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November 22, 2024
 

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Matthew Larking
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 20, 2010
Tales of Ueda Akinari and his contemporaries
With the advent of postmodernism in Japan from the 1980s, which fostered eclecticism and diverse stylistic practices, interest in the earlier Edo Period (1603-1868) was revived and it subsequently was embraced as a kindred spirit.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Aug 13, 2010
'Paramodel Solo Exhibition: The World According to P'
Mori Yu Gallery, Kyoto
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 23, 2010
When science meets art, it gets confusing
In 1959, British physicist and novelist C.P. Snow delivered an influential lecture titled "The Two Cultures," in which he claimed the divide between the sciences and the humanities was to the detriment of finding solutions to world problems. The Second Law of Thermodynamics was to science what Shakespeare...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 16, 2010
The talented women of Kyoto
"Women Artists of Kyoto: Bearing Burdens / Burdens Born" is ostensibly about the classification of female artists since the late 19th century. The term "keishu-gaka" refers to accomplished women artists, "joryu-gaka" to post-World War II artists who created trends among male colleagues and "josei-gaka"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 9, 2010
Komura Settai finds a new modern audience
It is often difficult to fathom how an artist so popular in his own time slides into oblivion in subsequent generations. 2010 has been a good year for one such artist, Komura Settai (1887-1940), who in his time was a prolific creator, producing illustrations, woodblock prints and stage designs. His recent...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 11, 2010
China's modern art that grieves for the old
The art on display in "From the 11th Chinese National Art Exhibition 2009: Contemporary Fine Art from China" at the Nara Prefectural Museum of Art is of a different species than the headline-grabbing pieces that have propelled Chinese art into a much sought-after commodity frequently at the forefront...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 4, 2010
Brothers brought together by differences
Takejiro Inagaki was a nihonga (Japanese style) painter who later turned to crafting gold and lacquer wares. These artistic skills were shared by two of his sons, whose bodies of work are the subject of "The Inagaki Brothers: Chusei and Toshijiro" at The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 7, 2010
The accessories that fanned the flames of screen painting
Given the relative dearth of fan-painting exhibitions, it seems a relatively minor art commensurate with its small-scale format. In reality, it was the most abundantly produced kind of painting in Japan for many centuries, giving birth, or at least standing as precursor, to the large-scale golden screen...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 30, 2010
In the hope that death does not do us part
In "Do Not go Gentle Into That Good Night," the 20th-century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas famously defied death with the words, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." In a more conceptual art way, the Japanese-born New York-based Shusaku Arakawa (b.1936) is similarly indignant. He wants to make dying...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 23, 2010
Taking a name for themselves
"What's in a name? Juliet asks in "Romeo and Juliet." Half a world away, two close contemporaries of Shakespeare, though painters not writers, could have offered some answers: reputation, privilege, commissions and ultimately value.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 26, 2010
New dimensions in a chain
What makes the exhibition in two stages of Yoshio Kitayama's works at the MEM gallery in Osaka all the more surprising is that they are paintings — not the sculpture/installations for which the artist is conventionally known.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 29, 2010
Blooming successes flower in artwork
East Asian flower-and-bird painting emerged as a genre in China around the 8th century and the tradition has survived through to the present. Its resonances for modern and contemporary Japanese artists are currently the theme of two very different exhibitions: "By the Water-lily Pond" at the Asahi Beer...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2010
New art horizons seen from Kansai
While the progression of Japanese art within the last decade is being celebrated at the "Garden of Painting" exhibition at The National Museum of Art in Osaka, other galleries in the area, such as the Tomio Koyama Gallery, Kyoto, and the YOD Gallery, Osaka, have launched group exhibitions proposing directions...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2010
Habsburg treasures celebrate art history
It seems anachronistic and a little too culturally remote to call Rudolf II (1552-1612) a culture otaku, but that's how the catalog for the "Treasures of the Habsburg Monarchy," now in its second staging at Kyoto National Museum until March 14, describes him. The reclusive Rudolf had diverse interests...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2010
What's real in a world of copies and clones?
I n contrast to the type of mass- produced art best characterized in Japan by Takashi Murakami and the hordes of assistants who complete paintings and sculptures to the specifications of their employer, is a small coterie of sculptors/painters who work at individually crafting the mass-produced items...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 20, 2009
What lies behind the eccentric?
The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote that what is "familiarly known" is not "properly known," just for the reason that it is familiar. The familiar historical image of the Edo Period Eccentric painters, one of whom was Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800), is no exception. They are remembered...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2009
The northern lights from Italy
In 1966, after graduating from Tokyo's Tama Art University with a degree in interior design and doing a few odd jobs, Hidetoshi Nagasawa got on a bike and cycled out of Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 23, 2009
Adding and subtracting dimensions to further appreciate art
The camera obscura is an optical device that was occasionally used by Dutch painters of the 17th century to help them achieve a superlative level of technical proficiency. Literally meaning "darkened chamber" in Latin, it is a room with a small hole in one wall that lets in light from outside and casts...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 25, 2009
Observing the pieces of a fragmented self
From an overwhelming slew of art, literature, music, cinema and theater references, there seems to emerge a provisional feel for order in William Kentridge's filmic worlds: worlds created between the artist and spectators' activity in constructing narratives from discrete fragments. How this materializes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Sep 18, 2009
"Modern Living: Hiroe Komai"
Shin-bi Gallery, Kyoto Closes Nov. 8
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.

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