With the press conference and vernissage just hours away, workers were hurriedly making final adjustments to the Hara Museum's big new Tadanori Yokoo show when one of them turned to me and said, "You know, many curators were trying for this exhibition." At least that's what I thought she said. As Yokoo, 66, is one of Japan's best-known and most highly respected artists, naturally there would have been competition to host his first major solo show in years.
"City of Insomnia" (2001) at top and "N City III" (2000) from "DNF AnyaKouro," a Tadanori Yokoo show at the Hara Museum.Hara Museum of Contemporary Art photos
But I had misheard. It turned out that the harried staffer had actually said that Hara curators had been crying. It seems that the always eclectic Yokoo is also something of a perfectionist. During the week leading up to last Sunday's opening, he had ordered scores of changes in the show's appearance -- so some of the staff hadn't slept in days. But it looks like all the tinkering was worth it: "DNF: Anya Kouro (DNF: A Dark Night's Flashing)," as the show is called, is a great effort that effectively combines about 50 new acrylic-on-canvas paintings with photographs to develop the theme of a life journey. The recurring subject here is the Y-shaped intersection typical of many of Japan's older neighborhoods; the place where a narrow street forks, presenting a choice of ways ahead, but in divergent directions. As these are all night scenes, only flickering lights in the distance hint at what might await along either path.