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Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 12, 2016

Collector Maezawa drops $98 million on art in two days

Yusaku Maezawa, the 40-year-old founder of online clothing retailer Zozotown, continued his art shopping spree on Wednesday, helping Sotheby's reach $242.2 million in sales at its contemporary art auction even as the art market continues to contract. Maezawa said he is building a private museum outside...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 15, 2016

Robert Morris and Kishio Suga's piece in conversation

There are just two installations in the exhibition "Robert Morris and Kishio Suga" at Blum & Poe's fifth-floor gallery in Harajuku: Morris' "Lead and Felt" and Suga's "Parameters of Space." However, there are a number of correspondences between these two artists that make their pairing engrossing and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 19, 2016

The frayed edges of modern Japan

In the Edo Period (1603-1868) and the years that followed, Japan made strenuous efforts to bring together its patchwork of feudal regions into a strongly centralized state with a unified culture. Accordingly, the nation now is one of the most homogenous in the world. But there are a couple of places...
EDITORIALS
Dec 25, 2015

Budgeting ahead of an election

The Abe administration appears to be sacrificing budgetary discipline in favor of doling out pork ahead of the Upper House election.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 17, 2015

The ripple effect of Tawaraya Sotatsu's waves

'The most important Japanese artist you've never heard of." That is how James Ulak, senior curator of Japanese art at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, describes Tawaraya Sotatsu, the focus of the gallery's current magnificent exhibition. The show presents the first in-depth examination of...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 16, 2015

Philippines' Aquino pushes infrastructure projects as term in office ends

With seven months left in office, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III is taking measures to strengthen his infrastructure legacy and boost the resilience of one of Asia's fastest-growing economies.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Nov 10, 2015

Chinese buyer nabs Modigliani nude for $170 million — second-highest price ever paid at art auction

A Modigliani nude painting was sold to an unnamed Chinese buyer at Christie's on Monday for $170.4 million, the second-highest price ever for a work of art at auction, as deep-pocketed collectors continue to pay, and pay big, for some rare masterpieces up for sale in this year's autumn auctions season....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 3, 2015

Deutsche Bank sets the right standard

There is an image in the Deutsche Bank Collection exhibition at the Hara Museum that, at first sight, seems slightly out of place. It is a street scene in New York that glows in the warm light of a sunset. Office workers can be seen going home, a man window-shops outside a camera store, even the inclusion...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Sep 15, 2015

Invitation to free English kogei tour at Mitsukoshi

Free gallery tours in English will be held at the Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi Main Store to provide non-Japanese with the opportunity to learn about Japanese kogei traditional crafts on Sept. 19 and 20, starting at 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2015

Germany should buy — and show — Hitler's art

The German government should exhibit Adolf Hitler's artwork publically to help people better undersand what happened to Germany in the 1930s and '40s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 12, 2015

Pianist Etsko Tazaki seeks out the legacies of Brahms, Beethoven and Schubert

Whether their lives were long or short, the classic composers tended to cement their legacies in their final days, perhaps the point in their lives when they were at their most philosophical.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2015

Neo-impressionism: color-coded familiarities

The term "neo-impressionism" suggests a sequel to impressionism and, just like with movie sequels, there is a faint lowering of expectations. But this is entirely the wrong way to approach "Neo-Impressionism: from Light to Color" at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 11, 2015

No-frills dramatist casts Japan in a different light

The title of Yudai Kamisato's new work "+51 Aviacíon, San Borja" references his grandmother's address in Lima and the international telephone dialling code of Peru — but that only hints at the unusually cosmopolitan background of this 32-year-old Japanese playwright and director who also has relatives...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2015

Whistler: The misunderstood artistic rebel

Though his paintings may not look radical to us today, in his time, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) often faced incomprehension — both through interpretations of his art and his own uncompromising stance toward it. Museumgoers in Japan now have a rare opportunity to decide for themselves the merits...
EDITORIALS
Jan 3, 2015

New copyright protections, risks

It is hoped that the revision to Japan's Copyright Law, which took effect this year, will help bring healthy development of digital publication, while affording new protections for publishers and authors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2014

Film fest fans can get a fix at any number of events this month

The Tokyo International Film Festival may be finished, but movie buffs still have a lot of choices for festivals this month.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 5, 2014

Spain's ballet powers in

After many years at the Paris Opera Ballet, Jose Carlos Martinez left that fabled company in 2011 when he reached its age limit of 42 for an etoile (principal dancer) — and took up the post of artistic director at the Spanish National Dance Company (Compania Nacional de Danza).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 16, 2014

Kyoto's top treasures, all under one roof

Kyoto is at its most brilliant and beautiful in autumn, with its World Heritage scenery colored in red and golden leaves. This year, it's also a time when visitors have the rare opportunity to learn about the essence of Kyoto culture at the Kyoto National Museum.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Oct 8, 2014

Bonding boozily over the pleasure and pain of Bukowski

The embrace of individuality combined with the pain of loneliness could explain why Bukowski's works have been embraced by many of the Japanese men I've met in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 8, 2014

Who cares what Faust looks like

German contemporary theater has only begun to be introduced in Japan this century, before when the term "Western theater" was generally associated with works by British or American directors that told a story and diligently portrayed the psychological state of the characters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2014

Susumu Shingu knows which way the wind blows

Less than five minutes into conversation, Susumu Shingu's wife, Yasuko, pulls out a large binder crammed with photographs, sketches and drawings and starts flipping through images of her husband's most recent sculptures.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 25, 2014

Transforming the splendor of Japanese art

Every culture treasures its arts, and art museums are at the forefront of art preservation, engaging curators and specialists to ensure works remain as faithful to the originals as possible.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2014

Hashimoto's rings shine with history

The Hashimoto Collection of rings is the largest number of works to be donated to the National Museum of Western Art since it was originally established to house the Matsutaka Collection of artworks in 1959. Received in 2012, this vast collection of hundreds of rings from all ages and nations is also...
EDITORIALS
Aug 4, 2014

The fruit of good Japan-Taiwan ties

The exhibition of treasures from Taipei's National Palace Museum at the Tokyo National Museum through Sept. 15 is the first exhibition of its kind in an Asian country outside Taiwan. That's why it is attracting big crowds of Japanese.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 31, 2014

Yokohama Triennale 2014: Remembering the forgotten

Noise. Speed. Words. Images. We live in a digital era, constantly exposed to a massive stream of information, which we believe is vital to our daily lives.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 24, 2014

It's time to wise up to academic art

For too long the fine academic art of the 19th-century has lingered in the shadow of the Impressionist movement. The French Academy, with its rules and standards, has often been cast as the villain in the story of the period, standing in opposition to the 'heroic' Impressionists in their quest for 'artistic freedom.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 23, 2014

Diverse joys unite distant theater fests

In early summer this year, I went to the famous theater festivals in two European cities — first the Theater der Welt 2014, which ran May 23-June 8 in the war-blitzed and rebuilt southwest German city of Mannheim, then to the Sibiu International Theatre Festival 2014 held June 6-15 in the Romanian...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 18, 2014

Raoul Dufy's true colors outshone many of his peers

No painter's works look as good in a newspaper or advertising poster as they do when seen directly. Some painters works, however, suffer more from the process of being transferred to print than others. Raoul Dufy is one.
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...

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