昔々: Once Upon a Time at the Fukuoka Art Museum

This weekend, I decided to try my luck and head to the final display of the three-part “Winter Museum of LOVE” joint exhibition. The first display was great, but I found the second display abysmal. Would this last display prove the joint exhibition to be an overall success?

This final love themed exhibition titled いにしえの恋バナ (Inishie no Koibana, “Love Story in Ancient Times”) is currently on display at The Fukuoka Art Museum. Of the three exhibits in the overall Winter of LOVE joint exhibition, this one is the smallest: it encompasses just one room of artifacts. There are individual poems, scrolls with illustrated short stories, kimono, and byoubu (屏風, painted folding screens with multiple panels) included in the display. Though it only takes up one room, the content of the exhibit is varied and quite interesting yet sticks to the overall theme, and thanks to the intricacy of the paintings, drawings, and embroidery of the pieces you may find it easy to spend far more time here than you would have expected.

If you do not know any Japanese, you might be disappointed to find that the love poems and stories included in this exhibit do not include any translations: only the work titles, the names of their authors/artists (if known), and creation dates/eras are included in English. Some of the byoubu information placards contain a little extra background information about what their illustrations represent, but that’s about it.

Thankfully, the visual beauty of the illustrations requires no understanding of Japanese to appreciate; though a basic knowledge of Japanese art styles, history/court hierarchy, and/or important literary works—in this case especially the Tale of Genji— would of course be beneficial in understanding certain scenes depicted in some of the paintings. Whatever your linguistic or cultural knowledge, be sure to give each piece more than just a passing glance, or you easily will miss the finer details of the work: the fluid nature of the long hair of the women in the tiny ink illustrations accompanying a soliloquy, the Juzu (prayer beads) hidden beneath the sleeve of a nobleman on one byoubu, or on another screen cranes silhouetted in gold and brown near a full moon that are so delicately painted that they might be mistaken for autumn leaves or a stylized transition between clouds and sky if given only a cursory glance.

If you can read Japanese, you will be pleased to find that standardized transcriptions of the stylized calligraphy in the poems and stories have been included for legibility, and more obscure Kanji include furigana to make them easier to decipher. (This is important because not only has the writing and pronunciation of Kanji characters changed over time, but— just like signatures in English— hand-written calligraphy can be difficult to read or completely illegible even to native speakers).

The last items in the display are two hand-embroidered kimono. I found it oddly adorable that since they represent the married life that comes at the end of a successful (and hopefully joyful) courtship, they were labeled in Japanese as the exhibition’s “Happy Ending.”

So, was the Winter Museum of LOVE an overall success? I say yes. The first part of the exhibition was varied, intriguing, and overall extremely enjoyable— even though a lot of the included pieces and subject matter were a bit of a stretch for the “love” theme. The second part was a disappointing mishmash whose inclusion decidedly detracted from the quality of the joint exhibition as a whole. However, this third display fit the theme of love and was interesting and (if you’ll forgive the unintentional pun) lovely. So, I give the overall display a pass.

The Madonna of Port Lligat by Salvador Dali

That having been said, let’s get back to The Fukuoka Art Museum. Your entry fee for Love Story in Ancient Times not only gains you access to that exhibition, but also to two other one-room temporary exhibits currently on display in the Ancient Art section of the first floor, AND the upstairs gallery!

The two adjacent temporary exhibits you can view are 涅槃図公開 (Nehanzu Koukai “The Nirvana Figure Exhibit”)— a collection of carved guardian statues from a tomb surrounding a central buddha and an image of Buddha’s followers mourning his achievement of nirvana— and 伝•源実朝筆／日課観音図をめぐって (“An Examination of Minamoto no Sanatomo’s Daily Paintings of Kannon“). My favorite part of these two exhibitions were the guardian statues for each direction of the Chinese Zodiac in the Nirvana exhibition. Before you read their captions, look at their helmets and see if you can guess which direction/animal they represent.

The upstairs gallery includes works from around the world spanning the last 200 years or so. From modern Japanese artists to impressionist and cubist painters to Warhol and Dali, there is a lot to see among various movements, styles, artists from a diverse array of countries and backgrounds. Don’t forget to visit the free galleries on this floor as well!! In total, with your ticket should give you access to seven rooms of exhibitions across two floors (the three temporary exhibits on the first floor, three galleries on the upper floor, and the large main gallery on the second floor). If you time it right and are interested in calligraphy, there is also a city-wide shodou exhibition going on in the three rooms of the public galleries right now as well that you can stop by on the second floor. You should definitely take some time out of your day to head over to the Fukuoka Art Museum before you miss out, there is a lot to see!

“Love Stories from Ancient Times” (as well as the two adjacent temporary exhibits) will be on display through Sunday, April 12^th. Photography is not permitted.

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Love Story in Ancient Times 「いにしえの恋バナ」

Exhibition End Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015

Admission Price: ¥200 for Adults, ¥150 for Students, free for children

Location: The Fukuoka Art Museum

• 1-6 Ohori-Koen Park, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka-shi 810-0051

Hours: 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM (last admissions at 5 PM)

• Closed Mondays

Shapes of Love: No Love and Few Shapes — an Exhibit Worth Skipping

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I took a trek to the Fukuoka City Museum to check out the second installment of the three-gallery co-operative display on Love. This part is called 「愛のキセキ」(The Miracle of Love) /「しあわせのカタチ」 (The Shape of Happiness). Unfortunately, I can absolutely recommend skipping this exhibit, especially if you are not fluent in written Japanese.

Ostensibly, this display is about love letters, gifts, and other physical representations of love and devotion present in daily life. In reality, it feels like someone realized the group gallery display time was coming up, grabbed a box of random artifacts, and decided to claim it fit the theme.

English speaking visitors will be disappointed to find that exactly none of the exhibit information has been translated aside from the titles of the items, and even those are full of errors and/or misspellings. Sadly, even if you are fluent in Japanese, the exhibit just isn’t very engaging.

This is a difficult exhibit to critique simply due to the lack of content: there isn’t much here, and what there is just isn’t very interesting. The supposed ties to the “Love” theme are tenuous at best. Various bills, reports, architectural schematics, and letters that briefly mention the people of Hakata in a positive light have been labeled as “expressions of love” simply as an excuse tie them into the supposed theme of the exhibit. A better approach would have been not including this display in the Winter of Love joint-exhibit and instead labeling the display as “Daily Life in Early Hakata” or something along those lines. A few of the items that would fit the theme (such as trousseau goods and photographs of mothers and families) are often strangely glossed over or are displayed in such a manner that the details of these artifacts are difficult to see or appreciate.

Photography enthusiasts might be interested in the small assortment of equipment included in part of this display, including a collection of 8mm Cameras and Micro-photography equipment. However, these are only a tiny part of the display and thus might not hold much interest except for the most enthusiastic of camera buffs.

All this having been said, I sadly cannot recommend this exhibit. The price is hardly excessive and the articles are of historic importance, but the write up on the display was so far removed from what it actually contains that I think if you have to travel at all to see it you may feel like your time would have been better spent elsewhere. If however, this exhibit does interest you, it will be on display at the Fukuoka City Museum through the 15th of February. Your ticket will also gain you entry to the main exhibit, which is also on the second floor and details the history of Fukuoka city. Photography is not permitted.

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The Miracle of Love / The Shape of Happiness 「愛のキセキ」「しあわせのカタチ」

Exhibit End Date: February 15th, 2015

Admission Price: ¥200 for Adults, ¥150 for Students, free for children

Location: The Fukuoka City Museum, 2nd Floor

• 3-1-1, Momochihama, Sawara-ku, Fukuoka

Museum Hours: 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM (last admissions at 5:00 PM)

• Closed Mondays

Whispers of the Goddess: Sweet Nothings of Devas 「女神のささやき」

In early January, I went to the first part of a three-part joint exhibit on topics of love, lust, and sensuality that is being put on by three of the museums in Fukuoka city. This first exhibit, Sweet Nothings of Devas 「女神のささやき」(“Megami no sasayaki”, literally “The Goddess(‘s) Whispers”) is currently on display at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and features depictions of goddess figures and women in traditional and pop art from old film posters to garish statues and detailed paintings featuring everyone from Mary Magdalene and Kali to Pakistani Actresses and Chinese Calendar Girls.

My favorite parts of the Goddess exhibit are the intricate paintings of Mahalakshmi (Lakshmi, the Hindu Goddess of love and good fortune) by Nepalese painter Udaya Charan Shrestha. One of his particularly striking paintings took eight years to create, and was well worth the effort. The movement and lighting in his work is fascinating, as it the detail of Lakshmi’s jewelry.

As you make your way through the gallery, take a moment to read through the additional laminated information sheets that are near most of the doorways in the exhibit. These give additional background information about the artists, bits of cultural and historical information and events that are relevant to the work, as well as dissections of the imagery and cultural significance of certain figures and symbolism in certain pieces.

Though the VAST majority of the exhibit is in both Japanese and English, some of the information placards and artist information paragraphs are not translated. These are (for the most part) not difficult to read if you are above an N4 or perhaps even N5 level of Japanese—and thankfully there are only a handful of pieces (less than ten) which are lacking translation or only have the title and artist names translated—but a complete beginner or someone with no knowledge of Japanese might find this a little frustrating from time to time.

In addition to featured Goddess exhibit, there are some parts of the general exhibit that you will also gain access to with your LOVE ticket. My personal favorite part of the entire show was a series of kitschy parody posters by the Luo Brothers. These digital composite pieces lampoon the clash of traditional Confucian values with the vapid materialism and the obsession with symbols of western affluence and their creeping presence in modern China life by combining traditional imagery and Mao-era propaganda posters and pairing them with vintage western advertisements. Instead of celebrating the birth of a healthy baby boy, these posters herald the purchase of a brand new phone; and instead of wishing for a prosperous year and bountiful harvest they celebrate the creation a fresh batch of cheeseburgers or the production of a new packet of oreos. It’s truly an amazing collection of work that takes up almost an entire wall.

Another stand-out piece that’s surprisingly intriguing in person but is difficult to describe through text is what will most likely be the very last painting you see before you exit the exhibit: a “simple” painting of water droplets and their shadows. The remarkable three-dimensional effect of this piece is so intense that there is actually a small shin-high barrier that has been set up to gently remind viewers not to try to touch the painting. Yes, it is in fact a flat painting, but to see it in person it looks as though drops of glass or resin must have been fused to the canvas to create the effect, even when you know that is in no way the case. The effect is achieved using only paint in an astoundingly lifelike recreation of the light and shading of water. When you see it in person, you’ll know what I mean!

Sweet Nothings of Devas 「女神のささやき」is just the first of a three part cooperative exhibit collectively called the Winter Museum of LOVE. This part of the cooperative LOVE exhibit will be shown on the eighth floor of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum through February 24^th. I highly recommend this exhibit—especially if you can go with a friend— and am looking forward to seeing the other parts. I don’t feel that this exhibit really fit the “love” theme, but it was certainly an interesting and enjoyable assortment of artwork. Make sure you see the entire exhibit before you exit, as you will not be allowed re-entry once you leave, even if it’s just to investigate the cafe or gift shop. Postcards and plastic folders featuring of some of the exhibited works are available in the Museum Gift Shop. Photography IS allowed, but flash photography is prohibited.

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Sweet Nothings of Devas 「女神のささやき」

Exhibit End Date: February 24^th, 2015

Admission Price: ¥200 for Adults, ¥150 for Students, free for children

Location: The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum – Asia Gallery B (8^th Floor*) 

• Riverain Center Building 3-1 Shimokawabata-machi, Hakata-ku

Museum Hours: 10 AM to 8 PM (last admissions at 7:30 PM)

• Closed Wednesdays and Thursday, February 12th

*NOTE!! The building can be confusing to navigate due to the slanted roof and partially-split first floor. If you enter on the wrong side of the building, you may have to actually go back outside, go around the building, and then enter on another side in order to be able to access the elevator that reaches the 8^th floor.

Cruising the Canals of Yanagawa

Yanagawa is a city in northern Fukuoka prefecture that has a network of canals which wind their way alongside the streets. These canals are still used for cargo transport and passenger tours that are similar to the Gondola rides of Venice.

In early January, my boyfriend and I took a day trip to Yanagawa to go on the Kotatsu Bune Tour (“Kotatsu-boat”). A kotatsu is a type of low table with a flat heater on its underside and a quilt around its edges that you can sit under to help keep your legs and torso warm during the winter months. Through the end of February, there will be kotatsu on the tour boats of Yanagawa to help keep passengers cozy during their ride.

Kotatsu and hot jizake (local sake).

The tour is conducted entirely in Japanese, but you may find that the ticket agents can give you some basic information about the ride route in English. Maps and transportation information are also available in either Japanese or English at the ticketing counter. There is a free shuttle that will take you back to the boat launch from the end of the route, but this shuttle does not run after about 4:30 PM. To avoid this issue you can either plan to take a tour earlier in the day, or be prepared to walk about forty minutes back the route you travelled, take a taxi back to the station for about ¥1,200, or return by bus. A bus ride will be a little over ¥200 a ticket, and the tour ticket agent can provide you with the route number and instructions on how to get to the bus stop nearest the tour’s end.

I speak enough Japanese that I was able to understand just about everything on the tour (I think the only thing I didn’t understand was a poem that our guide recited), but the guide spoke very rapidly and used a large enough vocabulary that I think beginners most likely won’t get much out of the spoken part of the tour. I would recommend that you be prepared to just enjoy the ride if you are below about an N4 level of Japanese comprehension. I tried to translate for my boyfriend, but the guide spoke almost without any pauses, so it was extremely difficult to translate much at all! You might encounter the same issue if you are a beginner who is hoping to get some language assistance from a friend. However, even if you speak no Japanese at all, I think you will have a good time!

The guide will sing songs, talk about local history and festivals, point out local landmarks and plant life, and also give you some important information— such as when to duck! Some of the bridges you will pass under are quite low. The lower and narrower the bridge, the older it is.

Early on in the tour, the boat will pass by a camera and you will be given a number for your tour group after the photo has been snapped. Towards the end of the ride there will be an opportunity to buy the souvenir photo from your tour for ¥1,300 (including shipping). Fill in your address and information on the form that’s passed around, and they will send the picture to you at a later date. Make sure to write down the correct group number!! We didn’t opt for the photo, so I don’t personally know how they turn out or how long they take to arrive, but I think this would be a great idea if you go with a bigger group of friends.

About halfway along the route, the boat will stop at a riverside shop where you can purchase hot drinks for a few hundred yen without even having to leave the warmth of the kotatsu. The selection includes coffee, cocoa, and two varieties of warmed sake.

After the tour ends, be sure to look around some of the shops before you head back to the station. One of the especially charming souvenir stands is run by a woman who lets homeless cats sleep in her shop to help them keep warm. They are quite tame as a consequence, and there are plenty of them to pet. You can also pick up some omiyage while you are visiting her furry companions. She sells a variety of simple snacks in various amounts that are quite inexpensive. I bought some cookies that were branded with an image of a boat ride to take back to my office, and they were a big hit.

Before you leave Yanagawa, don’t forget to try some of the local specialty: unagi (eel). I LOVE unagi, but unfortunately I didn’t try any of Yanagawa’s unagi dishes before I left because we had decided to go in for some tempura earlier in the day. The office staff I work with was very surprised I took such a long trip and didn’t eat the local specialty. We’ll have to go again some time and try it out! However, we did make a stop at a café before heading home: Rabista, an art latte cafe decorated with rabbit motifs that is very close to the station. (Rabbit + barista = Rabista). They have a variety of drinks and desserts including things like pancakes and ice cream, and they specialize in cute latte art. My boyfriend was given a rabbit while I was treated to a content cat complete with a bell on its collar.

The Kotatsu-bune tour runs until February 28^th this year, but tours sans kotatsu run the rest of the year. I intend to return in spring or summer to see how things look once the trees and flowers are in bloom. If you’re interested in a fun day trip I highly recommend heading to Yanagawa and making the tour one of your stops, especially if you have a group of friends you can go with or have been looking for a creative Valentine’s Day date.

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Kotatsu Bune Tours operate daily and run every half hour from 9 AM to 5 PM through Saturday, February 28^th. Tickets are ¥1,600 for adults and ¥800 for children ages 5-12.

Yanagawa is about a 45 minute ride from Fukuoka. To get there, you will need to take the Omuta line from Nishitetsu-Fukuoka Tenjin station to Nishitetsu-Yanagawa station. It will be about ¥1700 round trip, but when you get off you are only about three minute walk from the boat launch.

For more information about the tour you can visit the Yanagawa Kawakudari website. Happy sailing!