Art Osaka 2024 Receipts: Bigger Bargains in Kansai

Collectors from Japan and around East Asia braved the heat to scope the scene and scoop up deals in western Japan.

Art Osaka, Japan's longest-running contemporary art fair, concluded its 16th edition in 22 years today. The fair's Galleries section showed 45 booths Friday through Sunday, while the Expanded portion featured large works from 21 galleries Thursday through Monday.

Total sales results have not yet been announced, but last year when the fair had a similar size and format it reported sales of around U.S. $730,000. This amount may seem Lilliputian compared to fairs in neighbouring art capitals, but it also reflects the uniqueness of Art Osaka (as well as the preposterous dollar-to-yen exchange rate—$1 bought ¥103 in January 2021; now it buys ¥158).

More than a star-studded list of galleries and artists, Art Osaka focuses on nurturing young and mid-career artists and its roots in the Kansai region, the birthplace of pivotal postwar Japanese art movements such as Gutai.

Art Osaka might be considered a doorway to Japanese art, offering savvy collectors the chance to spot emerging artists and trends.

The fair's remarkable Expanded section, now in its third year, was held again at two venues in the hiply industrial neighbourhood of Kitakagaya. Creative Center Osaka, a former shipbuilding plant, hosted massive works from 16 galleries taking advantage of the venue's four floors of expansive rooms. Meanwhile, the 'kagoo' space, a former furniture store, hosted a mix of artists from Japan, Europe, Hong Kong, and the U.S.

Art Osaka organiser and Tezukayama Gallery director Ryoichi Matsuo told Ocula that Expanded has been building momentum, seeing the most applicants yet this year and a greater variety of works. He also noted this section gives fairgoers, including buyers for museums, corporations, and public art collections, rare opportunities to see large installations by lesser-known artists.

On the first floor, Osaka's Yoshimi Arts reconstructed Minako Nishiyama's ♡Cinderella's Dream Stage♡ (1996) for the first time in more than two decades. The bubblegum pink cardboard cutout standing almost 3.5 metres high speaks to the superficiality of gender roles. The gallery declined to disclose the price but indicated two museums had expressed interest by the second day.

Upstairs, Koki Ishibashi of Tokyo's Koki Arts, making its Expanded debut with Tomonari Nakayashiki's masking tape-textured abstract paintings, remarked that people seemed to be responding to the 'freshness' of seeing larger works by the artist, whose Entropy (2024) sold for an unstated amount.

Seoul's Gallery Chosun presented Sanghoon Ahn's The flat noodles in my suitcase (2024), a wall-sized multimedia installation of paintings reworked for the show, and SungHong Min's Drift_Atypical form (2024), a textile sculpture poignantly tying mid-century art in Korea to military parachutes. Director Joon soo Yeo said he wasn't especially bullish on sales but saw the fair as a way to give collectors a preview of artists ahead of Frieze Seoul.

On the same floor, Tokyo's Tomio Koyama Gallery showcased Refuge and others (2017–2023), a series of sculptures by the Cambodian-born artist Sopheap Pich made with materials including rattan and metal.

The top level was dedicated to Kozo Nishino's Stratosphere (2024), pictured top, which extended nearly 60 metres with seven titanium alloy wire sculptures in colours that made them seem to appear and vanish like clouds. Artcourt Gallery's representative could not give a price for the set, but stated one of the ringlike pieces alone could sell in the range of U.S. $190,000–$317,000.

Across town at the historic Osaka City Central Public Hall, the Galleries section opened to VIPs on Friday. Returning gallerists mentioned buyers tend to visit multiple times and save their purchases for the final day. Still, the mood was generally upbeat.

Kobe's Gallery Yamaki Fine Art, representing the late, great Kimiyo Mishima, reported ballpark sales of U.S. $2,500 each for Eri Morimoto's pointillist paintings.

Tokyo's Megumi Ogita Gallery had already found owners for Yoshimasa Tsuchiya's Elephant Child (2024) and Pangolin A 2/30 (2024) sculptures.

Osaka's Tezukayama Gallery was enjoying brisk movement of Tomoshi Yasuda's pixel-like oil paintings, and a Yasuda collector said he came to Art Osaka to find Asian artists he knew he wouldn't in Tokyo.

Kyoto's Mori Yu Gallery, purveyor of paintings by Aki Kuroda and Man Katano, as well as the toy sculptures of Hiroshi Fuji, who held a children's workshop that day, drew a viewership with the Tangled TV sculptures of Masayuki Kawai.

Nagoya's Kenji Taki Gallery featured works on paper by Chiharu Shiota, while Tomio Koyama Gallery's booth reported sales for painter Katherine Bradford and ceramicist Keiji Ito.

Nishimura Gallery, also from Tokyo and displaying legends including Katsura Funakoshi, Kumi Machida, and David Hockney, indicated Blue Dominance (1977) by Bridget Riley had been claimed.

Finally, under the auspices of a fresco ceiling depicting the deities Izanagi and Izanami, Tokyo's √K Contemporary sold Yuma Kishi's Maria (2024) for around U.S. $2,235.

Non-Japanese booths in the Galleries section also made inroads.

South Korea's Gallery Shilla, representing minimalists Alan Charlton and Yoon Sang-Yuel, notched sales for the text-based paintings of Park Chang Seo.

Taipei's Aki Gallery, showing five Taiwanese artists working in different media, attracted buyers with the ceramic leaves of Si-Qi Peng and the popular Swimming Pool prints of Yang-Tsung Fan.

At the booth for Tainan's Der-Horng Art Gallery, a red dot occupied the tag for Wei-ho Wang's lime-green painting Karl Barth (2024).

Osaka can seem like Japan's favourite uncle—a colourful character with eclectic style. Art Osaka, with its avuncular spirit, isn't the most lucrative art fair in Asia, but it combines a unique local perspective with growing international recognition. —[O]