Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Art 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 ...
Art 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 ...
Openings outside Tokyo Aug 21, 2013
'Exhibition of 92-Year-Old Photojournalist Kikujiro Fukushima'
by Alisa Yamasaki
Kikujiro Fukuyama has been a photojournalist for 67 years and is still active at age 92. He first earned critical acclaim in 1960 for his work that followed the lives of a Hiroshima family for a decade, revealing the lasting effects and consequences of ...
Openings in Tokyo Aug 14, 2013
'Mitsuaki Iwago: Cats and Lions'
by Alisa Yamasaki
The prolific animal photographer Mitsuaki Iwago is currently showing many of his well-known wildlife images at the Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum. For this Tokyo exhibition, however, he divulges a specific passion for cats, both wild and domestic. Iwago compares city strays and pets with ...
Openings in Tokyo Aug 7, 2013
'Mitsuaki Iwago's Photo Exhibition "Animal Family"'
by Alisa Yamasaki
Prominent wildlife photographer Mitsuaki Iwago has been documenting animals more than 40 years, with some of his work being featured on the cover of National Geographic magazine. Based around the themes of Family and Connection, this show presents around 200 images — from African ...
Art Jun 27, 2013
What provoked Japan's contemporary photography?
by Mio Yamada
In 1968, as the world reeled from The Prague Spring, the turbulent union and student strikes in France, and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Japan, like so many other nations, found itself in the midst of social unrest. Citizens questioned ...
Openings in Tokyo Jun 27, 2013
'Andreas Gursky'
by Natasha Vik
Hailing from Germany, Andreas Gursky has long been one of the most revered names in contemporary photography. In his images, Gursky captures the repeated patterns of cityscapes on such a massive scale that they almost appear abstract. This exhibition, which is Gursky’s first solo ...
Art Jun 20, 2013
Are we all blinded by our sense of beauty?
by Stuart Munro
Sophie Calle is an enigma. She is an artist, writer, photographer and filmmaker yet doesn’t work exclusively in any of these areas. She has become famous for her work in photography but her objects and later films have drawn equal attention — work that ...
Openings outside Tokyo Jun 20, 2013
'Special exhibition on the 120th anniversary of Ryukyu Shimpo; 42 tumultuous years in Okinawa, as seen through the eyes of photojournalists'
by Marie Omata
Hiroaki Yamashiro, three-time winner of the Kyushu-Okinawa photojournalist association award, has been documenting Okinawa’s history, its vanishing culture and rare aspects of its nature for more than 40 years. To commemorate Okinawa’s Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper’s 120th anniversary, this exhibition presents 200 photographs that Yamashiro ...
Art Jun 13, 2013
Observing the present and past is to see into the future
by Stuart Munro
For the past 48 years, Daido Moriyama has followed his photographic instinct, drawn to subjects whose characters appear as vibrant as they are tragic while leaving the question of which for us to decide. The act of exhibiting, through the unraveling of images, has ...
Openings in Tokyo Jun 6, 2013
'World Press " Photo 2013'
by Alisa Yamasaki
Now in its 56th year, the World Press Photo Contest has expanded its categories to include sports and portraiture to reflect those growing trends in photojournalism. The competition attracted more than 5,000 applicants, and the winning photos are currently on world tour, now making ...
Art May 23, 2013
The humor of candid camera
by C.B. Liddell
With the advent of the digital camera, mobile phones and social networking, the world is now drowning in photographic imagery. This raises the question: Can photography survive as an art form in a world where it is ubiquitous? The exhibition of work by Kayo ...