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December 22, 2024
 

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Monty Dipietro
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 10, 2007
Looking at the garish and the free
Let's face it, there really is nothing like the face. Lovers dream of faces, poets stretch and struggle to juggle the words so that they might capture and communicate a countenance. Even businesspeople, the ultimate pragmatists, will travel across towns or oceans — when a telephone or e-mail could...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Apr 26, 2007
The satellite in the room
The NSAT-110 is a Japanese telecommunications satellite built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems and launched in October 2000 from French Guiana on an Ariene 4 rocket into a geostationary orbit some 35,000 km above Indonesia.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Apr 12, 2007
Something for everyone
Fine art collecting being widely regarded as a pursuit of the privileged, one can appreciate the trepidation of the everyman regarding the auction and gallery scene.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 22, 2007
We make great pets
Imagine if you will a female Japanese artist who dresses as a hamster and scurries round amid wood chips and scraps of torn paper, wide-eyed, nibbling on croissant-size, cookie-dough "sunflower seeds." Yes, in this city with its insatiable sweet tooth for art, it does sound like yet another serving of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 8, 2007
The Germans come to play
In most all of the world's larger cities, traditionally the grandest buildings have been religious in orientation. As places of congregation, they were necessarily characterized by large open spaces. As conduits to the spiritual, their design included surging spires, pagodas or minarets. The current...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 22, 2007
Breaking into an insider's tea-drinking club
The term "gaijin artist" can be something of an insult to those who make Japan their home. It is, after all, parochial and old-fashioned to differentiate artists strictly on the basis of what passport they carry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 8, 2007
Blood, guts and bathing
Colonialism leaves a peculiar scar. As generations pass and ethnicities merge, the distinction between indigenous and invader becomes increasingly blurred until it is impossible for either side to regard the other without finding something of themselves reflected there. Some 500 years after the arrival...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 30, 2007
Welcome to Misery Park
Shinjuku's Kabukicho is among the world's largest adult entertainment districts, with thousands of bars and sex clubs providing a cornucopia of nighttime entertainment options.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 25, 2007
A great space waiting to be filled
Wow. It's huge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 11, 2007
Rooms for art
The hotel, be it flophouse or five-star, is what distinguishes cosmopolitan man from the nomad. Yes, it may be a humdrum need for shelter and food that brings us to hotels. But when we slip into that unfamiliar room, and for one night make it our own, we can also find ourselves transported to a different...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Dec 28, 2006
Only representations of the real thing
Something recurring -- a style, a mood or a tendency that threads its way through the previous 12 months and, in doing so, traces a theme -- that's what I look for when it comes once again to appraising another year-in-art. This time round the resonating word is "representation."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Dec 14, 2006
Photographer chronicles an alternate Japanese history
It's early Friday evening in a central Tokyo bubble-era building, the spacious foyer is crowded and a man in the back can be observed, smiling warmly and chatting cordially. He has graying hair, wears a dark-blue suit and a pair of the sort of dour, heavy-framed eyeglasses popularized by the late former...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 23, 2006
Suspended in abstraction
'Maybe there are too many things in Tokyo," says Katsuhiro Saiki, "because for me, New York City is the only place where I can relax -- although I think it could be said that there are too many artists in New York City."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 9, 2006
An unexplained howl
I don't much care for those explanatory texts we call "artists' statements," because if an artist has to explain a work of art, then it simply isn't standing on its own. Artists who spell out what their art means (and, in doing so, establish parameters regarding how one should see it), only succeed in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 26, 2006
Slow-motion revelations
A group of people who do not know one another, but are united in a common purpose -- possibly waiting for a bus -- stand together in a tightly cropped long shot. One is reading a book, another is listening to music through headphones. There are the young and old; whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians;...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 12, 2006
Artist sees it upsidedown
The new exhibition at the Zenshi gallery in Kiyosumi is a breath of fresh air. Mikolaj Polinski's "One Day in Paradise" does not attempt to overwhelm the viewer with scale or new media technology, rather it operates from the simple but increasingly overlooked premise that good honest communication can...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 21, 2006
Tokyo Art Beat makes audience artists
After two years as the city's best source for museum and gallery listings, Tokyo Art Beat (TAB, www.tokyoartbeat.com) is now getting involved in the production of exhibitions. In conjunction with Mozilla, creators of the popular Firefox browser, TAB and their associate entity Gadago are organizing a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 14, 2006
Photographers lost in Hokkaido with models
It really shouldn't come as any surprise that corporations are getting involved in art exhibitions. Now that we've all but got used to bountiful product placement in movies, why shouldn't brands make their way into art shows? Where will it stop, I wonder -- will Harry Potter sip latte at Starbucks in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 7, 2006
Meat as modern art
I've pretty much stopped watching nature documentaries on TV because when an animal, say, a rabbit, is presented, and I see it born and then frolic and so on, I can't help developing feelings for it. Then -- and it usually doesn't take very long for this to happen -- a predator comes along and tears...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 24, 2006
Contemporary Japanese edition prints
Many local goodies appeal to the expat population of Japan -- kimono, sake and next-generation electronic goods to name a few. The area of fine arts, however, can be daunting, with most paintings and even photographs by established contemporary artists priced from the millions to the many millions of...
Freed anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson arrives in France
U.S.-Canadian anti-whaling environmental activist Paul Watson, who was released from prison in Greenland's capital Nuuk after five months in detention, arrives with Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy-en-France, near Paris, on Friday.
Nippon Steel alleges undue White House influence on doomed deal review
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Dec. 10.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Casual workouts, cool living, ‘complete’ food: Japan’s health trends of 2024
In 2024, efficiency trumped effort among Japan's fitness-focused aspirants.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.

Podcast

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

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

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