Gallery Day

   Friday - the evening begins at Tokyo Station.  Exiting the station through the usual mix of office workers, foreign tourists and domestic tourists, and walking away from that mixed-signals, eclectic, confused, exciting, but fatiguing atmosphere into the Tokyo night.  Being Tokyo, naturally there are people everywhere, going in all directions, but the heaviest flow of pedestrians is towards the station - to begin their commute home.  Walk for twenty minutes and the adventure begins...

   Third floor botanical garden - green in the electric night...
   First Gallery - some interesting paintings - (slightly) overly bright colors, but some pleasant (short-term anyway) to view.  Miscommunication with the artist, but....
   Second Gallery - amazing exhibition of pictures constructed with (real) flower pedals in a vacuum....  Friendly artist describes the process - no miscommunication here....
   Third Gallery - an installation... the artist  indicates that he will be doing some mysterious sound performance later....
   Fourth Gallery - quick look at a group exhibition - looking at the time, see it's time for the mysterious performance at Third Gallery, so head back there - promising Fourth Gallery a return visit....
   Back at Third Gallery - the mysterious sound performance commences - and after a couple of minutes in the darkened room hearing mostly silence, there are indeed mysterious sounds produced (with two electronic devices).  The atmosphere in the room is transformed... it's an interesting experience.
   Back to Fourth Gallery - a party is beginning... tempted to participate, but further gallery crawling is chosen instead....
   Fifth Gallery - very friendly artist and gallery owner - talk drifts to the venue after discussing the art on display....
   Sixth Gallery - two-room exhibition - another friendly gallery person... again talk drifts to the venue....
   Stroll through the Ginza night... dodging some tourists... wondering if they have any idea how out-of-tune they are with their surroundings (air travel is too cheap and too easy).
   Back to Fourth Gallery - the party over, the gallery owner and a photographer are cleaning up.  We talk briefly, and I head for an outbound train....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
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