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Monty Dipietro
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 19, 2001
Going public
In a dirty little public square just a cigarette-butt toss from Yurakucho Station in Tokyo, workmen are putting the finishing touches to their restoration of a long-neglected feature of the Ginza landscape.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 8, 2001
Aida dishes up tough stuff to chew on
After spending the better part of the last year living and working in New York City, Niigata-born Makoto Aida is back in Japan with a show at Nadiff, a compact and cool art gallery/bookstore/cafe tucked down a side street just off Tokyo's fashionable Omotesando boulevard.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 1, 2001
Mario A's walking, talking, breathing, living doll
A new photography book titled "ma poupee japonaise" arrived in the post the other day, sent by German-Italian artist Mario A. After skimming through pictures of an apparently life-sized wooden doll posed mostly unclothed in a variety of private and public places, I uploaded a brief note about the publication...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001
Gimmickry belies a true phenomenon
A survey of 20th-century art would identify few individuals with as remarkable a story as Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), the Mexican painter whose life was one of those stranger-than-fiction phenomena. Already crippled by polio, the teenage Kahlo was impaled on a steel handrail in a trolley accident that shattered...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 18, 2001
A breakfast to blow your mind
I recall reviewing a group exhibition at an embassy gallery last year and referring to it as a "hodgepodge" of styles and media. So incensed were the amateur curators that they fired off a complaint to the paper protesting the use of the word. When the husband of one of them caught up with me in public,...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 11, 2001
Kusuma's demonic dots, in glorious monochrome
Two years after the triumph of "Love Forever," the large-scale American-curated retrospective that earned Yayoi Kusama long-overdue recognition here at home, Japan's premier visual artist is back with an intimate and wonderful Tokyo gallery show.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 4, 2001
All roads lead to 'home'
There really is no place like home, and this is fully evident in the Tokyo Opera City Gallery's hot summer show, "My Home Is Yours/Your Home Is Mine."
CULTURE / Art
Jun 27, 2001
New media center has no center
Almost five years after the InterCommunication Center opened in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward, the same question remains: Is this a gallery for artists working with new media, or is it an exhibit hall for techies toying with art?
CULTURE / Art
Jun 13, 2001
Sculpture for speed freaks
A scant six months since it opened and Tokyo's Rice Gallery is looking less like a contemporary art space and more like a fantasy car showroom.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 6, 2001
Diva serves up rare delights
A one-time teen model turned cyberdiva cum wannabe guru, she is no less than Japan's most celebrated artistic export, represented by the finest galleries in New York and Paris.
CULTURE / Art
May 30, 2001
Inside angle on the subcontinent
From the scowl of a Calcutta street kid to the prayer-locked, wrinkled face and hands of Mother Theresa; from the quiet orange of a Taj Mahal sunrise to the bustle of a Delhi bazaar -- it seems the full breadth of India's people and places live in the photographs of Raghu Rai.
CULTURE / Art
May 23, 2001
High-rise hair takes center stage
Early evening thundershowers have raised humidity in Harajuku's Lapnet Ship Gallery to near-sauna level, but despite the sticky discomfort the tiny room is packed on this Saturday night. It's the much-anticipated opening party for Vivienne Sato's exhibition "Wig Wig Wig," and by following a Marge Simpson-like...
CULTURE / Art
May 16, 2001
There goes the neighborhood. . . into the future
Until last week, I thought there were basically three types of factories: oily old clunkers where maybe the beaten-down workers go on strike and a gritty hero emerges who is played by Jeff Bridges in the made-for-television movie; gleaming, robot-dominated technological wonders; and grim Third World...
CULTURE / Art
May 9, 2001
Links in a chain of ambiguity
As the spring exhibition season hits its stride, the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art has come up with an accessible and quite interesting show in the diffusely titled "Chain of Visions -- Family, Politics and Religion in the Last Generation of Italian Contemporary Art." The exhibition features about...
CULTURE / Art
May 2, 2001
'Girly photographer' charts her own course
It is has been about a decade since the debut of the onnanoko shashinka, an immensely popular group of young Japanese female photographers whose work was largely characterized by simple subjects reflecting their everyday life, captured with a point-and-shoot aesthetic. Initially, the best known of the...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 25, 2001
Homegrown approach to British Art Now
A couple of years ago, just outside the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale, a troupe of butoh dancers wowed the assembled art glitterati with a street performance. Afterward, more than a few people congratulated representatives of the Japan Foundation for the refreshingly alive and unaffected happening,...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 18, 2001
Growing in new directions: Yanobe's star rises again
Just in case you didn't know already: Kenji Yanobe is back.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 11, 2001
Signs of an artistically lived life
Living in a country where reading involves interpreting thousands of characters from four different writing systems, it is interesting to reflect on the economy of the English-language alphabet. Isn't it just a little amazing that everything from Shakespeare to the newspaper you are holding in your hands...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 4, 2001
While my guitar gently weeps, the video rolls
Few pop-culture icons are as enduring as the electric guitar. Maybe that's why artists so love to destroy the things. Foremost in the pantheon of ax-smashers is Jimi Hendrix, who, after performing a screaming feedback version of the "Star Spangled Banner" at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, set his lighter...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 27, 2001
The Elephant Man's other side
You know the old adage about how consciousness operates? Tell a person not to think of elephants, and they won't be able to stop thinking about elephants.
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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