Facts of life - Jonathan Watkins

Focusing on works made in the last few years, this book aims to convey the complexity, depth and energy of the visual arts in Japan today, and to reflect the great variety and inventiveness of artistic practice in that country. Facts of Life includes texts by Jonathan Watkins, curator and Director of the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, and Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery. It presents the work of about 25 Japanese artists working in a range of artistic mediums - from senior, established figures such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Tatsuo Miyajima to a younger generation of emerging artists. The works identify a strong current of realism and a continuing preoccupation with the everyday, urban life and the built environment, counter-balanced by a more poetic, philosophical and meditative vision. Thoughtful, energetic and radical, the artists in Facts of Life give unprecedented insight into the breadth and diversity of art in contemporary Japan.