Tag - museum

 
 

MUSEUM

Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 14, 2013
The diverse works of Asian women artists
I don't normally visit exhibitions in company, but this time I made an exception and press-ganged a female acquaintance to join me. The reason for this was that the show I visited, "Women In-Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012" at the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Art, is an exhibition of female...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 7, 2013
Edward Steichen's great American Dream
“I don't think that many people in Japan know who Edward Steichen is,” says curator Miki Tsukada in a surprisingly honest comment about visitors to the Setagaya Art Museum's current exhibition.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 28, 2013
In New York, the Guggenheim goes Gutai
By now, the looks, character and history of Gutai, the post-World War II Japanese art movement born in 1954 in Ashiya, between Osaka and Kobe, are familiar to regular viewers of modern-art exhibitions in Japan. Last summer's "Gutai: The Spirit of an Era," a survey of the movement's evolution and its...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 28, 2013
'What We See' is not always what you get
Rendered as "What We See" in English, the title of this show should perhaps more accurately follow the Japanese one, which would be: "Dream, Reality, Illusion?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2013
Paul Delvaux's stuff of dreams
Once you see the paintings of Paul Delvaux you are unlikely to forget them. The dreamlike mood and quaint atmosphere is unique and hypnotic. But where does the mysterious power of his art come from? The exhibition "Paul Delvaux: Dream Odyssey" at the Museum of Modern Art Saitama (MOMAS) offers some clues....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 14, 2013
Driven to shoot on the frontlines
The camera never lies — or does it? The double-barreled exhibition now on at the Yokohama Museum of Art suggests that it doesn't always tell the truth either.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2013
Seeing the wood for Enku's Buddhas
While a golden age for secular arts, Japan's Edo Period (1603-1867) is broadly dismissed by art historians as a period of stagnation for Buddhist sculpture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2013
Hidden truths laid bare in the details of realism
With a population of around 35 million, Greater Tokyo is the ultimate "modernist" conurbation; a vast megacity, where something as old-fashioned as realist art might seem out-of-date and out-of-place. Maybe so, but on the metropolis' western and eastern extremities stand two museums that, each in their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 16, 2012
Izumo: The myths and gods of Japan's history
"Shinkoku is the sacred name of Japan — Shinkoku, 'The Country of the Gods'; and of all Shinkoku the most holy ground is the land of Izumo," wrote Lafcadio Hearn more than 100 years ago in his book "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." For Hearn, it had been an ambition to visit Shimane Prefecture's Izumo,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 13, 2011
Shedding new light on architecture and art
The floor is made of white concrete, but it hugs the contours of the ground so closely that it could be satin cloth. And the roof, apparently anchored to the ground only by a curtain of glass at its perimeter, appears to float in mid-air like a giant magic carpet.
EDITORIALS
May 3, 2011
Mental care for children
Many schools in areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami have started the new school year. Some schools, though, have no choice except to begin classes in early May because school buildings were damaged or were being used as temporary shelters for disaster survivors.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 24, 2010
Nibutani, Hokkaido: Travel, hospitality and the Ainu identity
Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands and much of Sakhalin. However, their culture in Hokkaido, dating back to the 13th century, was decimated after Japanese settlers began flocking to the huge northern island in the 1800s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 12, 2010
Cyber Arts Japan: As interactive as they want to be
"What are silk screen prints doing in a show of media art?"
Reader Mail
Nov 15, 2009
Christian principles abandoned
Democratic Party of Japan secretary general Ichiro Ozawa's comments about Christianity are based on a common impression of those who neither know nor understand the essence of Christianity. The West is "stuck in a dead end" precisely because it does not live according to the Christian principles upon...
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 14, 2009
Scholars worldwide react to planned National Center for Media Arts
Proponents of the National Center for Media Arts argue that it will help foreign researchers examining Japan's popular culture. The Japan Times asked prominent scholars from overseas their thoughts on the proposed facility.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 7, 2008
Tadao Ando: Icon and iconoclast
One of the first houses built by Japan's most famous architect, Tadao Ando, is centered around an open atrium. That sounds nice until you realize that the atrium forms the only "corridor" between each of the rooms. Fancy a hot cup of tea before bed on a rainy winter's night? You'll need an umbrella and...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 8, 2008
Atami's Kiunkaku ryokan: The art of a great garden
You enter Kiunkaku through a beautiful, tile-roofed wooden gate flanked by tall trees, reminiscent of some temple gates, which gives a hint of the purpose:historical grandeur you will find within.
Japan Times
Features
Jul 13, 2008
Top creators call for museums to save nation's modern heritage
What do industrial design, architecture, manga, anime, video games and traditional craft techniques have in common? Well, apart from each having spawned some of Japan's most popular cultural exports, the similarity is this: Japan has no national museums dedicated to their preservation, display and study....
EDITORIALS
May 23, 2007
Preventing suicides
Every year in Japan some 30,000 people kill themselves. Last year, a basic law to counter suicide went into effect, declaring that suicide prevention is the responsibility of both the central and local governments. A government study body has recently come up with proposals for suicide prevention plans....
EDITORIALS
Feb 9, 2007
China's courtship of Africa
Chinese President Hu Jintao is near the end of an eight-nation tour of Africa, which has renewed anxieties associated with "China's rise." Yes, the trip is proof of Beijing's expanding interests and its global reach. And yes, China's readiness to ignore misbehavior by its African friends and trade partners...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.