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Original articles on art, artists, architecture, exhibitions, galleries, museums and cultural institutions around Tokyo, Japan.

Rice Gallery

by John McGee

Interior of Rice Gallery, inside the Shokuryo Building, Sagacho, Tokyo

Sagacho is so shitamachi (old town). This tiny district sits on the banks of the Sumida River, mikoshi (portable shrine) parade down its streets in one of Tokyo's biggest summer festivals, and sumo wrestlers stop by the nearby shrine for a little luck en route to their training stables. Yet it is just one subway stop from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiba (MoT) and a few stops from the glitz of Ginza. Situated in this dynamic position between old and new is one of the city's newest art spots: Rice Gallery. 

The gallery is on the third floor of the Shokuryo Building, a 1920s European-style courtyard building and a former rice market, unusual in Tokyo for both its age and atmosphere. Though the building isn't filled with rice anymore, remnants of its past linger inside the gallery--one end of its long room is framed by a big arch embossed with a band of monumental rice plants. 

The Shokuryo Building is also redolent with local art history. Sagacho Exhibit Space, the previous third-floor occupant, was a fixture of youthful energy in the Tokyo art scene for 17 years before finally succumbing to funding problems. 

Rice Gallery is a collaboration between ShugoArts and Koyanagi Gallery, both veterans of the Ginza art scene. ShugoArts is the younger half of the former Satani Gallery, a father-son business. When Satani shut its doors in 1999, the younger Satani started looking for a new space. 

For Atsuko Koyanagi (of Koyanagi Gallery), it's a homecoming of sorts. She worked for Sagacho's founder, Kazuko Koike, for ten years and actually discovered the building. When Sagacho Exhibit Space was closing, Koike asked  Koyanagi to take it over, to carry on her vision of supporting young artists. Koyanagi (who will keep her main Ginza space) had been looking for more room. The time was right for Koyanagi, Satani and Shokuryo to come together. 

There was a lot of anticipation for this collaboration between two of Tokyo's gallery leaders and the popular art space. Unfortunately, "Gallery Debut," the opening show in January, was a disappointing sum of less than its parts. Both galleries displayed one piece from each of their artists, a strategy which included much of interest, but failed to show a clear, distinctive trajectory. The exhibition seemed like a stroll through the gallery storage room rather than a promising kick-off of something new. 

Rice Gallery's second show, "Artists' Debut," is much bolder, featuring nine recent participants in the art institute at the Center for Contemporary Art, Kita-Kyushu. Just inside the entrance, a big blue highway sign hung above an asphalt roundabout (complete with floral centerpiece) directs viewers to the work of the other artists. Takayuki Yagi, responsible for this road project, exemplifies the challenging vision of the emerging artists collected in this show, shunting the viewer in a variety of intriguing directions.

Following "Artists' Debut," all exhibitions at Rice Gallery will be solo shows, alternating between Koyanagi and ShugoArts artists. 

The Artists' Debut exhibition was held Mar-Apr 2001 at Rice Gallery, Sagacho, Tokyo, Japan. 

Unfortunately, the Shokuryo Building was demolished in 2003.

©2006 John McGee

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