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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 8, 2016

'The Universe and Art: Princess Kaguya, Leonardo Da Vinci, teamLab': Art that moves beyond our world

In the beginning, long before Netflix and Google Maps, our ancestors had only the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars to guide, dazzle and humble them. Naturally, as religions began to form, the first place to look was up, because surely that's where the deities dwell, right? And that yearning to better...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 1, 2016

Opposing today's rising intolerance

It has been a bumper year for chauvinism. Deplorables around the world who feel that their livelihoods, identities and values are under threat from "others" have let it be known that they're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. If you don't think of yourself as being in the same basket as them,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 18, 2016

Sci-fi and fact at the Okayama Art Summit

The city of Okayama was flattened by incendiary bombs in 1945. Many people died, more than 12,000 homes were destroyed and Okayama's centuries-old wooden castle burned to its stone foundations. In 1966, the donjon was rebuilt with modern concrete, which was likely made in Mizushima — a smoke-spewing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 18, 2016

Getting site-specific installations down to a fine art

Kenpoku Art 2016! is one of the latest projects to appear in an area for which art has been a relatively niche concern. Despite the fact that Okakura Tenshin, one of the central figures of Japanese art history, set up shop in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1906, and Art Tower Mito consistently provides top-class...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 7, 2016

Macedonian envoy's Kanda River scene bags top prize in Japan Through Diplomats' Eyes contest

Macedonian Ambassador to Japan Andrijana Cvetkovik's take on the Hijiribashi Bridge over the Kanda River in Tokyo won her the Grand Prize in the 19th Japan Through Diplomats' Eyes photography contest this week.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 4, 2016

Kanjiro Kawai sculpted a new vision of pottery

Japan's history of ceramics stretches back for millenniums, with most spinners of clay remaining nameless. One star, however, did shape a new world of pottery: Kanjiro Kawai (1890-1966).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 13, 2016

Nam June Paik has the last laugh

Rapid, multilayered, fluid — the high-tech images created by Nam June Paik earned him the epithet the Father of Video Art. He may be most often associated with banks of television screens and intense, distorted video images, but as a new retrospective of his work at the Watarium (The Watari Museum...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 30, 2016

Subtle messages lie hidden in a corporate collection

Tokyo Station Gallery is showing a pick 'n' mix exhibition, "12 Rooms 12 Artists," comprising a variety of modern and contemporary art acquisitions from the UBS art collection. There is no explicit curatorial imperative to connect or compare the works, so you're free to enjoy the visual confections in...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Aug 17, 2016

Sex trade a shaky safety net for Japan's working-poor women

For the past six years, 47-year-old single mother Kasumi Endo has lived a double life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 16, 2016

'Thomas Ruff'

Aug. 30-Nov. 13
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 9, 2016

The colorful combination of power and art

Each part of Italy has its own character, but Venice has always been something special and unique. While much of Italy was reduced to insignificant statelets, for much of the peninsula's history Venice was quite the reverse. It projected power far across the Mediterranean and ran a large commercial empire...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Aug 9, 2016

Refugee reluctance clashes with labor realities as asylum seekers, banned from working, build Japan's roads

Mazlum Balibay paves Japan's roads, digs its sewers and lays its water pipes — all for a country that doesn't want him.
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Jul 16, 2016

Ultraman: Ultracool at 50

Ultraman has been defending humanity against monsters and aliens for half a century. We examine the superhero's enduring legacy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 28, 2016

Paris' Pompidou waves the flag of French art

Seven decades of art history; one masterpiece for every year, each created by a different artist from France or closely connected with the country; and all from the collection of an iconic Paris art institution — that's the premise of the current exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 11, 2016

Novelist Hideo Furukawa views the Fukushima disaster through nonhuman eyes

After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, critically acclaimed writer Hideo Furukawa experienced an unsettling "imagination meltdown."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 4, 2016

Black Illumination: Haruo Sato's lush, gloomy landscapes

Most of us, when we feel sad, assume there is a cause for our sadness. Often there is, and the feeling can then be addressed, diagnosed, resolved. But what about sadness without a cause? This is the terrain of melancholy and, while melancholy has a rich and varied history in the West, it takes on unique...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
May 28, 2016

Backstage drama on Ginza's Konparu-dori

A temperate breeze swings through the surrounding willow trees as I pass jewel-encrusted ball gowns in the display windows of Ginza Takaraya, near Shinbashi Station in Tokyo. I'm scouting out Konparu-dori, a street named for the eponymous noh troupe that was gifted land here by the Tokugawa shoganate...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 24, 2016

The Royal Ballet brings two classic romances set to sparkle afresh

In the competitive melee of world-class dance, the Royal Ballet keeps on its toes. Since 2011, when Christopher Wheeldon's groundbreaking "Alice in Wonderland" became its first new, full-length work in 16 years, the company based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, has been continually...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 18, 2016

Giving voice to foreign talent via the spoken word

Tokyo's English poetry scene gets a shot in the arm with a lively event night and new journal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 13, 2016

World was a stage for acclaimed theater director Yukio Ninagawa

Acclaimed stage director Yukio Ninagawa was a titan of global theater but his hand felt astonishingly fragile when I shook it in delight in 2012 after the world premiere of "Trojan Women," which brought together a remarkable ensemble of Japanese, Arab-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli actors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 22, 2016

Prince's desire for control of own music set example for today's musicians

Music legend Prince left as big a mark behind the recording industry scenes as he did on his millions of fans.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 19, 2016

Akiyama remodels the canon of clay

Artist Yo Akiyama has never been one to play by the rules. As a young student in the ceramics program at Kyoto City University of the Arts (Kyoto Geidai) in the mid-1970s, he quickly earned a reputation as a troublemaker, never content to accept his teacher's lessons at face value.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 22, 2016

Strindberg's surrealistic 'Dream' heralds a pivotal era for KAAT

He doesn't officially become Kanagawa Arts Theatre's artistic director until April 1, but Akira Shirai wasn't fooling when he declared, "I aim to make KAAT (the official acronym of his Yokohama base) a place where we take a whole fresh look at theater's role in today's Japan."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 16, 2016

The transformative power of Japan's 'magical girls'

There is one surprising thing about Japan's male-dominated — some may say rabidly misogynistic — society: manga and anime support women. True, there are plenty of examples to the contrary (take a short stroll through any Akihabara anime shop if you need proof). But at the same time, the modern Japanese...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2016

Predicting a crime you have not yet committed

Scientists have demonstrated that a computer can outperform human judges in predicting who will commit a violent crime. Whether to use this in real life raises many ethical issues.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 13, 2016

Why Abenomics is failing

Only when a synergy is achieved between easy money policy and a growth strategy to stimulate private-sector investments can the engine of a virtuous circle get started.

Longform

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