Kochi Art Museum

Today I went to Kochi Art Museum for the second time, it's about a 15 minute bike ride away. It's interesting because Kochi is quite a small city but the art museum is pretty good and has a lot of international exhibitions.

Today was the last day to see Monet's collection of Japanese woodblock prints. It was really fun to see this in Japan because they recreated Monet's kitchen in the museum and I've visited the original in Giverney 7 years ago when I was an exchange student in France. I felt so worldly;) It was quite a collection with Hiroshige's series Scenes on the Road to Edo and some of Hokusai's series Views of Mount Fuji. Maybe I'm getting the exact titles wrong but I was reading all the French text so close enough. I know it's really cliche at this point to be a Western artist inspired by Japanese woodblock prints but it gave me a lot of ideas for some collages I've been thinking about making. I'll put images of that up when I've done some.

^ Hiroshige

^Hokusai

^Hokusai

This is also the second time since I've been here that they're having a performance art troupe from Quebec. Le Compagnie Marie Chouinard is performing Orpheus and Eurydice on Feb. 1 . It promises to be interesting since the flyer has a half naked man in platforms and topless women with golden nipples. I'm really excited about this since I've been reading Greek mythology this past year and just finished Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet, which is based on Orpheus.

Orpheus and Eurydice

So, even though Kochi isn't like Osaka and Kyoto, I'm getting my fill of art with my shodo lessons, making all kinds of stuff in my apartment and the museum. yay!