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Donald Eubank
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2008
Digital, rough and maybe deadly
Zaim is dirty. The floor is scuffed, the windows old, the building a strange maze of rooms with low ceilings. Compared to the slick show on a couple blocks away at this year's Yokohama Triennale, the exhibition space that used to be a government office building is beat-up and ready for trouble.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2008
'Masaki Ogihara'
Gallery Hashimoto
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2008
More far-flung festival fun at Sado Island's Earth Celebration
Niigata grannies munching on bento lunch boxes, tattooed Tokyo roughnecks pounding beers, an ex-military man in from London with two Shanghaiese kung-fu sisters: taiko (Japanese drum) troupe Kodo's annual Earth Celebration on Sado Island this past weekend drew an eclectic crowd.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2008
'Parallel Worlds'
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2008
Olodum at Earth Celebration
After last year's all-star lineup for Earth Celebration's 20th birthday, this year taiko drumming troupe Kodo mark the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil by inviting Olodum from the Brazilian state of Bahia to headline. An Afro-Brazilian culture group, Olodum started out in 1979 as a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 5, 2008
Torifune celebrate the birth of butoh's founder
Last month in his ongoing series Japanese Cinema Eclectics, author Donald Ritchie screened "Horrors of Malformed Men" (Toei, 1969). An "unsung classic" of Japanese film, "Horrors" features the only cinematic performance of Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of the butoh dance movement. Hijikata, who would...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 29, 2008
The last splash of spring
Tokyo's multifaceted gallery scene usually slows down a bit in the summer, so May has seen a whack of openings across the city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 15, 2008
Butoh — Omnivorous and best not defined
In a small studio in Kichijoji, a director is telling three dancers that their heads are potatoes rolling around on a plate. And their three bald pates, poking up through a single piece of cardboard that holds them together, certainly have the appearance of earthy spuds, wobbling uncertainly across the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 8, 2008
An aura of controversy in the chase for the new
Ever since 1917, when Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal to the Society of Independent Artists' exhibition, arguing that it was art, anything has become acceptable. Artist Chris Burden shot himself in the arm in a Los Angeles gallery in 1971; Piero Manzoni canned what was allegedly his own feces and sold...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 2008
Halls of light in a city of horses
Something for everyone — that seems to be the motto for the new Towada Art Center in Aomori Prefecture. With cash in hand and a desire to see their town turn around, Towada has banked on art as a way to bring back vitality to an area that has lacked it of late.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 10, 2008
The making of a market center
Almost everything was sold before he even arrived at Art Fair Tokyo, but that didn't stop gallerist Peter Nagy from coming to Japan anyway. The impulse to dip his toes into what could become contemporary art's next deep pool was just too strong to resist, so three large canvases by artists Thukral &...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 3, 2008
One huge fan of civilization
As long as you've at least half a sleepy eye slightly focused on popular culture, you've seen his art work, even if you never go to galleries. Up until two years ago, he'd never even shown in one, at least not the ones where you stand around sipping wine and eating imported cheeses.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 3, 2008
Orphan and the Old Single
Yamamoto Gendai, Tokyo's Shirokane
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 27, 2008
VOCA: A look at the state of 2-D
Given the profusion of events lined up for next week, it's easy to believe that Tokyo is going through a contemporary art renaissance. Since the opening of the Mori Art Museum in 2003, contemporary art has arguably enjoyed a higher profile than it has in the past 30 years in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2008
Making modern Japan
The suspension of disbelief required by kabuki is massive, making the possibility of a play failing to express its intended meanings always imminent. Rather than show you reality, kabuki tries to convey its most important messages in abstract and stylized portrayals of emotions, events and people —...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2008
The mathematics of music
So forward-looking that it's hard to categorize him — Is he an artist? A musician? A conceptualist? — Ryoji Ikeda makes the music that we'll lull the robots to sleep with when they ultimately try to take over. Or that we'll use to convince ourselves that we are the robots.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 28, 2008
Human reeds swaying in a museum maze
It's dangerous to talk to an artist. Whatever you think of their art, after a conversation with them, you are bound to walk away intrigued, enchanted — maybe even disgusted (which isn't necessarily bad) — but mostly, hopefully, enlightened by a new understanding of their work.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2008
"Sarah Sze"
Maison Hermes 8th Floor, "Le Forum"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2008
Tilting the balance back to darkness
In the minds of casual observers, Japan is simple. Between lovers of tradition and those enraptured by Japan's quirky window into an urban future, it's either the former land of austere, honorable warriors or the current one of air-headed, emotionally overwrought manga characters.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 17, 2008
"Kazuharu Ishikawa: Dear friends"
Yukari Art Contemporary
Japan's population continues to fall even as foreign resident count rises
The number of residents in Tokyo as of Jan. 1 rose by 0.03% from a year before, data shows, marking a year-on-year increase for the first time in three years, while the country's other 46 prefectures saw their populations continue to decline.
Ahead of the Olympics, Japan is still talking about the gymnast who won't be there
Japan's Shoko Miyata withdrew from the gymnastics team herself over her drinking and smoking, although it had already appeared as though the association was prepared to send her home from the team’s training camp in Monaco.
Japan’s minimum wage set for record ¥50 hike in major boost
Demonstrators rally to demand a big hike in minimum wages in Tokyo last week.
One dead, three missing as heavy rain batters Tohoku
Camera footage shows the Mogami River bursting its banks in Tozawa, Yamagata Prefecture, on Friday morning.
Brazil issues apology for persecuting Japan immigrants during WWII
Enea Almeida (right), chair of the Brazilian amnesty commission, shakes hands with the representative for Japanese immigrants on Thursday in Brasilia.
When did summer in Japan stop being fun?
Summer in Japan is now consistently brutal enough to drive you indoors and keep you there until autumn.
Japan’s minimum wage set for record ¥50 hike in major boost
Demonstrators rally to demand a big hike in minimum wages in Tokyo last week.
Japan loses top spot on strongest passport list to Singapore
Japan had the strongest passport for six years running from 2018, before being dethroned by Singapore on the 2024 list.
Why Japan's mysterious stash of classified funds escapes scrutiny
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi (right) during a meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Japan eyes gold — and the future — as Olympic men's soccer campaign begins
Japan midfielder Yu Hirakawa controls the ball during a match against the United States in Kansas City, Kansas, on June 11.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
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Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals
By Alex K.T. Martin

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