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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 12, 2012

From picnic cups to vessels of the future

In the immediate decades after World War II, part of what it meant to be a contemporary artist in Japan was to belong to some kind of regular exhibiting institution. These organizations were different from the prewar institutions that continued, such as the government-sponsored Bunten/Nitten or Tokyo-based...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2012

Looking ahead: 10 shows to mark on the 2012 calender

"Fuyuko Matsui: Becoming Friends with All the Children in the World" Yokohama Museum of ArtDec. 17, 2011-March 18.www.yaf.or.jp/yma
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2012

Looking ahead: 10 shows to mark on the 2012 calender

"Fuyuko Matsui: Becoming Friends with All the Children in the World" Yokohama Museum of ArtDec. 17, 2011-March 18.www.yaf.or.jp/yma
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2012

Exposing new spins on old-school photography

For a truly fresh outlook on Tokyo, run, don't walk, to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography to see Sohei Nishino's exciting photo-collages of Tokyo and nine other cities, on display through Jan. 29 along with works by other up-and-coming Japanese photographers.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2012

Exposing new spins on old-school photography

For a truly fresh outlook on Tokyo, run, don't walk, to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography to see Sohei Nishino's exciting photo-collages of Tokyo and nine other cities, on display through Jan. 29 along with works by other up-and-coming Japanese photographers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 22, 2011

Seeking solace in artistic responses to March 11

What can art do? What role can it play when the whole world seems suddenly unstable, unsure?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 9, 2011

"Art Scope 2009-2011: Invisible Memories"

Sponsored by the Daimler Foundation Japan, Art Scope is an initiative to help support and promote young artists in Japan through cultural exchange programs in Europe.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 25, 2011

Facing death with the spice of life

Motoi Yamamoto was a third-year student at the Kanazawa College of Art in 1996 when his younger sister died at the age of 24 — two years after being diagnosed with brain cancer. To ease his grief, and to make sense of various personal issues he faced on the periphery of his sister's death — such...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 25, 2011

Japanese brothers who championed Korean ceramics

In ancient times, Japanese arts and crafts were greatly influenced by the introduction of techniques and aesthetics from Korea and China. In particular, Japan owes the development of its ceramics to the skilled craftsmen brought over from Korea at the end of 16th century, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 12, 2011

"Summer Kid's Museum 2011 From the Permanent Collection"

The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, has been holding its "Summer Kid's Museum" series of introductory art exhibitions annually since 2001. This year, the theme is "Art is full of hide-and-seeks," and explores hidden elements in nihonga (Japanese-style paintings) and contemporary art works.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 5, 2011

Art triennale to explore quake, life's mysteries

The summer just gets hotter and hotter for visual-art fans in Japan. Following on the heels of Art Fair Tokyo, which attracted 43,000 visitors to Tokyo International Forum last weekend, the nation's largest art event of all, the once-every-three-years Yokohama Triennale, opens Saturday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 28, 2011

Growing up with photography and picturing youth

You know how difficult it is to get good photos of children. They fidget. They cry. And just when you think you've got the perfect shot, they turn the other way. Now try to imagine how challenging it must have been for early photographers, who had to contend with exposure times of minutes rather than...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 16, 2011

'Takashi Hinoda — Alternative Muscles'

imura art gallery, kyoto Closes July 23
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 10, 2011

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Works by the Swiss-born German painter Paul Klee have been shown in Japan several times. This time, however, the exhibiton at The National Museum of Modern Art focuses not on the actual art but on the artist's intricate creation process.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 9, 2011

Portrait of an artist or photographer?

For Takashi Homma, being a contemporary photographer is very different from being a photographer.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 29, 2011

Japanese genius shines eclectic in its extravagant simplicities of style

"Live your era, surmount your era!" With these words, written in 1935, the young woodblock artist Yoshio Fujimaki gave out a cry for genius. Certainly his words apply to the genius of Bob Dylan (whose 70th birthday was celebrated on these pages last week), since both he, Fujimaki and others of genius...
EDITORIALS
May 15, 2011

Japan's rich heritage

At long last, Japan received a bit of bright news May 7, when it was announced that two sites in Japan, the historic Hiraizumi area in Iwate Prefecture and the Ogasawara Islands some 1,000 km south of Tokyo, were almost certain to be designated as World Heritage Sites at meetings next month of the UNESCO...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
May 11, 2011

This summer, cute animal gizmos will make 'cool biz' even cooler

Summer is just around the corner, and office workers are starting to don their lighter "cool biz" clothing in order to beat the heat. Japanese gadget-maker Cube Works (you may know them from the infamous humping dog USB stick) has rolled out a series of cute little fans to help you stay chilled.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 5, 2011

From within the 'outsider' came a wealth of imagination

"American Innocence, Welcome To The Realms of the Unreal" at the Laforet Museum brings together 64 paintings and some personal objects of the "outsider artist" Henry Darger, who was born in Chicago in 1892.
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
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 18, 2011

Ceramics fair dishes up gold

Looking for your new favorite cup or dish? You could find something just right at Ceramics and Porcelain Fair 2011 in Fukuoka.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Feb 25, 2011

Techno Shugei weaves craft into circuitry

Homespun crafts and ingenuity meet DIY electronics and kawaii geekery in techno shugei.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 18, 2011

Art under a Roppongi roof

Tokyo is headed into "art season" with the Tokyo Frontline and G-tokyo art fairs preparing to start. Along with those events, a new gallery complex will open its doors to art lovers on Feb. 18.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 18, 2011

Visit Tokyo's 'Frontline' for Japan's contemporary art

Shigeo Goto, director of Tokyo Frontline, a new art fair to start in Tokyo this year, calls himself an "outsider," meaning he considers himself not quite inside Tokyo's commercial "art scene."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 11, 2011

Playwright Noda asks, 'What is a Japanese?'

In the early 1980s, when he was a student at the University of Tokyo, Hideki Noda began to emerge as a standard bearer of something new in Japan: Contemporary theater by — and for — young people seeking to change their country.
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 21, 2011

'Why is it Masterwork?'

Bridgestone Museum of Art
EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 2010

Freedom of expression under fire

In June, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly voted down a bill that stipulated that manga and anime must be sold in the "adult corner" of stores if they "recklessly" and "positively" depict sexual activities of characters presumed to be 18 years old or younger in a manner thought to hamper children's judgment...

Longform

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