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M/CLOUDY
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto aims to retract his remark that U.S. servicemen in Okinawa should use the local adult entertainment industry to avoid committing sex crimes.
Kan Yasuda's art somehow draws in the landscape, and entices in people, so that it is natural to explore the view through his structures and keyholes, to sit awhile atop a sculpture or to pose within their frames.
If you don’t get into the ring once or twice, then you’re a coward, Geoffrey Ima says as he describes people’s attitudes toward boxing in his hometown in Uganda. Ima has been in the ring hundreds of times and came to love boxing so ...
It may seem perverse to express nostalgia for a category of mental illness, but many sufferers, as well as some psychiatrists, regret the passing of “manic depression.”
Getting slapped by a a coach has always been, as far as I could see, simply another aspect of sports training in Japan.
Japanese modern art is often discounted as a mere echo of its Western counterpart. This is not so much because styles and forms have been imported per se, but because in their new environment they have failed to take on a life of their ...
After visiting the current exhibition of corporate art at Shibuya’s Bunkamura, I have arrived at a daring new explanation of Japan’s economic downturn. But more on this later. During the bubble years, while Japanese companies were working flat out to take over the world ...
Art does not exist in a bubble. Contemporary events, like the terrorist attack on America, affect the way we look at it. “The Homeless” (1998), by George SegalGeorge and Helen Segal Foundation photo / VAGA, NY & TOKYO Viewing the eerie, white plaster sculptures ...
Taro Okamoto (1911-96) is perhaps Japan’s most famous post-war artist. With his trademark artistic style, his eccentric, media-friendly personality and ready catchphrases, he presented the perfect picture of the inspired artist brimming with original ideas. Taro Okamoto’s “Face,” 1952“Animal,” 1983“Jomon Man,” 1982 Taro Okamoto ...
Times have certainly changed. Corporate art acquisition, once fueled by bubble-era prosperity, is now low down the list of boardroom priorities. “Mother Playing With Child” by Henri-Edmond Cross (1898)“Bathing Beach, Deauville” by Bernard Buffet (1959)“Portrait of Dora Maar” by Picasso (1941)“Marine” by Maurice de ...
Like a captivated child watching a magician’s tricks, we demand to know “how?” How, that is, did a surge of Italian creativeness 600 years ago seemingly lay the foundations of the modern world? A model based on Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine, from the ...
Western culture is replete with empowering images of women, from the warrior Amazons of Greek mythology to Wagnerian Valkyries to computer game and movie heroine Lara Croft. Western women are spoiled for choice when it comes to assertive role models. Japan, on the other ...
The great attraction of the Mona Lisa is the ambiguity of her expression. This allows the viewer to imagine, construct or project their own feelings onto the woman’s face. This quality, which Da Vinci was only able to create by skillfully blurring the corners ...
In most of the great European capitals, wide, impressive rivers flow through the very heart of the cities, providing the perfect setting for stately buildings such as the Houses of Parliament in London or the Orsay Museum in Paris. “Saika no Ato (Aftermath of ...
Living in densely populated cities, we survive by ignoring the crowd, by refusing to acknowledge those forced into physical proximity with us. The artist, however, is excluded from this luxury. He is expected to be aware of everything around him, including the seething mass ...
Anyone writing about Art Nouveau here in Japan is expected to deferentially mention the strong Japanese influences on this late 19th-century art and design movement. Indeed, the exhibition now at Shibuya’s Bunkamura of furniture and glassware from the important French Art Nouveau center of ...
There used to be a time when the Brits made all the heavy rock, while the Yanks turned out winsome, countryish pop-rock. Now all the heavy stuff comes from the States, while the U.K. is reduced to turning out the slow-fi, introspective rock typified ...