Photo/Illutration On display at the Tokyo Station Gallery are “Whole-Body Listening (detail)” (right, 2002, housed by Tsuruga Resort Co.) and other wood carvings of animals, as well as Ainu ancestors. (Takumi Ono)

The beauty and detail of Takeki Fujito’s wooden carvings of wild animals and Ainu ancestors so impressed a veteran museum curator that he started planning a special exhibition after the artist’s death in 2018.

The exhibition, “Ainu Woodcarver Fujito Takeki: Envoy of the Forest,” brings together more than 80 pieces of Fujito’s representative works at the Tokyo Station Gallery.

Fujito was born in 1934 in Bihoro, Hokkaido, to parents who were Ainu, the indigenous people of the island who had their own language and distinctive culture before they were forced to assimilate.

Fujito began working as a craftsman in 1950 at a souvenir shop beside Lake Akanko.

“Whole-Body Listening” (2002) is a life-size sculpture of a standing bear characterized by realistic fur and a face looking as if it were sharpening its senses to pick up any sound.

“River’s Bounty” (2000), a highly structured composition, depicts bears catching salmon from a river while wooden shrimp and crab carvings feature faithfully re-created joints.

Portraits of Ainu ancestors in traditional attire with their eyes filled with dignity look like they could spring to life.

Akira Tomita, director of the Tokyo Station Gallery, said he was shocked when he saw Fujito’s works at a retrospective held in Sapporo in 2017.

“I have been working in this industry for nearly 40 years, but I had never known an artist of such talent,” he said.

Tomita said about the current exhibition, “It is my responsibility as a curator who saw Fujito’s pieces to introduce his works in Tokyo.”

The exhibition runs until Sept. 26. The venue is closed on Sept. 6 and 13.

Tickets must be bought in advance, in principle.
For more information, visit the official website at (http://www.ejrcf.or.jp/gallery/english/).

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