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Donald Eubank
For Donald Eubank's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 23, 2010
In celebration of the yin of butoh
"In 1949, Tatsumi Hijikata saw Kazuo Ohno perform for the first time. He was moved and described Ohno-sensei's dance as geki yaku — like a powerful drug or deadly poison. Ohno-sensei was a dancer of powerful poison!" exclaims Takeshi Morishita of Keio University's Tatsumi Hijikata Archive.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 20, 2010
Immigration procedures face huge shakeup
As of July 1, there are big changes afoot for the laws governing foreign residency in Japan. Not since 1990, when the categories of residence increased from 18 to 27, has the Ministry of Justice's Immigration Bureau undergone such a wholesale reordering of its operations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 18, 2010
Colorful memories from William Eggleston's world
William Eggleston is not one to think too much about theory. While you might anguish over the "mediated nature of photography," he'll be out taking pictures. When establishing my lack of bona fides during our interview at the Hara Museum in Tokyo last week by admitting a scarcity of knowledge about contemporary art, Eggleston happily replied, "I don't know anything about contemporary art either."
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 3, 2010
Who's subscribing to Tokyo's new creative Tabloid?
If you want to launch a new cross-discipline creative space, you could do worse than invite pop diva Lady Gaga and flamboyant New York-based artist Terence Koh.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 9, 2010
'Roppongi Crossing' may be better when crowded
At the opening press conference for "Roppongi Crossing 2010," the U.S-based French artist Jules de Balincourt said that he was impressed how the exhibition revealed to him that the contemporary art being produced in Japan could just as easily have been created anywhere in the world — that trends in art here were the same as elsewhere.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 12, 2010
The world's most eclectic renter
"When you go out on the street and walk on the sidewalk, someone has decided where the sidewalk is. You take your car and drive the car; someone decided the roadway — you have a red light and a green light. Actually, we are funneled 24-hours around the clock through highly regulated spaces designed by urban planners. We don't even think about how we are controlled by these spaces," muses the artist Christo at a recent interview at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo's Midtown. "What we do, Jeanne-Claude and myself, we borrow that space and create gentle disturbances for a few days."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2009
To the cosmos and then back down to Earth
Artist Chris Bucklow has been many things: a writer, a curator and, just as relevantly, an amateur astronomer. A trip to Botswana to view Halley's comet was the impetus to finally leave London's Victoria and Albert Museum, where he had worked for 10 years, and take up art fulltime. The now 52-year-old Bucklow started creating paintings of how he imagined the electrical activity of people dreaming would look like from outer space, but, unsatisfied with the result, sought a photographic method to portray his visions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 4, 2009
Under the guise of medical history, the Mori gets radical
Don't be distracted by the big names showing at "Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love" — Da Vinci, Okyo, Damien Hirst — the jewels of the show lie in the obscure — timeworn or contemporary.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Nov 13, 2009
"Marcus Coates: Daiwa Foundation Art Prize Winner"
Tomio Koyama GalleryCloses Nov. 21
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2009
Traveling through a symphony of art
Several weeks ago at the Fuji Rock music festival, I realized that I might be in the wrong game. The art world is about the object: You look at a work, often something inert, and attempt to discern from it an emotion, a meaning or a truth. But music irresistibly moves you, it mysteriously reaches through the ear to some part of the mind that ignites a passion, elicits joy and maybe even makes you want to get your boogie on. Can static artworks compete with the power of rhythm and melody in succeeding in touching the soul?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 24, 2009
Bløf
Earth Celebration is certainly in touch with the times: Last year the taiko drumming troupe Kodo marked the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil with the Afro-Brazilian culture group Olodum; this year they are celebrating the 400th anniversary of trade relations between Japan and the Netherlands by inviting Holland's most popular rock outfit — Bløf.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2009
Deliberately insignificant gestures
While walking through the courtyard of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and interviewing critic Midori Matsui, a frog hopped out of the darkness, stopped for a moment in the light and then slipped back into the night. Matsui, who curated the Hara's current exhibition, "Micropop," had just been explaining in front of paintings by Tam Ochiai that what she looks for in works of art are things that disappear.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2009
Lights, mirror . . . reaction
S ometimes the cutting-edge is five years old. Take the current exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, "The Kaleidoscopic Eye: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection." Featuring some of the best of what the contemporary art world has to offer, by the time it's made it to the museum, the art world has already moved on. But audiences still need to catch up, and Francesca von Habsburg, the collector behind Thyssen-Bornemisza, wants to help lead them there.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
May 15, 2009
"Tetsuya Umeda: Science of Superstition"
Ota Fine Arts
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 2009
Man in a suitcase . . . with camera
"I love contemporary art, I like a lot of conceptual art. I've followed it for years, endlessly. I mean where do you want to start really?" asks Andy Summers in an interview conducted last week. "I spent quite a few years painting and all I did was think about art and go to museums. I was enmeshed in all of it. But I finally felt that doing photography was what I really enjoyed."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 16, 2009
The rocks of abstraction
In September last year, Anglo- Japanese painter Peter McDonald won the U.K.'s £25,000 John Moores prize for contemporary painting with a work, "Fontana," that depicted in simplistic shapes an artist thrusting a knife into a circular canvas. Or it could be someone attacking a giant eye. Or perhaps an update on Miro's floating blobs. And, quite probably, all three.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 1, 2009
Finding beauty in a world of waste
"If we live in a creative universe, we are constantly pushing the chaos out of the way to protect ourselves from the nonlogical — the natural," muses Vik Muniz at an interview late last year at Tokyo Wonder Site. "Even when you think, you create waste. But everything is made in a way to conceal the waste."
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 17, 2008
Tech like an Egyptian
Egypt may be known for its history, but this week in Tokyo some of its most advanced cultural technology will be on display. The Egyptian Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage is touring Japan with CULTURAMA, a semi- circular set of screens displaying the interiors of ancient tombs, the history of the pharaohs, and panoramic scenes of Cairo from the Nile, Alexandria and more.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 17, 2008
Art of Brazil on show
Japan is hosting a carnival of events to celebrate 100 years of Japanese immigration to Brazil this year, but Jacqueline Montagu has been promoting ties between the South American nation and Asia for more than two decades.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2008
'Diorama of the City: Between Site and Space'
Tokyo Wonder Site, Shibuya

Longform

A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world