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April 18, 2025
 

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 5, 2012

Ceramics as a blossoming form of art

In 1981, Etsuko Tashima (b.1959) completed the postgraduate ceramic course of Osaka University of Arts, where she is now professor. Her graduation work, "Censored" (1981), was a series of legs cast from her own body and arranged so that they appeared to grow out of the ground. Attaching breasts to cups...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Dec 15, 2011

Painting a picture of Yumeji Takehisa

A persistent and lingering myth is that Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1934), who forwent conventional art training at a sanctioned institution and earned widespread popular appeal for all the things the arts were supposedly not, was unimportant to the fine arts.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 5, 2011

Hokkaido roots spur woman to bring folk tales to masses

For Deborah Davidson, Hokkaido is not only home, it is a door to other worlds. As a child, she played with Ainu children and watched them care for the frolicking cubs of the "iomante" (bear ceremony). As a translator, she now focuses on bringing Ainu folk tales to an English-speaking audience.
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
May 26, 2011

Knowing Sharaku's art without knowing the artist

One of Japan's greatest mysteries is the true identity of the ukiyo-e (woodblock print) artist Toshusai Sharaku, whose entire career was crammed into a 10-month period from 1794 to 1795, during which he produced 145 separate print sheets.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2011

The enemies of a digital universal library

Scholars have long dreamed of a universal library containing everything that has ever been written. Then, in 2004, Google announced that it would begin digitally scanning all the books held by five major research libraries. Suddenly, the library of utopia seemed within reach.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 25, 2011

The high altitudes of airplane aesthetics

Aeronautical science has always been a hotbed of innovative technology. Changes in human society, such as improved global networking and an increase in travelers has meant that aircraft design has always been dynamic, improving to meet passengers' military and others' expectations and demands.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 18, 2011

Japan's celebrated Edo Period painters: Having the good fortune to see all that is Gitter's

The first time I met renowned Japanese art collector Dr. Kurt Gitter was at an Asian art conference in New York in 2001, where he was on a discussion panel on Japanese art. An audience member asked Gitter, "Sir, since you and others have passionately collected antique Japanese works for decades and since...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 11, 2011

Shindo Tsuji: From the trees to the earth

In 1948, the respected Zen elder Ian Kishizawa told the sculptor Shindo Tsuji, "Forget whatever you can and express whatever remains." Despite its enigmatic and paradoxical quality, this typically Zen-like admonition nevertheless manages to sum up the career of Tsuji (1910-1981), an important Japanese...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 9, 2011

Adoor: India's master storyteller of the silver screen

ADOOR GOPALAKRISHNAN: A Life in Cinema. The Authorized Biography, by Gautaman Bhaskaran. Penguin, 2010, 281 pp. (hardcover) Celebrating the centenary of Akira Kurosawa last year, Donald Richie, the noted writer on Japanese films, observed that Kurosawa believed that he existed only through his films....
COMMUNITY
Dec 4, 2010

American artist's creativity never stops in Kyoto

Daniel Kelly's immaculate central Kyoto atelier is empty upon arrival, but soon the artist comes bounding in, extending warm greetings before leading a quick tour of the two-floor studio-living quarters. Then we're off again, dashing around the corner to check out his kura (warehouse)-cum-art storehouse...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 17, 2010

Shedding some light on shadows

What follows you around nearly everywhere but you never notice?
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 9, 2010

'Roppongi Crossing' may be better when crowded

At the opening press conference for "Roppongi Crossing 2010," the U.S-based French artist Jules de Balincourt said that he was impressed how the exhibition revealed to him that the contemporary art being produced in Japan could just as easily have been created anywhere in the world — that trends in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 12, 2010

Regional resonance

In a metropolis the size of Tokyo, it is no surprise that there are several large orchestras and a number of high-quality concert halls. But the number of orchestras performing daily can be hard to keep track of, particularly as some have very similar names: Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 12, 2010

Cyber Arts Japan: As interactive as they want to be

"What are silk screen prints doing in a show of media art?"
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
LIFE / Travel
Jan 24, 2010

Adachi still lifes are sure to grow on you

Just 20 km east of Matsue, the impressive collection of paintings and ceramics at the Adachi Museum of Art in Yasugi City, Shimane Prefecture, is at risk of being upstaged by its six superlative landscaped gardens.
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 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 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
May 1, 2009

So what then was 1968 all about?

For over a decade, artist-in- residence programs have been held by myriad organizations throughout Japan, all with roughly the same objective: to provide a unique and mutually enlightening experience for the both visiting artist and host. One of the latest residencies held at Tokyo Wonder Site might...
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 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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2008

A living play appears from the past

"I have absolutely no idea beforehand what exactly I am going to do. Everything comes together really at the last minute," says 50-year-old English dramatist Simon McBurney when asked how he's approaching his latest collaboration. Working with Japanese actors, McBurney is producing "Shunkin," a play...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 24, 2008

Quixotic quest of a 'revolutionary'

Breaking away from the herd, exploring new artistic directions and assuming time itself will bring the ultimate vindication is one of the great romantic ideas of avant-garde painting in the 20th century. But rather than defining the field for generations ahead, such an artist risks simply becoming obscure,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 27, 2007

Blockbusters and new momentum

This was another great year for art enthusiasts with breadth, depth and an audience for all kinds exhibitions and events.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 13, 2007

The printer who wished to paint

Masuo Ikeda's polymath abilities in the arts — ranging from printmaking to writing and ceramics — is mirrored in his diverse depictions of feminine eroticism. Posed provocatively in Ikeda's works are his versions of Venus, virgins, brides, generic types and femme fatales, the Madonna of the Annunciation...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 8, 2007

New MOT curator aims to do a lot with a little

Yuko Hasegawa delivers instructions to her staff in an even, polite manner that often belies the burden they impose. It's a style perhaps more suited to a corporate boardroom than an art museum. But, since she took over as chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT), in April last year,...
In a first, Japan issues cease-and-desist order against Google
The Google logo is seen at the company's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California. Japanese authorities on Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order to Google over an alleged violation of the country's anti-monopoly law.
Japan and the U.S. begin tariff talks on good terms, but without breakthroughs
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief tariff negotiator, speaks to reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
Trump calls the U.S.-Japan alliance ‘one-sided.’ Tokyo says otherwise.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday in Washington.
Tokyo hotel operators face possible warnings over suspected price cartel
Foreign tourists gather on a platform at Kyoto Station on Wednesday.
China executes man over Japanese school bus stop murder
The bus stop in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, where a Japanese mother, her child, and a Chinese woman were attacked in June 2024
Tokyo hotel operators face possible warnings over suspected price cartel
Foreign tourists gather on a platform at Kyoto Station on Wednesday.
Kyotographie 2025 opts for laughter and levity in the face of global strife
Palestinian American photographer Adam Rouhana’s exhibition at this year’s Kyotographie festival shows Palestinian life, not death and rubble.
Privacy and transparency clash in debate over bill on artificial insemination
Sachiko Ishizuka, who was born via artificial insemination by donor (AID), tells her story to lawmakers from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on April 9.
Why Ishiba became the first prime minister to hold talks with Rengo in 16 years
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Japanese Trade Union Confederation chief Tomoko Yoshino in a meeting Tuesday at the Prime Minister's Office
In a first, Japan issues cease-and-desist order against Google
The Google logo is seen at the company's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California. Japanese authorities on Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order to Google over an alleged violation of the country's anti-monopoly law.

Podcast

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

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
By Tomoko Otake

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