Search - works

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 19, 2009

Collectors pleased with Art 40 Basel fair

The consensus among the 61,000- odd dealers, collectors, museum curators, media and art lovers who descended on the Swiss town of Basel for the 40th edition of the annual Art Basel fair on June 10-14 is that the art market is surprisingly healthy despite a global economic recession.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 3, 2009

Creative Commons fights for new copyright

On April 17, the district court of Stockholm issued its verdict in the copyright infringement case of the torrent tracking Web site The Pirate Bay, whose managers and another associate were accused of facilitating the illegal downloading of music, movie and video-game files. The four defendants were...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 24, 2009

Netsuke: delicate treats for the dandies of Edo

Until modern times, Japan seems to have been almost unique in having no tradition of jewelry, apart from the stone beads and gold accessories found in burial mounds from the last few centuries of the prehistoric period until circa seventh century. Elaborate necklaces, bracelets and diadems could be seen...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 2009

Darkness at the opera

Say the word "opera," and a string of flamboyant images spring to mind, from vivid stage sets to dramatic divas — unless it's the world of opera as seen through the singular gaze of artist Sophy Rickett.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 20, 2009

Free of cash concerns, Estonia produces top-class animation

A collection of witty and cynical animation films from Estonia are taking center stage at Laputa Asagaya, an art-house theater in Tokyo's Suginami Ward.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 6, 2009

Edo to Meiji

The popularity of ukiyo-e (genre painting) woodblock prints is partly due to aesthetic reasons and partly symbolic ones. In terms of sheer beauty, there is much to recommend in the better examples in the genre, from bright blocks of color and sinuous lines to lively compositions and intriguing details,...
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2009

Econ lessons from Japan

Searching the reasons for Japan's "lost decade" — the deflation and stunted growth said to have plagued Japan ever since the collapse of the "bubble economy" in the early 1990s — has long been popular among U.S. and British commentators seeking an answer to the West's current economic problems.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 27, 2009

Linking video games to their visual history

Think of post-World War II popular culture in Japan as it relates to contemporary art, and you invariably arrive at Murakami Takashi and his Kaikai Kiki company/studio. But a new generation that draws from Japanese pop culture — and yet has no close connections to Murakami's art stable — has emerged...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2009

Snow yaks and yetis — an ice man cometh

Fans of Pop Surrealism were no doubt tickled pink to hear of their messiah, painter Mark Ryden, making an appearance in Tokyo for the opening of "The Snow Yak Show" at the Tomio Koyama Gallery. The solo exhibition features eight new works from the masterful painter, each exquisitely detailed in his characteristic...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2009

'Anime,' 'manga' grab spotlight at major exhibition

At the Japan Media Arts Festival, prepare to jet into the sky like Superman and dance with speakers blasting at your hips, as the nation's largest showcase of cutting-edge "anime," "manga" and high-tech arts gets more interactive.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2009

Vienna's Arming strikes the right note

"During these five years, we have often tackled contemporary works," says Austrian conductor Christian Arming, music director of the New Japan Philharmonic (NJP) since 2003. "I believe that broadened our horizon."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2009

Vienna's Arming strikes the right note

"During these five years, we have often tackled contemporary works," says Austrian conductor Christian Arming, music director of the New Japan Philharmonic (NJP) since 2003. "I believe that broadened our horizon."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2008

Was that the sound of the China art bubble bursting?

As quickly as it appeared, the Chinese contemporary art boom ended last week in Hong Kong.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 30, 2008

Golden glories

One of fall's annual pleasures is the Big Autumn Exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum, and this year the organizers have pulled out all the stops with "Treasures by Rinpa Masters," a breathtaking show of Rinpa art in celebration of the 350th anniversary of Ogata Korin's birth. Korin (1658-1716) is...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 26, 2008

How Japanese mysteries evolved from imitation to adaptation

PURLOINED LETTERS: Cultural Borrowing and Japanese Crime Literature, 1868-1937, by Mark Silver. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008, 217 pp., $52 (cloth) Western-style stories of crime and detection began making their appearance in Japan from the mid-19th century, initially as translations of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 11, 2008

Annette Messager: one humble messenger

Around the 1960s, French artist Annette Messager began to move away from the idea of "great art." Using materials readily available around the house, her works acquired an air of familiarity and allowed her to use these often effeminated — and thus undervalued — materials to make social critiques....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2008

Traditional delights

In a summertime exhibition to celebrate the 120th anniversary of Kokka, the authoritative Japanese journal on pre-modern Asian art, and the 130th anniversary of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the (TNM) has taken an interesting change of direction in its curation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2008

Boston museum's ukiyo-e celebrates Japanese merchants' taste

Until recent years, ukiyo-e were regarded as somewhat declasse by Japanese art connoisseurs — and they are still sniffed at by many whose taste is informed by Zen and the tea-ceremony. But these colorful paintings and prints of what was then a truly exotic world did catch the eyes of foreigners who...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 26, 2008

How Carlo Zauli changed the course of contemporary Japanese ceramics

Change can be one of the most difficult words for traditional craftsmen to hear.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 22, 2008

Grounded rulers of the sky

His sharp, calm gaze follows yet another aircraft swooping down from the cloudless sky, its tires screeching in clouds of blue smoke as it returns to Earth on Haneda's concrete runway. One more flight successfully completed, he thinks — and now the next.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 18, 2008

Japan affords translators an elevated status not found elsewhere

Here's a little quiz for you.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 3, 2008

Seeking international artists

W hen New York's Armory Show art fair started out back in 1994, it was a simple affair. At a news conference last week in the city, one of the four founders, Paul Morris, described how works shown the first year were hung on the walls or laid out on the beds of the small Gramercy Hotel.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 31, 2008

Group plans to bury Tokyo's elevated 'shuto'

A group of business executives is floating the idea of burying all of Tokyo's elevated highways 60 meters underground. The megaproject also includes a sweeping greening of the space they will leave behind and large-scale redevelopment at key highway ramps.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2008

New Shirokane art complex

New Shirokane art complex 3-1-15 Shirokane, Minato-ku, Tokyo
CULTURE / Art
Jan 17, 2008

"Kazuharu Ishikawa: Dear friends"

Yukari Art Contemporary
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 9, 2008

Can we be forever young?

Jeanette Winterson's latest novel, "The Stone Gods," is set in the future on a distant planet whose resources have been over- exploited by colonizing humans.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 20, 2007

Human conditions

Like Picasso at his most mythologically cubist or a dark dream from the subconscious, the Dairakudakan butoh dance troupe took its audience back to the primordial for its 35th anniversary performances last week — and then brought it right back to the present.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 6, 2007

Picking up where science slips

When it comes to giving us a handle on the world we live in, science no longer cuts it. In its latest incarnations — superstring and M-theory — it postulates 10, 11 or even more dimensions, only three or four of which we can perceive. Science's explanation of matter is equally unsatisfying. Since...

Longform

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