Art Topics

The Towada Art Center expands its landscape

by Stuart Munro

Ever since the Towada Art Center opened five years ago, the city in Aomori Prefecture has seen its prospects dramatically alter. Not only by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, but by the subsequent devastation of neighboring areas, all of which compounded the dwindling prosperity of Towada. It ...

<em>Nihonga</em>: without the hand over the eye

Sep 18, 2013

Nihonga: without the hand over the eye

by C.B. Liddell

At its essential level, art is a battle between the eye and the hand; the first representing sensory input, the second artistic habit and convention. When the hand outweighs the eye, art can become over-stylized, clichéd, and eventually dead. Asian art has been particularly ...

Tokyo Photo 2013 heads for Zojoji Temple

Sep 18, 2013

Tokyo Photo 2013 heads for Zojoji Temple

by Jeff Michael Hammond

Japan’s first international photography fair, Tokyo Photo, strengthens its hold on the photography scene in Asia with its fifth yearly installment from Sept. 27 to 30 at a new location at the Zojoji Temple in the downtown area of the city. The move to ...

Real-world validations of our digital realm

Sep 11, 2013

Real-world validations of our digital realm

by Cameron Allan Mckean

“We are now living in a super, hyper-extended information society,” says curator Masafumi Fukugawa, “and that idea was the starting point for our new exhibition.” Fukagawa is one of five curators of “Being-in-the-Wired-World,” a group exhibition at Kawasaki City Museum that features eight emerging ...

The tireless patience of a behavioral photographer

Sep 11, 2013

The tireless patience of a behavioral photographer

by Stuart Munro

In Wim Wenders’ 1984 film “Paris, Texas,” Walt (Dean Stockwell) picks up his younger brother Travis (Harry Dean Stanton), who had disappeared in the desert four years earlier, to drive him back to Los Angeles. As Walt drives, Travis shows him a weathered picture ...

Shuji Terayama's underground public stage

Sep 4, 2013

Shuji Terayama's underground public stage

by Stuart Munro

Thirty years on from the death of Shuji Terayama, Japanese theater’s most avant-garde provocateur continues his renaissance with a show of his films, photography and, most importantly, theater works at the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, which follows on from the recent showing of ...

The poster nation of unusual graphic design

Sep 4, 2013

The poster nation of unusual graphic design

by Mio Yamada

Art often thrives as it wriggles out from under a big heavy rock. This can be said about creativity in Czechoslovakia from the 1960s to ’80s. As the nation broke free of Stalinism, careered toward the Prague Spring and then finally celebrated the end ...

Japanese collectors take a conceptual turn

Sep 4, 2013

Japanese collectors take a conceptual turn

by Cameron Allan Mckean

Echoing the choice of Koki Tanaka — a conceptual artist — for the Japanese pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale this year, “Why Not Live For Art? II: 9 collectors reveal their treasures” at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery suggests that art collecting in ...

Art fiction that keeps our thinking adept

Aug 28, 2013

Art fiction that keeps our thinking adept

by James Jack

What is the connection between Kampala in Uganda, Fukushima in Japan and New Orleans in America? Tsuyoshi Ozawa links these seemingly disparate places in his ongoing series “Vegetable Weapons”. The shape of a gun is formed out of local vegetables and photographed, before it’s ...

The Powers behind American Pop Art

Aug 28, 2013

The Powers behind American Pop Art

by J.M. Hammond

Brash, bold and unabashedly low-brow, much of Pop Art took inspiration from the imagery of popular culture to forge what many consider to be the preeminent art form of the mid-20th century. Starting from the 1960s, art buyers John and Kimiko Powers amassed what ...

Observing the world in Yokohama's giant Orbi

Aug 26, 2013

Observing the world in Yokohama's giant Orbi

by Toshi Maeda

What’s on show at this new, nature-themed high-tech museum should appeal to your senses — literally. Take in the smell of the ocean while watching penguins wander in the polar region. Feel the wild presence of the world’s biggest lizard right next to you ...