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December 30, 2024
 

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Jennifer Purvis
CULTURE / Art
Jan 13, 2001
New gallery seen as artist launchpad
Bleak economic times at the cusp of the millennium saw the closure of Tokyo's Sagacho Exhibit Space after 17 years due to lack of funding. But there is still hope for young exhibitors. Coinciding with Sagacho's demise was the opening of the showrooms and gallery for design agency H.A. Deux.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 24, 2000
MoT's 'Gift' gets every visitor involved
Eleven Japanese and foreign artists are featured in "The Gift of Hope," the third exhibition in the "MoT Annual" series, which previously only showcased emerging Japanese artists. It was decided to expand the format this year because of the transition from the 20th to the 21st century. The artists were...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 16, 2000
Op-ting out of the conventional frame
"Yellow-Green Spiral" by Jun Fujita, 2000, acrylic on board Op Art, pioneered by Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely in the '60s, creates the impression of swirling movement and tricks the eye into perceiving three dimensions. Optical discrepancy is achieved by placing the geometric shapes precisely onthe...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 3, 2000
The cutting edge of sound and vision
For some, myself included, the U.K. Sound Design exhibition, held Nov. 23-27 at the Ground in Harajuku, was a stroll down memory lane. Organized by the British Council in Japan, the show assembled record sleeves from seminal British designers of the last 30 years. Seeing many old records that had made...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 26, 2000
Evoking a sense of time and place in many-layered canvases
Graeme Todd makes landscapes, hidden and subverted under multiple layers of varnish. The paintings resemble a magical transparent pool, offering up subtle images that float toward the eye, carried forward by the separate varnished surfaces.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 19, 2000
Wake-up calls to the subconscious
Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) is the great painter of the enigma in our era and his work is now on exhibit at Tokyo's Bunkamura in one of the most comprehensive shows seen yet in Japan.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 11, 2000
Capturing private moments of a gritty London
"Point and Shoot" -- an exhibition of gritty black-and-white photographs of nothing in particular, the work of the inimitable Henry Bond and his shots of the streets, people and places of London -- his home -- is now on show at the Taro Nasu Gallery.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 5, 2000
Making no bones about corporeality
Jeanne Dunning has made an object called the "blob" -- an amorphous, skin-colored sack filled with a viscous substance that: crushes, oozes out, takes a bath with or sleeps with the subject. She uses it in a wide body of work to investigate the nature of corporeality.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 29, 2000
Local boy makes good on his own
It is practically impossible to beat the odds and attain major recognition and success in Japan as an individual artist. When an artist does achieve success it is usually the result of a miracle -- or nepotism. It is not uncommon for gallerists who want to promote a particular artist to arrange a show...
CULTURE / Art
Oct 22, 2000
Young talent surfaces at Tokyo Designers Week
If you happened to be in the Aoyama, Shibuya or Daikanyama districts of Tokyo over the last week you may have noticed a brightly patterned bus zooming around. It was transporting whoever was interested in going to the many spots in this area that were exhibiting the work of Japanese and international...
CULTURE / Art
Oct 15, 2000
Dry, irreverent, Dutch design booms
The Dutch have been irreverent for years, but now the world is catching on to their specific kind of creative daring -- Rem Koolhaas has a stranglehold on architecture, Droog design leads in product design and nothing could be cooler than Victor and Rolf in fashion or the man who nurtured the scene,...
CULTURE / Art
Oct 8, 2000
Curator takes the J-way to Stockholm
"The J-Way" sounds like another example of Japanese-English, but if you thought so, like me, you would be mistaken. It is, in fact, the title of a high-octane exhibition of over 40 Japanese artists that was held Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at the Lydmar Hotel in Stockholm.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2000
Stringing a line through fashion and art
The 21st century in Tokyo is seeing a great migration of disciplines from one sphere into another. Fashion designers are collaborating with artists and exhibiting in galleries. Artists are collaborating with designers and exhibiting in shops.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 24, 2000
Impressions made in paper take form
When the semioticist Roland Barthes came to Japan, he decided to do what many foreigners do, which is to base his impressions of Japan on exactly that, his impressions. His book "The Empire of Signs" is ostensibly about Japan, but the author acknowledged (with no shame) that it actually was a collection...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 17, 2000
Sometimes a shower stall is just. . .
With his bathroom in a suitcase, MK Kahne has turned the most utilitarian dreams of wandering wayfarers into reality. Not just any old utility, this is a sexy, transportable washroom which could have been designed for Maxwell Smart, complete with dismountable plumbing that packs neatly away in the leather...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 10, 2000
A philosopher behind the video camera
Hitherto, people confronted by "video art" would mentally steel themselves to be bored by an alienating experience that excluded rather than included. This is the reason why an artist such as Pipilotta Rist, originally a rock-video director, has gained such enormous popularity for being the easy and...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 3, 2000
The making of alternative history
The xich lo (cyclo) is as ubiquitous in Vietnam as the tuk tuk is in Thailand, but completely man-powered: The driver peddles the vehicle behind the comfortably seated passenger. It is currently an important mode of transportation on Vietnam's streets, as well as a livelihood for countless drivers, and...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 27, 2000
Dogs at Saatchi and Saatchi Gallery
The philosophy that primes Jun Fukukawa's work, a combination of painting and sculpture, is a blast from the recent past. Fukukawa is inspired by the writings of Carlos Castaneda, particularly the book "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" whose hallucinatory Indian mystical experiences...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 20, 2000
Lessons in transforming space
Mukojima, two stops out from Asakusa, would appear on one's first visit to be the boondocks. Nonetheless, this suburban Tokyo backwater has been the location this year of two site-specific architecture and art projects.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 13, 2000
Getting interconnected at Kim's
Interconnectivity is a technology buzzword, but Kim Gordon -- rock star of Sonic Youth fame, originator of the X Girl label, and now artist and curator of "Kim's Bedroom," currently at Parco Gallery -- has presented it as the locus of her first curatorial foray. Gordon has assembled an eclectic group...
Ukraine risks losing all Russian land it seized within months, U.S. says
Ukrainian soldiers carry the coffins of three comrades killed in recent fighting in eastern Ukraine during their funeral in the western city of Lviv on Dec. 20.
South Korea's worst plane crash in decades leaves 179 dead
Rescue personnel are seen near the tail section of a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 series aircraft after the plane crashed and burst into flames at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea, on Sunday.
Rejecting the Nippon Steel bid is a slap in the face to Japan
U.S. Steel workers who support the takeover by Nippon Steel rally outside the company's headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in September.
Japanese lawmaker dies in Maldives
Japanese lawmaker Toshiyuki Adachi
Sony's Crunchyroll finds its early lead in anime under attack
A poster depicting the characters of "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" in Tokyo's Shibuya Station in 2023.
How Hokkaido quietly became a culinary treasure trove in 2024
The central Hokkaido city of Asahikawa made headlines this year when one of its suburbs was named as the best place to live in Japan — a ranking earned in part due to the community's many outstanding restaurants and cafes.
Bling-Bang, baby: The J-pop soundtrack of 2024
Hip-hop duo Creepy Nuts' uptempo “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” quickly became a TikTok favorite after its release days into 2024, which helped turn the song into a Billboard Japan Hot 100 topper for 19 weeks before rising up viral streaming charts around the world.
Flu cases surge above ‘warning’ levels in much of Japan
Authorities are calling for utmost vigilance as Japan heads into the New Year holiday season, when many people plan getaways.
Dodgers voice Stephen Nelson paves way for Japanese Americans in media
Dodgers announcers Stephen Nelson and Jessica Mendoza pose with Ichiro Suzuki before a game against the Mariners in Seattle in 2023.
Start the new year not with one temple visit, but seven
At each shrine and temple, priests create festive, decorative go-shuin stamps, and you can collect the marks of all seven of the lucky gods on one piece of paper (called a shikishi) to serve as a good-luck talisman.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Visitors to Kyoto walk along a street near Kiyomizu Temple in April. A popular tourist spot, Kyoto has seen what locals feel to be an overwhelming amount of tourists in 2024.
Is Japan ready for 60 million tourists?
By Kathryn Wortley

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