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Matthew Larking
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 30, 2011
The enduring reputation of Shigeru Aoki's brief career
Shigeru Aoki's short life was "beset by all manner of bad luck, and he passed through it like a shooting star" wrote Hanijiro Sakamoto (1882-1969), one of the giants of post-WWII Western-style painting. Shigeru (1882-1911) was only 28 when he passed away, and his active period as a painter was all the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 23, 2011
A marriage of East and West: something old, something borrowed and something blue
The Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg is showing its collection of Japanese prints for the first time on these shores as part of diplomatic celebrations around the 150th anniversary of Japan-German relations. It is a catholic exhibition that showcases ukiyo-e in its wide array of manifestations,...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 16, 2011
'Takashi Hinoda — Alternative Muscles'
imura art gallery, kyoto Closes July 23
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 2, 2011
Fired-up tales of ceramics in wonderland
Craft was maligned in Japan's Meiji Era (1868-1912) as the transposition of Western aesthetic theory denigrated it in relation to grand ideas of "fine art." All the while, though, it was an important export industry and a core component of Japan's contributions to various world expositions. It became...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 12, 2011
'Yu Kiwanami Solo Exhibition'
imura art gallery, kyotoCloses May 28
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 29, 2011
Divides in the Pure Land
The portrait of Honen Shoin (13th century) is known in Japanese as "Kagami no Miei" (mirror portrait) and shows the famous Buddhist priest seated on a mat, slightly slumped and holding his nenju (rosary). For the title of another famous 13th-century depiction of a well-known Buddhist priest, Shinran,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 15, 2011
It's a fine line between the eccentric and the experimental
Implicit in the idea of the "eccentric" painter is that the artist's style seems to have come out of nowhere, breaks all the conventions, and stands alone as an example of unparalleled individuality that cannot be repeated. All the better if the painter's biography is incomplete and prone to hyperbolic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 8, 2011
'Paul Klee: Art in the Making 1883-1940'
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 1, 2011
Conceptualizing old ideas into 'new' art
A persisting fear with conceptual art is that you are being made a fool of. Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook's 2008 video works are ostensibly about cultural preconceptions and the difficulties of interpretation, but her participants are often left looking ignorant and unsophisticated. For the videos, she placed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 11, 2011
Should Japanese-style painting represent the nation as a whole?
Mise Natsunosuke has been drawn into the fold of neo-nihonga (new Japanese-style painting) practitioners, a pigeon-hole he happily investigates but is also troubled by. In earlier exhibitions he has shown complicity with both the destruction and the resurrection of nihonga, which he pursues in his current...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 4, 2011
A tricky postscript on the art of abstraction
Gauging Torawo Nakagawa's art in "postscript" at Kyoto's Kodama Gallery is no easy undertaking. His paintings resist narrative cohesion and cultivate a certain hermeticism, all the while preserving an attractive visual dimension. Concerned as he is with a distinctive process of painting — a style founded...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2011
Saving the individual in times of conflict
The Japanese Western-style painter Saburo Aso (1913-2000) came of age as an artist during Japan's crescendo of militarism that began with the Manchurian Incident of 1931 and came to an ignominious end in 1945. But he refused to be drawn into the officially promoted propaganda painting of the time. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 14, 2011
Spelling out China's calligraphic influence
At the end of the Edo Period (1603-1868), as Japan began to change its long-held cultural reference point from China to the West, a strong Sinophile interest was maintained by the nation's cultural and political elites. From the late 19th century, however, the cultural reorientation to the West had deleterious...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 7, 2011
Fill up on Morimura's unusual 'side dishes'
Some artists are accorded such historical importance that virtually everything they do or have done comes under close scrutiny. Other artists are effectively known for a single thing, such as the nominal Italian Surrealist, Giorgio de Chirico, who is primarily known for his so-called "metaphysical paintings,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 24, 2010
A figure outside the nihonga box
"Depicting the Human Form: From Natural Sight and Sentiment to Modeling" at the Insho-Domoto Museum of Fine Arts, Kyoto, jumps around. It is evidence of the constantly searching temperament of the nihonga (Japanese-style painting) painter Insho Domoto (1891-1975), who refused to acquiesce to the sometimes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 10, 2010
The swinging trends of modern Japanese painting
"Japanese Art 1950-2010" at the National Museum of Art, Osaka is a historical show by virtue of the span of time it covers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 22, 2010
An education in Japanese-style painting
Economically in decline, and with its traditional craft industries going the same way, the city of Kyoto, having lost its nominal status as Japan's capital city in 1868, turned to education. Sixty four elementary schools were established by 1869, and secondary schools followed. The 130th anniversary...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 15, 2010
Breaking old conventions to find the new
Ryota Aoki (b.1978) says that he wants to see things that never before existed in ceramics. Personally, too, he is the exemplification of that ethos. We do not usually expect a celebrated ceramicist to be wearing a turban, have both ears pierced and be listening to hip-hop in the background as he sits...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2010
Exploring the stylistic diversity of nihonga
"The Avant-Garde of Nihonga 1938-1949" at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto takes issue with nihonga (Japanese-style painting) of the period as a reaction to what has been passed down to the present as the traditional aesthetics and thematics of the genre. These include the conventional materials...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Sep 24, 2010
'Mizuki Shigeru: Illustrations of Yokai'
Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe Closes Oct. 3
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.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
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.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
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.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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