It's not exactly autumn, the season for art, but before Tokyo Fashion Week, which started this week, I visited a few art events in Kyoto that I was interested in.

First, there's the "Reading Cinema, Finding Words: Art after Marcel Broodthaers" exhibition, running until October 27th at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. Belgian artist and poet Marcel Broodthaers began by positioning film as a form of expression for writing. Based on the idea that creative practice that shifts attention from "viewing" to "reading" film offers an important clue to understanding photography, video, and installations from the 1990s onward, the exhibition features works by 12 artists, including Eric Baudelaire, Cindy Sherman, Henri Sala, Isaac Julien, Ming Wong, Miwa Yanagi, and Koki Tanaka. While no works directly related to fashion were on display this time, the shift from "seeing" to "reading"—an increasing number of designers who decipher works through language and images—is occurring in the fashion world, just as it has been in the art scene since the 1990s. I recalled the common perspective between Cindy Sherman's work and TOGA, and enjoyed a relaxing time at my beloved National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto for the first time in a while. The exhibition will also be held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo from April 22nd next year. Demachiyanagi has long been an essential area when discussing Kyoto subculture. In recent years, the number of unique schools offering courses, such as Kyoto Seika University and Kyoto University of Art and Design, has led to an increase in interesting shops around Demachiyanagi Station, a hub station. I went shopping at "NOT PILLAR BOOKS," a bookstore open only on weekends in a room in the Kamoyanagi Apartment, which retains the atmosphere of the student movements of Kyoto University and Doshisha University from the 1960s. I stopped by to buy "I know nothing of your bygone days..." by Kyoto graffiti artist NAZE, the bookstore's first release from its independent label. The special edition, limited to 50 copies, includes an A2 stencil poster. Apparently, the smell of lacquer filled the room when it arrived. The overwhelming selection of books in the store left me stunned. From the highly-promoted ERECT Magazine to Tokyo artists like HAMADARAKA and EIZAKI AI, to photobooks by photographers garnering attention in fashion magazines, like Vivienne Sassen and Massimo Realdini, featured in "INTO THE FUTURE," distributed during the remodeling of the Isetan Shinjuku store. Even in this age of online shopping, it's fun to see bookstores like this popping up in unexpected places. Then, a three-minute walk from there, I headed to the Transpop Gallery, where the LA comic artist Jim Woodring's exhibition runs until the 20th. Be careful, because even if you say you're taking pre-orders for a soft vinyl figure in collaboration with Yora Tengo, it's only going to put off girls. I'd like to introduce this gallery again, so this time there will be no images.

Finally, I went to Gallery 110, located west of Shinsen-en, a power spot in Kyoto. This gallery specializes in fashion and opened in July this year. The special exhibition "Koromogae: T-shirt Edition" was a recycling project in which visitors brought their own T-shirts, wrote messages on them, and exchanged them for T-shirts on display. It was similar to the project that Nakagawa Masahiro carried out at 20471120 around 2000, but it was interesting to see the quality of the T-shirts on display compared to back then, and the evolution of brands as symbols, which gave a glimpse into the history of Japanese fashion.


【Event Information】
Reading Cinema,Finding Words: Art after Marcel Broodthaers
Venue: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
Address: Okazaki Enshoji-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto
Dates: Until October 27th
Time: 9:30am to 5pm (until 8pm on Fridays and October 26th)
Admission Fee: 850 yen for adults, 450 yen for university students, free for high school students and younger