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November 22, 2024
 

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Monty Dipietro
CULTURE / Art
Mar 18, 2001
This way to youthful adventure
For a few wine-toasted moments, it almost felt like a New York City art night. Sure, Tokyo is half a world away, but there were three new shows up in a big old warehouse, critics and collectors floating about, photographers snapping the smiles on the faces of the beautiful people and, most of all, the...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 11, 2001
Bottling everyday beauty on film
With an oeuvre more than a quarter-century in the making, Mamoru Sugiyama is due for a retrospective exhibition. So that is exactly what Tokyo's respected Photo Gallery International has given the 49-year-old photographer, in a show featuring some 30 of Sugiyama's representative black-and-white still-life...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 4, 2001
Into the dark maw of Kabukicho
There are a few Tokyo districts sufficiently unique and well-known to stand independent in their respective identities, glamorous Ginza, chic Shibuya and rockin' Roppongi being among the most obvious examples.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 25, 2001
The best of young modern art
Once a year, Tokyoites have the opportunity to see some of the best contemporary painting and photography from across Japan in one location, the Ueno Royal Museum.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 17, 2001
Going behind the scenes to explore the in-between
The meandering video and haunted music of perennial outsider Ken Ikeda, 35, make up the latest exhibition at SCAI The Bathhouse, that enduring home for Japanese avant-garde culture located out on the edge of the Yanaka cemetery in Tokyo's Taito Ward. "Behind the Scenes" seems a rather uncomplicated multimedia...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 10, 2001
Happiness is a warm bar, with artwork
It appears that Tokyo curators have assumed a new duty as of late: that of thinking up catchy, metered titles for their exhibitions. First we had "Point of Purchase" at Parco, then "The Gift of Hope" at MoT, and now "The Place of Happiness" at the Watari-Um Museum of Contemporary Art in Aoyama.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 4, 2001
The elephants walk
Peter Pommerer likes to think big. Like, elephant big. His drawings, paintings and installations almost always revolve around depictions of the herbivorous mammal. Actually, there is a rumor floating around the art world that the Stuttgart artist actually believes he is an elephant.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 27, 2001
Wear black, be seen -- and be photographed
She is there week after week, down on the Ginza strip, up in Aoyama and over in Shinjuku, maneuvering from gallery to gallery on the Tokyo contemporary art exhibition opening party circuit. She is Kazumi Sugita, a retiring middle-aged woman (she does not give out her age, thank you very much), and chances...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 20, 2001
Patience finds something from nothing
Tokyo galleries are back in swing after the New Year's holiday, and the surprise toast of the town is an emerging artist, Anne Daems. A look at the 34-year-old Belgian's biography reveals that Daems has had only four solo shows in her short career, and that is exactly the number of local exhibitions...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 30, 2000
'Discovering' Heinrich Vogeler
With most Tokyo galleries closed during the New Year's break, it can be difficult to find an interesting contemporary art show in the city.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 23, 2000
Freshly packaged desires on sale at Parco's "Point of Purchase"
Visually speaking, "Point of Purchase" has to be the busiest art exhibition in Tokyo at the moment. The pageantry of graffiti tags-cum-advertising signs is a lot of things: a throwback to yesterday's dorky company logos; a reminder that advertising is far more insidious these days; and a warning that...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 17, 2000
Quiet scenes from an ordinary life
"London NW11, July 1993" (from ("Ruthbook") color photograph by Nigel Shafran If national stereotyping has not fallen completely out of fashion, it would probably be accurate to say that Nigel Shafran is the quintessential British artist. It is necessary, however, to qualify this so as to differentiate...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 9, 2000
Bringing Russia and Japan together
Permit me a brief personal anecdote if you will: Some 20 years ago, a cold December night in Toronto found me inspired to chip, using my house keys, a few raisin-sized shards of concrete from the base of that city's newly-constructed CN Tower. Friends I mailed the little gray jewels to would later remark...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 25, 2000
Farewell to art world's jewel
Some five weeks from today, a few artists and friends will gather in the Sagacho Exhibit Space.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 18, 2000
Hara celebrates new facelift with show of Zhou Teihai
Two developments this autumn serve to illustrate both what is good and what is bad about the current condition of the Japanese contemporary art scene.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 11, 2000
Love, oil and Bangkok traffic jams
If you've ever been caught in a Bangkok traffic jam, it's a fair bet that "beautiful" would not be a word you'd use to describe the scene. But asurvey of Takanobu Kobayashi's new paintings gives the impression that the 40-year-old painter loves the buses and big trucks and little tuk tuks that choke...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 4, 2000
The good, the bad and the confusing
"No. 7 Needles" (1975) oil on canvas Like many of his paintings, Luc Tuymans is a man easily misunderstood. At first glance, the tall and hulking Belgian seems more like the president of a stodgy old European corporation than the internationally acclaimed avant-garde artist that he is. Tuymans, 42,...
CULTURE / Art
Oct 28, 2000
Identity found among shifting personas
A tour-group traveler posing in front of the Empire State Building; a junkie punk jonesing on a dirty park bench; a mail-order bride photographed standing beside her snaggletoothed, shotgun-toting redneck husband -- Nikki S. Lee is all of these people, and then some.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 21, 2000
In the cavern of the Industrial Age
The first thing you notice is the strong odor, which is somewhere just on the forgiving side of rank. Imagine the refrigeration breaking down for a couple of August days in a provincial French cheese shop, and the aromatic quickly turning miasmatic, andyou'll begin to get an idea of just how the Rontgen...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 16, 2000
Pointing a laser at a detached future
Marcel Duchamp, the supreme artist's artist, was often asked about his role in the making of art. The line of inquiry was inspired largely by the enigmatic Frenchman's series of "ready-mades," store-bought objects such as shovels or coat racks he exhibited under his name.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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