Art Topics

The beauty of 'man'-kind

Aug 7, 2013

The beauty of 'man'-kind

by Yoko Haruhara

While the ukiyo-e woodblock prints depicting beautiful young Japanese women of the Edo Period (1603-1867) are world-renowned, an equally worthy genre and common theme tends to get overlooked: that of handsome men. The imaginative exhibition “Handsome Boys and Good-looking Men of Edo,” currently on ...

Big works buoyed by Dojima River's 'Little Water'

Jul 31, 2013

Big works buoyed by Dojima River's 'Little Water'

by Mio Yamada

Standing in front of the largest work at the Dojima River Biennale, currently showing at the Dojima River Forum in Fukushima, Osaka, is a mesmerizing experience. A 10-meter-tall digital projection of an ethereal cascading waterfall, it glows mysteriously as its gentle rumbling permeates the ...

Understanding the fun side of Surrealism

Jul 31, 2013

Understanding the fun side of Surrealism

by C.B. Liddell

Part of the reason for the success of Surrealism in the 1920s and ’30s was its sexual dimension. This element, covered over by a veneer of respectable intellectualism, had a powerful attraction at a time when sexuality was much more circumscribed by social morality ...

Crawling through the mud in style

Jul 24, 2013

Crawling through the mud in style

by Robert Yellin

It’s quite fitting that the major Osamu Suzuki (1926-2001) retrospective, the first since the ceramicist’s passing, is taking place at The National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, the hometown of the artist. Suzuki was one of Japan’s most important ceramic artists of the ...

The Pushkin's masterpieces cannot fail to inspire

Jul 24, 2013

The Pushkin's masterpieces cannot fail to inspire

by C.B. Liddell

There are a lot of people who wish that art had simply stopped around 1911 or so. If it had, we would have been spared many of the monstrosities that modern art then proceeded to unleash — urinals in art galleries, randomly distributed paint, ...

The different brush strokes of Tani Buncho

Jul 17, 2013

The different brush strokes of Tani Buncho

by Rhiannon Paget

The latest exhibition at the Suntory Museum of Art commemorates the 250th anniversary of the birth of Tani Buncho — a painter, connoisseur and art historian of formidable energy and with an insatiable drive for knowledge. Of samurai lineage, Buncho underwent foundational art training ...

Contact Gonzo explores  our animal instincts

Jul 11, 2013

Contact Gonzo explores our animal instincts

by Alisa Yamasaki

Improvisation group contact Gonzo will collaborate with Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media on Aug. 24-26 to present “Hey you, ask the animals,” an outdoor tour that encourages participants to create their own trails through the same kind of instinctive movements an animal would ...

Experiments in the wild

Jul 11, 2013

Experiments in the wild

by Tomoko Otake

Ten years ago, when a new cultural facility opened in the western Japan city of Yamaguchi, its founders sought to fulfill a role quite different from those museums in the countryside. Unlike many public museums in rural Japan that function as touring venues for ...

Nishio takes apparel approach to art

Jul 11, 2013

Nishio takes apparel approach to art

by Alisa Yamasaki

Yoshinari Nishio is one of the winners of the “Life by Media” competition at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) and is currently displaying his project, “Pubrobe,” there until Sept. 1. It’s an atypical piece, a station where people lend and borrow clothes for ...

Surveying the city from a different viewpoint

Jul 10, 2013

Surveying the city from a different viewpoint

by Stuart Munro

Beside Stephan Balkenhol’s sculpture “Big Head with Three Part Relief” a note reads, “Nothing here is as it should be.” This figureless “head” set against a black void represents “Mr. Everyman,” that common figure, detached from his surround and considering his place in the ...