The Gregorian calendar is arbitrarily imposed yet shapes our lives nonetheless.
This was the point made by Doryun Chong, chief curator of the Hong Kong contemporary visual culture museum M+ and curatorial director of ¡°Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010,¡± currently on view at The National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT) through Dec. 8, when asked at a press conference why the exhibit¡¯s specific years were chosen. There are many ways of quantifying time, with some cultures believing it must first be experienced to be made real; this idea seems closer to the view of time pursued by this show, which attempts to delineate two decades of Japan-centered art in retrospect.
More than the time period, a porous view of Japanese art and history is central to the curation. ¡°Prism of the Real¡± features not only Japanese but also foreign artists working in and drawing inspiration from Japan. Of the 170 works by more than 50 artists, roughly one-third are by creators born or based outside Japan. Headliners include Japanese artists Yoshitomo Nara and Yayoi Kusama, French contemporary artist Pierre Huyghe and Argentina-born Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija.
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