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Matthew Larking
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 17, 2006
Exploring her selves
Modern culture is deeply interested in constructed and changing identities. The mutability of the individual is an obsession that stretches from stories about Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" being a portrait of the artist in drag to Oprah Winfrey's very public weight-loss programs; from Japanese artist...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 6, 2006
Three artists piece together contemporary Japanese art
Art since the 1960s has reveled in a directional pluralism devoid of dominant mediums or movements, with no consensus on how the range of artists and styles might add up to a more significant whole.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 15, 2006
Nihonga painter captured Taiwanese beauty
The scene was tranquil in 1927 at the newly established "Taiten" annual fine arts exhibition in the Japanese colony of Taiwan, which had been ceded by China in 1895 as a result of the First Sino-Japanese War. None of the artists practicing in the Qing Period (1644-1911) styles of Chinese painting were...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 27, 2006
Embracing an organic modernism
At one of the extremes of 20-century architecture there were the modernists Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier and Bauhaus' Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. They made impersonal and cool buildings in the "International Style" in vogue at the time that celebrated whiteness, straight lines and steel and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 16, 2006
Swept along in the winds of war
The year World War I began, the sculptor Ernst Barlach cast "The Avenger" (1914), a powerful and ambiguous work showing an onrushing figure with a sword raised high. The sculpture's enlivened dynamism conjures the ominous patriotic tensions that seethed in Germany in the months leading to the war. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 2, 2006
GERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY: Reconfiguring your pasts
It is mostly an unremarkable location, except for the fact that it is in a bit of a shambles. Something has obviously taken place here, but the smooth surfaces and sharp edges of the architectural detail simply do not offer up any artistic intention.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 12, 2006
ALPHONSE MUCHA: Modern, not Modernist
For Alphonse Mucha, being a "Modernist" in the 19th and 20th centuries was never as important as being in the right place at the right time: which is why for critics the Impressionists of the late 19th century are Modernist and Mucha, their contemporary, was merely modern.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 24, 2005
The art of war
Considering Vietnam's modern history, it is hardly surprising that about a third of the exhibits in "50 years of Modern Vietnamese Paintings: 1925-75" at Tokyo Station Gallery depict warfare and soldiers in uniform, or are propaganda images fashioned from the odds and ends of figurative painting. Here,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 29, 2005
A painter of his time?
When Alfred H. Barr (the founder of the Museum of Modern Art, New York) was sketching out the shape of modern art in the 20th century -- its movements, influences and directions -- he drew a kind of family tree showing how all the different "isms" connected to one another in an evolutionary way.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 30, 2005
The influence of a literary titan lasts for 200 years
Renowned as a poet, novelist, dramatist and critic, Victor Hugo was a figure of legendary proportions whose funeral procession through Paris in 1885 attracted more than 2 million devotees.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 23, 2005
A great selection from the Electors' finest treasures
Dresden -- from the Sorbish, meaning "dwellers in the marshy forest," was transformed in the late Renaissance from a Slav village to the jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Sachsen. This evolution had much to do with the art patronage of two monarchs, Frederick Augustus I, Elector of Saxony (1670-1733)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 9, 2005
Chimeras and shadows
In the service of the imagination of photographer Yuki Onodera, familiar objects become dreamily unsettled by memories and movements and, by degrees, disengage to the point of of unreality.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 2, 2005
All the glory that was Florence
Before the 15th century in Florence, the guilds had their own highly developed hierarchy with artisans fairly near the top. Visual artists were higher-grade craftsmen, and their work was considered a kind of manual labor. As religious and secular demand for art increased, and conscious reflection on...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 8, 2004
Art stripped bare by mass produced ideas
The National Museum of Art, Osaka, relocated this year from Expo Park to elegant new premises in the commercial Nakanoshima district. The architect Cesar Pelli -- who is also responsible for the recent redesign of Haneda Airport in Tokyo -- resisted contesting the air space of the surrounding and soaring...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 24, 2004
The heyday of body art
"Traces: Body and Idea in Contemporary Art," a new exhibition showing at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (soon to be seen in Tokyo) fleshes out what has been distinctive in art since the postwar '50s right up to recent times.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 3, 2004
And never the twain shall meet, on canvas
Modernism, which was born in Paris and came of age in New York after World War II, was one of Europe's most successful cultural exports of the 20th century, making it to South Africa, Vietnam, Brazil . . . and Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 3, 2003
In between art and life
"Gokann," the umbrella name given to three exhibitions of contemporary Finnish art now showing in Kyoto, is an accommodating term. The Japanese title was chosen for its multiplicity of meanings, all derived from typing in "g-o-k-a-n-n" on a computer then pressing the kanji-convert key. Those varied meanings...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 29, 2003
The end of art history and the last laugh
Since 1984, the National Museum of Art, Osaka, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, have been examining trends in contemporary art in a series of exhibitions titled "A Perspective on Contemporary Art." Pay a visit to the latest in the series, though, and you might be forgiven for wondering exactly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 30, 2002
Louis XIV understood power, absolute power
Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (composed 8 A.D.) described the palace of the sun, tall-columned and fashioned from precious metals, inside which sat the radiant god Apollo on a throne studded with emeralds. The Roman poet's description was pure fantasy, but Louis XIV, King of France from 1643-1715, seemed set...
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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