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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 18, 2014

'Guess What? Hardcore Contemporary Art's Truly a World Treasure'

Contemporary artworks are rarely described as "world treasures," but here The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo has come up with its own definition of the phrase. These are works that are literally "treasures" in terms of their high market value, but also because of their ability to convey universal...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 31, 2014

Modern cat tale echoes former feline fiction

That the Japanese are great cat-lovers should come as no surprise: a taste for the elegant, the mysterious and the quirky leads in a feline direction, after all. There are paintings of cats from the classical period of the imperial court and prints from the more popular ukiyo-e of the Edo Period (1603-1867)....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 23, 2014

French to the fore on SPAC's 2014 festival menu

It is often said that "variety is the spice of life," but in the multifarious world of theater it is more a staple than a special condiment. That said, "variety" is the keyword chosen by Satoshi Miyagi, artistic director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC), to capture the upcoming and especially...
EDITORIALS
Apr 15, 2014

Flawed foreign labor plan

The Abe administration's sudden plan to use participants in a controversial foreign trainee program to fill manpower shortages in the nation's construction industry smacks of a ploy that benefits only Japan. The government must first consider how these workers' rights will be protected as well as how to avoid social problems if they are used.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 5, 2014

Fallout from the tax rise may hit in surprising ways

Prior to the consumption tax increase last Tuesday, from 5 percent to 8 percent, Japanese consumers were spending to beat the band. The local business magazine Economist (not to be confused with the English language newsweekly) reports that ¥4 trillion was spent on goods and services in recent months...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 2, 2014

When political agenda hinders aesthetic pleasure

The title of this exhibition is a clear attempt to evoke the idea of 'magical realism,' a literary genre that has been particularly associated with Latin American literature.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 2, 2014

Opening-night thrills with the NNTB

Although ballet-goers in Japan tend to prefer narrative works, the trio of edgy and abstract pieces from the 20th century to the present showcased last week by the New National Theatre Ballet (NNTB) may well have some revising their preferences.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 2, 2014

Obsessions bared over a dead dog in the night

"It's f-cking amazing! I don't know what else to say. I'm really happy and really moved and I'm so humble about that."
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 29, 2014

Chishaku-in: a Kyoto garden of deep repose

As a garden, Chishaku-in has many of the attributes of Japanese landscape design that should attract a good number of visitors. The fact that the temple in Kyoto's southeastern Higashikawara-cho district is rarely crowded, and that scant attention is paid to it in guidebooks, is therefore somewhat surprising....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 22, 2014

Go potter in Mashiko

If a visitor to Mashiko had any doubts about the town's dedication to pottery, the giant, iconic stoneware jar that stands near the station ticket barrier, would dispel them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 5, 2014

'Mt. Fuji, Cherry Blossoms, and Flowers in Spring'

Yamatane Museum of Art is saluting last year's inclusion of Mount Fuji as a World Cultural Heritage Site with this special and classic exhibition of Mount Fuji works.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 5, 2014

Centre Pompidou picks the fruits of its curatorial success

Fruits of Passion' displays contemporary works that were acquired during the last decade by the Musu00e9e National d'Art Moderne (MNAM), Centre Pompidou. The exhibition begins, though, with the final threads of modernism.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THREE YEARS AFTER 3/11
Mar 5, 2014

Tohoku finding real recovery hard to come by

Yumiko Onodera is a survivor. She saw her town of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, devastated by gigantic tsunami and ensuing fire from damaged heavy oil tanks at the major fishery port on March 11, 2011.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Mar 2, 2014

Composer Shibuya tests limits of music

One November evening in Paris, Theatre du Chatelet was packed with people who came to see the French premiere of a new opera by a Japanese composer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 26, 2014

'Fascinating Japanese Woodcut Prints'

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the Yokohama Museum of Art is holding an exhibition of around 220 works selected from its 1,600-strong collection of ukiyo-e (woodcut prints)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 19, 2014

NNTT debut peers behind the masks of 'Condemned' Sartre family

Until Japan was opened to the West in the mid-19th century, its theater culture mainly comprised traditional forms such as kabuki, comic kyōgen, bunraku (puppet theater) and noh.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2014

'Flying Expressions from the New Collection'

This exhibition focuses on the different forms of artistic expression of Maki Yamashita (1890-1973), Ryonosuke Shimomura (1923-1998) and Jun Tsukawaki (1952-), whose works were acquired by the Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City, in 2012.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2014

Making sense of cultural nonsense

In today's complicated world of mass media and communication, contemporary British artists are finding new means of expression.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 29, 2014

Once admired from afar, now enjoyed up close

Billed as an exhibition of masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), 'Admired from Afar' is the latest in a number of exhibitions of Japanese art from American collections.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2014

Encounters with the modern that both frustrated and inspired Japanese artists

When Japanese audiences turn their attention to modern art they tend to favor the 'original' works from the West, while foreign viewers all too often find Japan's foray into oil painting too similar to the Western model.
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 18, 2014

Will Japan prepared mean nature ruined?

"Resilience" is a hot topic these days — not in self-help books, but among policymakers worldwide. As governments become convinced that climate change is a real threat, they are taking steps to ensure communities can bounce back from the increasing impact of floods, storms, fires and droughts they...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2014

The extent of Puvis de Chavannes' stately influence

When you enter 'Arcadia by the Shore' it is not difficult to get a sense of why Puvis de Chavannes was so successful in his own day, and why his reputation later slipped far behind those of other painters then considered his inferiors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2014

'Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from The Cleveland Museum of Art'

The Cleveland Museum of Art, which houses one of the best collections of Japanese art in the world, brings 50 masterpieces to Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2014

'Private Utopia: Contemporary Art from the British Council Collection'

What happens when curators from various Japanese museums are given free rein to select works from the holdings of the London-based British Council Collection
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 8, 2014

New York's Apples make a big impression

In the last three months since I arrived in New York to study American drama with a grant from the Asian Cultural Council, a U.S. nonprofit dedicated to international cultural exchange, I have been to the theater more than 70 times — including at least a dozen visits to somewhere that's been a truly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2014

'Art and Poetry: Waka Inspired Masterpieces'

A picture is worth a thousand words. But, it seems, some settle for just 31 syllables. Or something like that.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT ENGLISH
Jan 2, 2014

Schools fret about assistant teachers ahead of proposed 2020 reforms

With education reform expected to place a great deal of emphasis on English, officials worry about the uneven quality of foreign assistant language teachers.
EDITORIALS
Dec 25, 2013

Rein in government spending

The government's draft budget for fiscal 2014, which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet approved Tuesday, reflects a lack of government will to reduce public spending and debt even as the tax burden on consumers is set to increase.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Dec 19, 2013

Comiket, where otaku come to share the love

The Tokyo International Exhibition Center, better known as Tokyo Big Sight, boasts an area of more than 80,000 sq. meters of exhibition space. It's the country's largest convention center and will host wrestling, fencing and taekwondo during the 2020 Olympics.

Longform

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