Several weeks ago at the Fuji Rock music festival, I realized that I might be in the wrong game. The art world is about the object: You look at a work, often something inert, and attempt to discern from it an emotion, a meaning or a truth. But music irresistibly moves you, it mysteriously reaches through the ear to some part of the mind that ignites a passion, elicits joy and maybe even makes you want to get your boogie on. Can static artworks compete with the power of rhythm and melody in succeeding in touching the soul?
Maybe an artwork can't compete with the urgency of an individual song, but when successfully put together in an exhibition, they can replicate the experience of more expansive musical compositions.
The current solo show of Tomoko Konoike at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery does just that, playing out like a visual symphony with distinct sections, a sense of pace and development, and an overarching theme. Titled "Inter-Traveller," the exhibition brings together trademark works from Konoike's fertile imagination: her howling wolves, disembodied legs of a young girl, and the bulbous daggers that swarm through her worlds.
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