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November 22, 2024
 

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Matthew Larking
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 11, 2014
Imagination runs wild in Japanese contemporary art
"Nostalgia and Fantasy: Imagination and its Origins in Contemporary Art" is a ragtag grouping of nine individual artists and one unit, each of whom focus on extremely different things. It is difficult to say, in fact, where "nostalgia" and "fantasy" come into play in some instances. With only minimal...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 28, 2014
The 'Great Wave' that reached the West
Ukiyo-e prints could be found in Europe from at least 1795 at the Cabinet des Estampes at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. It was not until the 1850s, however, when trade between Japan and Europe began to flourish, that the craze for things Japanese began to crescendo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 21, 2014
Japan's isolation didn't stop the West lending its colors
A common misperception of sakoku, Japan's closed-door isolation policy gradually enacted from 1633 by Tokugawa Iemitsu and his successors, is that Japan forsook the outside world.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 23, 2014
Best to approach Gursky's photos with a painterly eye
The invention of photography was supposed to bring about the death of painting.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 5, 2014
Centre Pompidou picks the fruits of its curatorial success
Fruits of Passion' displays contemporary works that were acquired during the last decade by the Musu00e9e National d'Art Moderne (MNAM), Centre Pompidou. The exhibition begins, though, with the final threads of modernism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2014
'The refusal of time' is worth every minute
The former Rissei Elementary School site, nowadays an occasional cultural events center, was earlier home to the Kyoto Dento, the electric company whose technology helped industrialist Katsutaro Inabata to demonstrate the Lumière Brothers' cinématographe camera in 1897 — Japan's first experience...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2014
Can nature solve humankind's errors?
Masato Kodama's sculptures are concerned with light, gravity and air. For him, light is a symbol of tomorrow and potential futures, gravity represents the present and the past, and air is associated with memory.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 25, 2013
The influences on and of Tetsumi Kudo
"Collection 3 — Works Related to Your Portrait: A Tetsumi Kudo Retrospective: From Anti-art of the 1960s to Art of the Present Day" is a contextual exhibition accompanying the superb "Tetsumi Kudo Retrospective" at the National Museum of Art, Osaka. It brings together foreign and Japanese artists,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2013
Somewhere between art and craft lies the beauty of Satoshi Someya
Satoshi Someya has produced a cerebrally engaging and visually alluring exhibition. His "Digesting Decoration" positions him among the most significant contemporary lacquer artists working today. The primary concern is with "use," as in the particularly utilitarian function of craft, as opposed to the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 4, 2013
Trapped by human society
Osaka-born Tetsumi Kudo's oeuvre has been the subject of a number of major international retrospectives since his death in 1990, and these indicate the artist's increasing postwar historical significance. The current National Museum of Art, Osaka retrospective is magisterial. With more than 600 pages,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 27, 2013
The Imperial Household of tradition
The catalog for The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto's exhibition, "Treasures of the Imperial Collection: The Quintessence of Modern Japanese Art," tells us that this "sublime collection of resplendent masterpieces shines brilliantly in the history of modern Japanese art." The collection, represented...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2013
The politics behind Japan's modern era of proletarian art
"Art and Literature in Japan 1926-1936" follows the close of the Taisho Era (1912-1926), which was characterized by democracy, artistic experimentation and widespread social self-absorptions by the citizenry in new fashions such as the "beach pajama" outfits of "modern" girls. The successive Showa Era...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 23, 2013
For Japanese women painters, elegance came at expense of individuality
"Painted by Women: Elegance of Showa Period" announces a thematic concern of the time, 1926-89, on which the art world was rigidified. Japan had embarked upon a 15-year period of war (1931-1945) and the individual expressive liberties that had informed the Taisho Era (1912-26), were being reined in....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013
Explore the many ways to read cinema
Marcel Broodthaers' films mostly deal with relations between images and words, which is unsurprising given that he was a poet first who turned to film because he came to understand the medium as an extension of language. In their combination, he sought harmony between poetry, visual art and cinema. It...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 25, 2013
Kansetsu Hashimoto's Chinese rebellion
From the end of the Edo Period (1603-1867), Japanese art began to shift its fundamental cultural orientation from China to Europe. Kansetsu Hashimoto, however, (1883-1945) initially abjured, and this had much to do with his upbringing
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 22, 2013
Aichi Triennale's best works deal with disaster
Since the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, a lot of art here has dealt with disaster. Not all the pieces in the second installment of the Aichi Triennale are on this theme — but the best ones are.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2013
The nature of Japanese lacquer art
Katsuyuki Shirako (b. 1984) is a lacquer artist, though not one who accords specific primacy to that medium. His fourth show at Kyoto's eN arts in Kyoto, is predominantly photographs. Drawn from the artist's "Connect" series, these images show a combination of his carefully crafted lacquer forms with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 6, 2013
Get intimate with Ryota Aoki's work and discover its secrets
Known mostly for producing exquisite white ceramic ware, Ryota Aoki has about-turned for his current exhibition at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Kyoto. The overwhelming shift is to black wares: think practical, utilitarian tableware such as plates, cups, pitchers and vases. Inundated with orders, particularly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 30, 2013
Seeking impressions in the two-dimensional
The title of Yu Kiwanami's "Confirmation of Happiness" (2013) is, in a sense, a kind of betrayal; for happiness cannot, in fact, be confirmed. A woman stands before a landscape, her head cropped off by the top edge of the picture in an artistic act of decapitation. With no head, we cannot see if she...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 9, 2013
The ghouls who played on the Japanese mind
“Japanese Ghosts and Eerie Creatures,” which features a selection of works from the mid-Edo Period to the Showa Era, is mostly play, with little horror.
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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