On the culture trail in Japan

There's an abundance of art to enjoy at exhibitions in an array of city settings, ranging from the basic to spectacular, writes AIDAN DUNNE

IT’S DAY TWO on a whistle-stop tour of cultural destinations in Japan and we’re on the high wooden balcony at the Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto. This is where, our guide Akane informs us with a wicked smile, people traditionally jump. Or did, she elaborates later, until the practice was outlawed.

A myth gained currency during the Edo period that, if you jumped from Kiyomizu into the woods below and survived, your dearest wish would be granted. More than 200 people took the chance and, as Akane explained, the odds weren’t that bad: more than four out of five jumpers lived to tell the tale.

Kiyomizu is a spectacular traditional structure on a leafy promontory in eastern Kyoto. Souvenir shops line the narrow streets approaching it, serving the non-stop stream of mainly Japanese visitors; tourists and crowds of school children.

Many of the latter head for the numerous shrines that line the pedestrian route around the temple. The Jishu Shrine, Akane said, promises to guide you towards finding your true love, and is particularly popular with teenage girls. Among the sea of nautical-style school uniforms, the occasional kimono is visible.

Back in town, the main exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, is devoted to Kitamura Takeshi. What’s surprising about Kitamura is that he is a weaver, and it’s hard to imagine an Irish weaver receiving a comparable accolade at, say, IMMA. He’s also a “living treasure”, something like being a Saoi in Aosdána, such as Seamus Heaney or Louis le Brocquy.

The current museum building, designed by Fumihiko Maki, dates from 1986 and, while not particularly beautiful from the outside, is exceptionally pleasant from the inside. It’s adjacent to the huge torii gate of the nearby Shinto Heian Shrine. The gate is a monumental vermilion structure that spans the road. It looks almost gaudy, but has a symbolic meaning: vermilion is a lucky colour in Japan.

KYOTO HAS the reputation of being relatively low rise and traditional. Travel on to Osaka, about an hour by road, and you’ll see why. It’s as if you’ve arrived in another world, with endless futuristic panoramas of vast high-rise buildings. On this scale, people seem like a minor afterthought.

The National Museum of Art, Osaka, announces itself with a spiky flourish of stainless steel, but rather than reaching for the sky, the structure heads downwards, burrowing several expansive storeys into the ground.

The main exhibition is a retrospective by the renowned photographer Daido Moriyama, born in 1938. As with the extraordinarily popular Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido is a prime example of the way apparently conservative, straight-laced Japanese society seems to readily embrace the persona of the rebel and outsider.

Partly inspired by a Western Pop aesthetic, Daido chronicled the emergent, gritty, modern urban culture, on the fringes of the underworld, in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district from the 1960s onwards. His dark, down-at-heel romanticism has made him a hero among younger artists. Similarly, Japanese viewers are notably unfazed by Araki’s unflinching focus on sex and death.

He has a room to himself at our next port of call, the Yokohama Museum of Art, as part of the Yokohama Triennale. As with Osaka, a great deal of Yokohama looks positively pristine, and monumental. Though the city didn’t endure the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was relentlessly bombed during the latter stages of the second World War, much of its fabric was destroyed and many thousands of its population perished. Hence most of it has been built from the ground up since.

Across the road from the formidable ramparts of the Imperial Palace, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, features a terrific retrospective by the Japanese-born, long European-resident painter and sculptor Leiko Ikemura. She is based in Cologne and Berlin, where she teaches. It’s fascinating to see her exquisite work, which centres on the figure and landscape, in relation to such Irish artists as Eithne Jordan, Gwen O’Dowd and Mary Lohan. One wonders why someone of her stature, apparently so well attuned to an Irish sensibility, has never been brought to Ireland, even though she has shown widely on mainland Europe.

In the affluent Roppongi district, the word is that the Mori Art Museum is the future. It’s a private rather than a publicly- funded museum and it perches on the 53rd floor of the massive 54-storey Mori Tower, named after developer Minoru Mori. Admission is free, but you pay for the essential, incredibly fast elevator ride.

Appropriately the Mori is staging Metabolism, The City of the Futureabout the wave of utopian modern architecture in post-war and present day Japan. The Mori Tower, too big and too frenetic, comes across as a poor advertisement for utopian architecture, and in truth too many of the schemes outlined in the exhibition are distinctly unappealing from the point of view of us potential inhabitants.

EMERGING bleary-eyed into the Tokyo evening, we lost our bearings and had to ask directions. Japanese people are incredibly good-mannered and the manners are more than skin deep. A casual enquiry will evoke endless efforts to help. As well as, and not unrelated to, the cleanliness of the cities, it’s one virtue that becomes quickly apparent. Another is the amazing work ethic and the dignity of labour. If you are doing a job in Japan, you take it seriously and, in return, people respect what you’re doing.

Not that group-think prevails. Earlier, in the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (gorgeously situated high in Hijiyama Park), where Yoko Ono's Eight Hiroshima Art Prizeexhibition is showing, an elegantly attired woman, resident in the city, struck up a conversation.

Was I not worried about the dangers of radiation from Fukushima in travelling to Japan? Not really, I replied (I’d checked). She nodded in agreement, but suggested that I be cautious about the sources of the food I ate. “I think that is where the risk is,” she said gravely.

On our final evening in Tokyo, guideless and tired, we looked for somewhere to eat in Shinjuku. A sign pointed down to a basement, entirely in Japanese characters save for one line of English: “Every day the same low prices.” Our sort of place, we thought, and descended the dimly lit stairwell, emerging through a sliding door into a big, bright, bustling interior.

Not a tourist in sight and no English spoken among the staff, who were amused by our presence and entirely welcoming. Luckily, one of our company, Sharon from Los Angeles, had the benefit of some Japanese ancestry. She didn’t pretend to speak the language but was able to guide us through the menu.

It was a lovely evening, relaxed, with excellent food and beer, incredibly good value, and the music of Chet Baker in the background. What more could one ask?