Dering Street, but it will soon be moving to a new location in Mayfair’s Hanover Square. To celebrate the gallery’s forthcoming departure from Dering Street, its final exhibition at that address is called “Demolition”. It is a collection of artworks created by Tadashi Kawamata (born 1953 in Japan). He lives and works in Paris (France).
The name of the exhibition describes what the viewer will see: demolition. The artist has dismantled the gallery’s walls and panelling and used the fragments and debris from them to create a series of art works, which together make the gallery look like a building site. This might sound ridiculous, but the sculptural forms he created from the fragments of the gallery’s structure are both intriguing and exciting. It looks like someone had exploded a bomb within the gallery. However, certain elements remain untouched: cctv cameras, light switches, smoke detectors, and electrical sockets. Kawamata is well known for his site-specific creations. In addition to the sculptural ensembles that he created using the fabric of the gallery, there are several beautifully intricate three-dimensional maquettes of other projects the artist has planned or carried out.
Now, Annely Juda is a commercial gallery. I asked a member of its staff whether the amazing works that were on view in the gallery were for sale. He said that they are, and the artist will recreate the works for clients in their own spaces.
This amazingly unusual exhibition will continue until 5 July 2025.
THERE IS A SONG by Sam Cooke that begins “Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology, …”. Well, I do know something about both history and biology, but I do not know much, if anything, about Japanese art history. It turns out that this is not a great impediment if you wish to enjoy an exhibition showing at the Gagosian Gallery in Mayfair’s Grosvenor Hill until 8 March 2025. The visually spectacular show is called “Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami”.
Takashi Murakami was born in 1962 in Tokyo, where he lives and works. Apart from being a painter and a sculptor, he is also, as Wikipedia explained, involved in:
“… commercial media (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts.”
Many of the paintings in the exhibition at Gagosian are Murakami’s own interpretations of various styles used by Japanese painters in the past. Others gave me the impression of being less historically inspired, but more whimsically contemporary. The exhibition as a whole and in detail is a feast for the eyes. These beautifully executed, often intricately detailed, creations are joyous and uplifting. Maybe, if I knew more about the history of art in Japan, I would have gained even greater enjoyment from seeing them, but in this exhibition, the sentence ‘ignorance is bliss’ is certainly not inapplicable.
IF YOU HAVE NEVER heard of ‘shokuhin sanpuru’, you are not alone. It was only after visiting an exhibition called “Looks Delicious” at Japan House in London’s High Street Kensington on its penultimate day (15 February 2025) that I realised that I had often seen examples of shokuhin sanpuru (replicas of food) without realising what they are called in Japanese.
Replica of toast with melted cheese
Japanese restaurants and eateries display lifelike replicas of the food they offer to customers. They are designed both to show the customer both what to expect and to entice him or her to enter the establishment to order and then eat their kitchen’s fare. The replicas are ‘hyper-realistic’. These mouthwatering looking models are both informative and of a commercial nature: they are designed not only to depict the dishes but also to evoke in the viewer’s mind the desire to consume them. According to the exhibition catalogue (see: https://www.japanhouselondon.uk/whats-on/looks-delicious-exploring-japans-food-replica-culture/) the origin of these replicas:
“… can be traced back to the early 20th century. As ‘Western’ cuisine grew in popularity in Japan, restaurateurs needed a way to visually communicate their menus to a curious yet cautious public. Food replicas were made entirely out of wax until the 1970s, when the introduction of synthetic resin transformed their production, allowing for greater detail, durability and more dynamic display.”
The catalogue noted:
“Every effort is made to ensure food replicas appear as realistic as possible. Food replica craftspeople not only reproduce the appearance of food; they also recreate the memory of it in people’s imaginations. For example, while red bean paste may, in reality, not be that grainy, people often associate it with a grainy texture.”
The exhibition at Japan House includes examples of replicas of many kinds of Japanese food as well as of European (‘Western’) dishes. As the catalogue explained, the replicas are not only made to entice customers into eateries, but also for other purposes:
“Beyond their use as a marketing tool, food-replica technology also has wide ranging applications, notably in nutritional education and medical science.”
In addition, replicas can be made to be used as standards by which the appearance of actual food products and ingredients can be assessed.
The show at Japan House includes models and films showing how the replicas are created. Often the real food is coated with a liquid material that is used to make a three-dimensional impression (mould) of the dish. The food is then removed from the newly formed impression, and the detailed impression/mould is then set in a solid base of plaster of Paris. Then, wax or resin is poured into the mould to produce a replica. The replica is then carefully painted to recreate the appearance of the dish or food item. To recreate textural features, such as the delicate marbling on Wagyu beefsteak or fish scales, there are carefully prepared stencils, which can be laid on the models whilst paint is applied through the perforations in them. I have simplified the description of the manufacturing process, but rest assured that the production of these unbelievably realistic replicas can only be done by highly skilled craftsmen.
The unusually fascinating exhibition should not be viewed, as we did, when hungry. The replicas on display can only increase your desire to eat. They looked so enticing that it was difficult not to reach out and pick them up to eat. However, apart from not being allowed to touch them, as realistic as they look, they are completely inedible.
THE DULWICH PICTURE Gallery is the oldest building in Britain designed specifically to display art works. It was designed by the architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837) and opened to the public in 1817. Completed long before the advent of electric lighting, the rooms of the gallery were illuminated by daylight that entered them from windows on the roof. Nowadays, it is illuminated by modern lighting. It would be interesting to see how it looks when it is lit solely by daylight. The institution houses a magnificent collection of works by famous ‘old masters’ and puts on temporary exhibitions, one of which is on until November 2024. The current show is dedicated to colourful woodblock prints created by three generations of a Japanese family: the Yoshida dynasty.
Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) was married to Yoshida Fujio (1887–1987). They were both printmakers. Their sons, Yoshida Tōshi (1911–1995) and Yoshida Hodaka (1926–1995), also made prints, as did Hodaka’s wife Yoshida Chizuko (1924–2017). Chizuko and Hodaka’s daughter, Yoshida Ayomi (b. 1958), continues the family’s tradition of printmaking. She has created a site-specific installation (based on cherry blossom trees) for the exhibition. Examples of all these artists’ fine works, which range from figurative to abstraction, are displayed in the exhibition. Each exhibit is a feast for the eyes.
For me, the highlight of the show are the prints by Yoshida Hiroshi. Each one is exquisitely executed and brilliantly composed. Several of his prints on display depict scenes in Japan, ranging from a view of Mount Fuji to the interior of a shop. Hiroshi and his wife also travelled extensively: through Africa, America, Asia, and Europe. When in London in 1901, Hiroshi paid a visit to the Dulwich Picture Gallery. His signature is on a page of the Gallery’s visitors book, which is shown in the exhibition. I was particularly fascinated by the prints he made after seeing sights in the USA, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Egypt. The exhibition includes two beautiful depictions of the Taj Mahal in Agra (India).
Although the rest of the exhibition was fascinating, I was intrigued to see famous tourist sights so beautifully depicted by a traveller from the Far East – a man with great powers of observation and immense artistic talent.
The woodblock prints on the display are without doubt masterly creations. A short video described how they were created. The artist draws the scene to be depicted. A wood carver carefully transfers this image by carving it in reverse on a wooden block. Then a coloured ink is applied to selected parts of the block. Paper is placed on top, pressed down, and a print is created. The process is then repeated using another colour on different or the same parts of the block. This adds the second colour to the print. This process can be repeated carefully well over 30 times (up to 100 in some cases) until the desired coloured image is completed. At each stage the paper must be accurately positioned on the inked block to ensure it is placed in exactly the same place as on all the previous ink applications. The artist supervises the carver and the printer throughout the production. The process must require supreme concentration and dedication, but the end justifies the means.
One might wonder why bother with such a complex and labour-intensive process, when a scene could more easily be depicted using a brush and paints or pen and inks. I cannot answer this, but will say that the results in the hands of the Yoshida family are remarkably and delightfully distinct from pictures created by other means. If you can visit the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Yoshida show, then do not miss it.
IT IS OFTEN a pleasure to see an exhibition of works by an artist, whose existence was hitherto unknown to me. In this case, the artist is the Japanese born Minoru Nomata, who was born in 1955 and lives as well as works in Japan. The exhibition of his works, currently at White Cube in Masons Yard (near Piccadilly) until the 24th of August 2024, consists mainly of paintings (acrylic on canvas).
At first sight, his paintings look almost like photographs. However, after a few moments’ contemplation, they can be seen to depict subjects – often structures and aspects of nature – that are at the same time unreal and almost but not quite real. His subject matter is not quite surreal, but is an unusually dreamy interpretation of the real world. None of the paintings on display contained any signs of human presence. The gallery’s website (www.whitecube.com/gallery-exhibitions/minoru-nomata-masons-yard-2024) includes the following:
“According to the artist, ‘construction, repair and demolition’ occur simultaneously in his paintings; they confer, too, upon the simultaneity of past, present and future distinct to Nomata’s work. As he states, he sets out to create worlds that ‘are not “somewhere”, but “nowhere”, in a position that helps [him] find a place to head for’. Devoid of identifiable temporal or geographical markers as they may be, Nomata’s ambivalent landscapes speak directly to humankind’s long-standing existential concerns about what place, if any, it has in the world.”
As I viewed the pictures, which I found aesthetically pleasing, I felt they had the ‘realness’ of images that appear in dreams, yet at the same time they seemed as if they could almost be depictions of reality. In brief, I found them both attractive and intriguing, and can recommend this show to everyone.
A FEW WEEKS AGO, we viewed a wonderful exhibition of contemporary quilt making at Swiss Cottage Library (see: https://adam-yamey-writes.com/2023/07/15/quilts-in-a-wonderfully-designed-library/ ). These quilts were made with both recycled bits of material and/or textiles specially bought for use in their manufacture. Although some of the works on display could be used as rugs or coverings, many of them were designed as non-functional artworks for display. Today (1st of August 2023), we visited the Brunei Gallery in London’s Bloomsbury. Our intention was to see an exhibition of paintings and drawings from the south of India. However, when we entered the place, we discovered that in addition to what we had come to see, there was another exhibition, which we did not know about. This is the rather intriguingly named “Japanese Aesthetics of Recycling”, which is on until the 23rd of September 2023. With a name like that, we could not resist taking a look at what was on show.
The exhibition has a fine collection of exhibits demonstrating the Japanese tradition of recycling old materials to create new objects. In a country where raw materials were highly valued, it made a lot of sense not to waste them, but to re-use them. We saw many examples of ‘Boro’ textiles. These are items made by fashioning worn clothing and waste fabrics to create another usable textile. Often, a large piece of used material with damage (e.g., holes) was made usable by patching it with scraps of waste material. Both quilting and Boro involve sewing pieces of material together. Unlike quilting, which uses scraps of material to create a brand-new entity, Boro uses scraps to restore worn textiles to make them usable again. There were also examples of ‘Washi’ on display. This is handmade paper concocted from already used sheets of paper (for example from discarded account books). The Washi was made waterproof by painting it with persimmon paste. Washi paper was used for many purposes including wrapping valuable clothing, floor coverings, room dividers, making bags, and more. For example, there was a conical hat made in leather and lined with waxed recycled Washi paper. In addition to these recycling techniques, there were several others. One which caught my attention was ‘Sakiori’, which in many ways resembles the North American and European rag weaving technique.
The exhibition was not only fascinating because of the range of recycling techniques exemplified, but also because many of the items made from the recycled materials were aesthetically pleasing. The exhibits are beautifully displayed, and the accompanying labels are interesting and informative. Whether you are interested in Japan or recycling or both, it is well worth visiting the Brunei Gallery to see this show.
THE JAPAN HOUSE in London’s High Street Kensington first opened in 2018, and its aim is to increase people’s awareness and knowledge of Japan, the Japanese, and their culture. Until the 11th of June 2023, the Japan House is host to a superbly laid-out exhibition of Kumihimo – Japanese silk braiding. The braiding is a complex form of plaiting, using dyed silk threads. When, for example, hair is plaited or braided, three or more strands of hair are intertwined to form a plait. Practitioners of Kumihimo plait great numbers of often different coloured threads to create braids with beautiful repeating patterns. The most expert craftsmen and craftswomen can braid patterns using up to 140 different threads.
The exhibition shows how the threads are dyed, then spun into bobbins before finally being woven into braids. The braider uses a stand that holds the reels of thread. The threads are then plaited over each other in a repeating sequence to produce a patterned braid. Great concentration is required to maintain the sequence without making errors. A weight is hung onto the braid to hold it straight and taut whilst it is being created. In addition to examples of the various types of braiding stands, there are well-made videos illustrating braiders at work. There are many examples of finished products, including belts, fashion items, armour plating, and modern artworks. All of them are intricately patterned and incredibly beautiful.
The exhibition was set up by a Tokyo-based company, Domyo, which has been producing braided silk cords since 1652 AD. Kumihimo was a technique imported into Japan between 538 and 794 AD from the Asian mainland, and then refined and developed in Japan
When I learned that I was to visit an exhibition of braiding, I was not filled with enthusiasm. However, as soon as I entered the basement exhibition area, I realised that I was about to see a fine and most interesting display. Not only is there great beauty in the exquisitely detailed braiding, but this was also the case for the way the exhibits have been arranged. To summarise, see this exhibition if you can!
PARTICLES OF SNOW, whisked by the breeze, were whizzing about in the air in random directions and eventually reaching the ground this early February afternoon in London. I had just finished my midday meal with some nutritious fermented cabbage and was wondering what to write. Maybe, it was the kimchi that helped me remember an old friend who spent some of his working life in Manchuria, which is close to Korea, the home of this weirdly delicious fermented food substance, or was it something else that has brought him to mind?
Sir Norman had already retired from Britain’s diplomatic service when I first met him in the mid-1970s. An accomplished musician, a string player, he used to perform in concerts given by a fine amateur orchestra based west of London, whose treasurer was both a player in it and a friend of mine. Usually, after concerts, my friend and her husband hosted a coffee party at their home for the conductor and selected patrons of the orchestra. Sir Norman was a patron, and it was at these parties that I first got to know him. The few tales that he related about his years as a diplomat fascinated me.
On graduating from university, Sir Norman had a good command of several modern European languages as well as Latin and Greek. He told me that it was typical of the diplomatic service that they decided that his first posting was to Japan, where he was to have a role in the interpreting of a language he did not know: Japanese. Being a good linguist, he was able to learn it.
During the late 1930s, he was sent to Shanghai in China for a year (1937-38). When he arrived, a war between China and Japan was in progress. He told me that every afternoon, he would sit taking tea on the roof of a building in the European cantonment of the Chinese city. As he sat there, he could see shells shooting overhead. They were being fired at the Chinese on one side of the Yangtse River by the Japanese artillery on the other side. This went on day after day for several months. Then one day, the shelling stopped suddenly and for good. Sir Norman wondered why.
Soon after the shelling ceased, he met some senior officers of the victorious Japanese forces. He asked them why the fighting that had been dragging on for so long had ended so abruptly. The officers explained that the Chinese soldiers were mostly mercenaries. Once the Japanese had ascertained how much to pay them to stop fighting, they stopped.
Later, Sir Norman was transferred to Manchuria, where he was the Acting Consul General in Dairen (now ‘Dalian’). He was serving there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. After that incident, the Japanese authorities in the city of Dairen ordered him not to leave the consulate building, in which he lived. They cut off his telephone and forbade him to use his wireless to listen to radio broadcasts. Frequently, Japanese officers used to visit his premises to check that the radio was inactivated. Sir Norman, who told me that he had never been much of a technological wizard, told me more about the radio. He said that he had unscrewed a wire in the radio, which rendered it inoperable, and left it disconnected whenever he did not want to use the apparatus. With a smile on his kindly face, he explained to me that whenever he wanted to listen to a news broadcast, it was a simple matter to reattach the wire. During the time that he was being held under house-arrest, none of the Japanese officials who had visited to check on him had ever bothered to examine the radio properly.
In about 1942, the Japanese transported Sir Norman to Tokyo and eventually he was transferred into Allied hands. He said that at no time was he treated badly by the Japanese. In fact, he was looked after by them very well.
The last time I saw Sir Norman was not long before he died. We went to visit him at his home, whose lovely garden ran down to the bank of the River Thames. He was in good spirits, recovering from a hip replacement. He told my wife and me that both of his hips had prosthetic joints and that every few years they required replacing.
“It’s like changing a car’s tyres, you know,” he explained cheerfully, “except that it lays you up for a few weeks each time.”
Although I did not meet Sir Norman as nearly as often as I would have liked, I feel privileged to have been able to hear about historical events from someone who experienced them first-hand.
Sir Norman died in 2002. Sitting at home today in early February 2021, watching whisps of snow swirling in the air, whipped up by a strong cold wind, had brought him to mind. I am not sure that it was because of the kimchi I had just eaten that made me think of him. I wondered if I had recalled him because just as he was confined in Manchuria, we are also being confined, or at least being restricted in our freedom to move around. Unlike him, we have plenty of access to communications from the outside world, much of which arrives in ways that Sir Norman did not live long enough to experience. However, like him, we are currently limited in our movements. We can leave home, which Sir Norman could not, but we cannot travel as far from it as we had become accustomed to doing before the onset of the covid19 pandemic. Sir Norman used to sit out the several weeks of recovery from his hip surgeries patiently. I suppose that we must also wait patiently, but for far, far longer.
yamey 