Bookcase Tour Tuesday - East & West

I finally got back onto Kimono Reincarnate's Bookcase Tour Tuesday bandwagon.

This week's book is a catalogue from a fascinating exhibit that I was somewhat disappointed by. The catalogue, however, is gorgeous! (I apologize for the quality of the photos, I'm playing around with my brand-new baby, and with the low light the close-ups didn't turn out as well as I would have hoped)


The exhibit - Self and Other: Portraits from Asia and Europe, had a fascinating idea, contrasting portraits from Asia and Europe:
(Asia doesn't just mean Japan, there was artwork from China, Korea, Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka...)

their leaders



of self





of the other (before contact)




of other at start of contact





of changing self as a result of contact





and of other again




The exhibit was disappointing in that it didn't go far enough for my liking - it didn't begin to raise all the questions I was hoping it would raise. The catalogue, however, in addition to all the images, and unlike many Japanese museum catalogues, has a large number of academic articles (that I have yet to read fully, I admit) that look interesting and intriging.

Bookcase Tour Tuesday - Hokusai

One of my friends works for the Cultural Properties Department of Sumida-ku, in Tokyo. She has been indirectly involved in the ward's plans to build a Hokusai Museum. The ward was given an impressive collection of woodblock prints by the famous artist, collected and donated by an American art historian, Peter Morse (great-grandnephew of Edward Sylvester Morse, a zoologist who first taught that field in Japan and also discovered the first shell mounds thereby starting the study of archeology as well; also half of the focus of my first MA thesis)

Anyways...

When he donated the collection to Sumida-ku, Morse stipulated that it should be put on display in a purpose-built museum. While that museum doesn't exist yet (although archaeological surveys are currently being carried out on the land where it is to be built) a catalogue of the heart of its collection has been published in limited circulation. I was lucky to be given a copy of this large hardcover book for free!



The collection is lacking in Hokusai's more widely known prints but it is very impressive and extensive, and contains some beautiful prints of people and everyday situations, of landscapes, and... of ghost stories! - I'm looking forward to visiting the finished museum!

Bookcase Tour Tuesday - Ravishing Beasts

While visiting Canada last month I was able to visit two museums, including the Museum of Vancouver. I already mentioned the museum and the Ravishing Beasts special exhibit, but I wanted to share more about the exhibit and the catalogue.


When I discovered that one of the special exhibits was on taxidermy I wasn't expecting much, I tend to find it rather creepy. The exhibit, however, turned out to be a fascinating one.

It started with an overview of the history of taxidermy, including early museum-like displays.



Then there were step by step examples of how a model is constructed.



Then there was an area about dioramas and habitat exhibits with animals. These types of exhibits were once very common in museums but are increasingly being replaced in renewals so I really enjoyed this section, especially the video that demonstrated how one such exhibit was constructed.



Then were also a number of different animals on display - local animals, a "trophy" wall, and a few fantastical beasts.

(I convinced my friend that this particular animal was commonly found in the local area. She asked me about its habitat and diet and I was almost able to make up answers with a straight face, but then I started giggling and she realized she had been had... tee hee!)

There were some whimsical examples of how taxidermied animals were displayed.



and some less whimsical examples of modern art.



Being the museum nerd that I am, however, I loved the last section, with a display recreating how taxidermy animals are stored in museum storage. This section asked visitors their opinions on taxidermy collections and for suggestions about what should be done with these collections in the future.



A fascinating exhibit that connected into many of the things I've learnt about museum history and also made me think about the future of museums too.

Bookcase Tour Tuesday - Beautiful Japan

At the risk of sounding sappy, it was after an all-day visit to the Edo-Tokyo Museum (or 'Edo-haku') that I remember first saying to myself "I would LOVE to work in a museum someday... And, wow, to work in a Japanese museum!" At the time I wasn't in museum studies, nor did I actually think I would end up working in a museum - let alone a Japanese one (which by the way looks like it will continue a while - Japanese immigration willing - as the museum has offered me increased hours and a half-step up from my current position post-graduation... wheeeeee!)

Edo-haku has two large floors of exhibits on the history of Edo - from its beginnings as a castle town in the 16th century, to the modern Tokyo. It has some great hands on sections, and I really like the mix of historical objects with dioramas and other modern secondary objects to round out the picture. Unfortunately over the past few years Edo-haku has begun to show signs of carelessness - objects being changed around while the interpretive panels remain the same (and thus no longer quite fit with the objects on display), a lack of background information, and most glaringly seriously flawed English.

The "Beautiful Japan"(Utsukushii nihon - taisho showa no tabi) exhibition in the late summer/early fall of 2005 was no exception - some truly beautiful objects, a fascinating range of objects, and some appallingly bad English.

The good...


the bad...


and the just plain ugly English... (and no, I'm not referring to the name, although it would more commonly be spelt "Chichibu")


and some more good...




(sorry for the poor quality of the images this time around, its a big catalogue with a very hard spine, and didn't want to play nicely with my scanner!)

Bookcase Tour Tuesday - Doll Festival

With the Doll's Festival a few days away I figured I should choose a doll-themed catalogue for this week.




This catalogue was printed by the Shibusawa Memorial Museum for their Doll Festival Exhibit last year. It is small, only about 20 cms square, and slim, only 25 pages, but it has gorgeous photography. The dolls and their various possessions are presented in stunning colour and accompanied by exerpts from the diaries of the dolls owners.

Bookcase Tour Tuesday - Changing Faces

I'm heading to Canada today for a few weeks, so I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do bookcase posts, but wanted to sqeeze in this week's museum catalogue for Bookcase Tour Tuesday.




This week I chose a small catalogue I picked up at Osaka Castle a few years ago. Unfortunately I missed the actual exhibit, held in 2005, but the catalogue somewhat makes up for that. The title of the exhibit translates into English as "Faces of Hideoyoshi - Changing Images." Representations of the famous general, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, dating from his lifetime (late 16th century) to the 1920s. They are presented by type, with hanging scrolls,



illustrated screens,


woodblock prints,


and oil paintings.



I love the way numerous images from similar types are presented side by side for easy comparison, and that each is presented with information about the individual artwork. To a history nerd like me it is a fascinating comparison of different representations of a single historical figure.

Bookcase Tour Tuesday

Melanie over at Kimono Reincarnate came up with the idea of a virtual bookcase tour - giving the web a peak at your book collection. I immediately liked the idea but figured nobody would be interested in the boring array of English and Japanese books on museum studies, and the large and out-dated collection of Japan tour books that take up most of my bookshelves in Tokyo.

But then I remembered the bottom shelf of my bookcase, full of museum catalogues. I have a weakness for exhibit catalogues and, when they tend to be about 2000 yen, I can't help myself a lot of the time. Full of gorgeous pictures and information that I am *sure* I will use someday, it really is a shame they sit on my bottom shelf un-looked at most of the time. Sharing them one-by-one virtually seems perfect! So, here goes...




To start off I chose the catalogue to an art exhibit at the Yokosuka Museum of Art in 2007 of drawings by Taniuchi Rokuro. I'm not a big modern art fan, but I loved this exhibit, and when I pulled the catalogue off the shelf the whimsical prints reminded me of some of the items Melanie has made (and sells on her Etsy site)

I love the combination of timeless Japanese scenes like these two kids digging into their taiyaki (sweet bean buns shaped like fish),


and ones bringing kids' imagination to life, like the smoke and snow fighting as opposing armies of samurai.