This year again vivid color fills the Palaceside Building first floor and first basement. From January 14 a batik exhibition and performance appeared in the atrium of the central concourse =photos above and below left. Outside it is still cold, but spring seems to have come early inside. The show runs through February 24.
Batik draws patterns on cloth with melted wax and removes the wax after dyeing. It is a traditional technique passed down from the Tempyo era to to
day; objects in the Shosoin are said to include it.
The works are by dyer Akihiko Okada, based in Kyoto and selected seven times for the Nitten. About 30 bolts of silk tsumugi (about 40 centimeters wide, several to 30 meters long) that usually become clothing are hung as-is in the wide space.
He held a solo show at the Mainichi Osaka head office in 2009 and exhibited at the Palaceside Building in March 2018. This is the second time here; the host is the Palaceside Building Meitokai (chair Hiroaki Okada, president of Sakae Co., which runs Tea Room Hana). Each year they show seasonal traditions such as koinobori and Tanabata decorations, but this year late April to early May is a 10-day holiday with many closed days, so they dropped the May 5 koinobori. Those streamers are famed pieces from a Gujo Hachiman dye shop designated a Gifu intangible cultural property; perhaps by association with dyeing, this year they replaced koinobori with last year's popular batik show.
The works have a rainbow air. The order differs from red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet, but the east side is purple, the west green, and yellow, red and orange tie them in a beautiful gradation. Last year's show was a "horizontal" hang as in photo right, so this year's vertical hang has a quite different feel.
We quote Okada from the January 16 Mainichi morning Tokyo edition =photo at the end=.
"Because it is an atrium show, you can see it from above, below and the side. You are close to the work — please enjoy it."
