Suntatory Art Museum and Yokohama Ferris Wheel

This past weekend I had the chance to visit the Suntatory Art Museum in Roppongi's Tokyo Midtown area. There they had a special Picasso exihibit. Even though I had already been to the Picasso museum out in Paris, I was happy to see some of the same pieces in the exhibit though they were also interspaced by other pieces that I had not seen before. The exhibit was well and thoughtfully laid out. Basically through chronological order, the exhibit introduced the major works by the artist during that time period. The only unfortunate thing was that not all of the description plaques had english translations. In fact, the only two languages used during the exhibit was Japanese and French. I did the best I could to read the Japanese but not knowing a lot of the kanji definitely made it very challenging so I was content in just viewing the pieces.


One of the pieces that truly fascinated me was an oil painting of what is called "Massacre of Korea." Though its not stated it's supposed to represent the point right before a village slaughter. Instead of it being all blood shed and gore, it pictured a group of naked Koreans on the left with their invaders on the right. What was really moving was that the Koreans on the left of the pictured comprised of two couples and their children. The children spanned the ages from toddler to teen. Even though the parents on the left clearly displayed feelings of despair, loss, and anguish it was moving to see the expression in the children. The toddler who is seen playing at his parents feet is too young and unaware to know the awful thing that's about to happen. The girl who looks like she just hit puberty is aware that something is very wrong though she doesn't know what it is. The girl who is in her older teens who understands what is about to happen hides her nakedness due to fear. And the most interesting part is the way the invaders are represented: they are painted as knights with armor. Their faces are covered so you don't see who the identities of the invaders are. This is a really interesting concept because as it is told in history Japan was involved in many brutal invasions of Korea starting in and around the Muromachi/Tokugawa period up until and after the Meiji Restoration period which was very recent: in the early 1900s. Needless to say there are still some very sensitive people in Korea, the older generation mostly, who harbor resentment at the Japanese for what happened in the past. At first, the viewer is thought to believe that perhaps Picasso is representing the Japanese, but in fact the invaders are American and not Japanese. This is given away by the armor. The armor almost British in style is painted to represent the West. The Koreans claim that US forces bombed and killed over 300 koreans during the Korean War. This painting represents this claim. Knights that symbolize protection under the guise of protecting a country only to terrorize and kill its citizens. An interesting insight.

Massacre of Korea by Picasso

(image taken from: http://dearkitty.blogsome.com/2007/11/30/picassos-painting-massacre-in-korea/)


One of my friends and I managed to go through the exhibit quicker than the rest of our group. My reason was I had seen most of the materials; my friend's reason: he had a very short attention span.

After visiting the exibit, a friend and I decided to go to Yokohama Port. I had a date with the ferris wheel and I was determined to ride it. The Yokohama ferris wheel is a rather large ferris wheel with spectacular views. I was told that the best time to ride the ferris wheel was a sunset or at night when all of the lights in the city were lit.

The wait time for the ferris wheel wasn't that bad. We breezed through the line in about a half an hour. The ferris wheel has closed cars and even small fleeces since the cars had no heat. Since the ferris wheel was very high, it became very windy once we neared the top. This made my friend very nervous. I tried my hardest not to rock the car while I took pictures of the breath taking scenery. Yokohama Port was just as beautiful at night as it was during the day when I first visited it. Because it is close to Christmas there were a lot of christmas light decorations that adorned the board walk and the lights from the amusement park and the nearby buildings made it even prettier.