National
NRA makes new reactor safety regimen official
The Nuclear Regulation Authority officially approves new safety requirements for reactors aimed at preventing disasters like the catastrophe at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Openings in Tokyo Mar 28, 2013
'Shohachi Kimura'
by Tomohiro Osaki
Shohachi Kimura (1893-1958) developed an early interest in foreign novels and other facets of Western culture. He first aspired to become a writer, but changed his mind at age 18 to pursue art and painting. Still interested in literature, however, he often contributed illustrations ...
Openings in Tokyo Mar 28, 2013
'Through Japanese Eyes: Paris, 1900-1945'
by Delilah Romasanta
Japan first became fascinated with Western culture after the Meiji Restoration (1868), when the country opened itself to foreign relations and trade. Keen to learn about, assimilate and reinvent cultural influences, many Japanese sought inspiration in Paris, which was then considered the art center ...
Art Mar 7, 2013
Hitoko Urago's 'Connected': blot-tests of portraiture
by Matthew Larking
Hitoko Urago pairs paintings — portraits with abstractions — though each work is not necessarily conceived at the same time. “Untitled (Lynda)” (2012), for example, depicts a profile of a black woman with big hair against a green background. She is paired with a ...
Art Mar 7, 2013
Such sweet strokes of the Impressionists
by C.B. Liddell
A horde of Renoirs and other works from the high-water mark of Impressionism have descended on Tokyo — rampaging in their quiet, colorful way through the labyrinthine exhibition spaces of Tokyo’s Mitsubishi Ichigokan. “Great French Paintings from the Clark” mainly presents a riot of ...
Art Mar 2, 2013
Chinese ink new future for 1,000-year tradition
Classical Chinese painters were masters of rocky mountains, but Liu Dan, one of a group of contemporary artists putting a new twist on 1,000-year-old tradition, sticks with just the rock. Liu’s minutely detailed “Scholar’s Rock” — a large-scale, almost photographic exploration of a single ...
Art Feb 21, 2013
Paul Delvaux's stuff of dreams
by Colin Liddell
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 ...
Art | Week 3 Feb 17, 2013
Art disaster turns out to have a silver lining
by Edan Corkill
A dozen paintings hang from the white walls of a gallery at the Museum of Modern Art in Hayama, Kanagawa Prefecture. Mostly prewar works by artists involved in the Proletarian movement, who focused on depictions of factory and farm laborers, the paintings are like ...
Art Feb 14, 2013
Breathing life into the forgotten and neglected
by Matthew Larking
Painter Daisuke Fukunaga (b.1981) states: “If the world is the stage of a theater, I want to paint the bustle of the things waiting behind the blackout curtain rather than the heroine.” His motifs are of things forgotten and neglected, but unlike his earlier ...
Art Feb 14, 2013
Go with the flow from representational to abstract
by Matthew Larking
For five years starting in 2007, Shinpei Kusanagi (b.1973) made monthly serialized paintings to accompany installments of Teru Miyamoto’s novel “Mizu no Katachi” (“The Shape of Water”) in the magazine éclat. Text and image had little to do with one another, though the small, ...