Monty Dipietro - The Japan Times

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Monty Dipietro

For Monty Dipietro's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

CULTURE / Art

Sep 9, 2000

Photographer, gallery meet at the edge of Shinjuku

You'd never suspect it to look at the polite 27-year-old German photographer, but a survey of David Steets' work can lead to no other conclusion: Here is a man who loves to live on the edge.

CULTURE / Art

Aug 19, 2000

Colors just the way she wants them

What we have here is a gallery whose walls are bare.

CULTURE / Art

Jul 30, 2000

Of solitude and simple settings

In the early 20th century, Europe played host to a procession of distinct art movements which continued until a procession of black boots stomped the creative life out of the continent.

CULTURE / Art

Jul 23, 2000

True gem in the rough of Aichi

The first time you see her, Mika Kato does not appear very different from the typical young female Tokyo contemporary art insider, another of the attractive and sophisticated sort that flutter from gallery opening to gallery opening each Friday evening to sip white wine and style the scene so fashionably, so snobbishly.

CULTURE / Art

Jun 17, 2000

Putting things into perspective

Imagine a social mixer for celestial beings. A casual affair, a brunch maybe, with olives and wine and the tones of a harp wafting through the ether. Our God is there, looking good, and by way of introduction he reaches into his wallet and takes out some photographs to pass around for the other cosmic deities to look through. God does this with the pride of a father showing snapshots of his newborn daughter, and that is because these are pictures of his planet.

CULTURE / Art

Jun 3, 2000

Paintings that invite you to linger longer

The first thing you notice are the fingers. These are big, long fingers, four of them radiating outward from each half of a stretching oil on canvas diptych the artist calls "Double Fist."

CULTURE / Art

May 5, 2000

Swimming 'Sea Monkeys' and rolling digital mice

Sometimes you just get lucky. That, better than anything else, works for me as the reason why the unfocused, gadget-dependent and low-tech exhibition "New Media New Face/New York" manages, against the odds, to end up being a fairly good show.

CULTURE / Art

Apr 22, 2000

Myriad layers emerge in Matsue's macrovision

On the wall is a field of 24 monochrome prints, light gray in tone, arranged in an eight-by-three horizontal grid. From a distance, the pictures all appear to be similar. They look a little like simple texture shots -- you know, burlap, canvas, that sort of thing. But step a little closer to Taiji Matsue's installation and the whole world begins to emerge.

CULTURE / Art

Mar 25, 2000

Artist places new focus on gender roles in Japanese art

If one were to compile a list of things taboo in Japan, it would read a little like a catalog of Yoshiko Shimada's subjects over the last 10 years. Shimada, 41, has addressed feminist politics in general, the Korean sex slaves Japanese media euphemize as "comfort women" in particular, and even (gasp!) the Emperor. It could be a result of the several years Shimada lived in Berlin, where art activists are as welcome and common as big frothy steins of beer, but this is one Japanese female artist who is driven to an exploration of the "difficult" issues that many of her compatriots would prefer to avoid.

CULTURE / Art

Mar 11, 2000

Installation launches attack on grandma

There are those who get a warm fuzzy feeling when they are reminded of the trappings of their middle-class childhood: the lace curtains over the sitting room window that wafted in the afternoon breeze; the old wooden wardrobe that sat in a corner of a bedroom; the bowl of peppermints at Grandma's.

CULTURE / Art

Feb 19, 2000

The outsiders: uniformly nonconformist

There is a giant mass of a figure towering in the center of the room, all wrapped up in a surreal green and white outfit from the top of the head to the bottom of the stiletto heels, leaving only a heavily larded face to shine out in a playfully menacing manner. There is a half-naked, gender-bending individual prancing around with an electric "I Love Anal" sign flashing atop his fluorescent pink wig. Meanwhile, standing at the doorway in a morning coat and striped trousers, wearing a sash with the title of his exhibition draped across his chest, is the ringleader of this quasi-Parisian art circus: Masayuki Yoshinaga.

CULTURE / Art

Feb 12, 2000

A new talent blooms in the Kyoto school

Some eight years, when Chieko Oshie was a student at the Kyoto City University of Art, she went out walking on the grounds and chanced upon a wild burdock plant in bloom. It was something in the colors that caught her eye, and the plant became a favorite of the young student's fancy. When autumn came and the hues began to change, Oshie's interest was piqued. She began to draw and paint pictures of burdock. She hasn't stopped since.

CULTURE / Art

Jan 22, 2000

Ginza's Satani Gallery closes doors with clearance sale of collection

It was immediately evident that something was very different.

CULTURE / Art

Nov 20, 1999

Something in the air of Japan's 'Deep South'

They were known as the "girlie photographers," dozens of young female photographers who elbowed their way through the society of cameramen to rise to prominence in Japan during the early 1990s. And as the media loves an underdog, critics loved so-called onnanoko shashinka.

CULTURE / Art

Oct 2, 1999

The duality of light and shadow at the crossing of diverging roads

At first glance, the photographs of Ralph Gibson and those of Robert Mapplethorpe appear to have little in common. Gibson (b. 1939) is a graduate of the school of "straight photography" (the term applies to a classic approach, not one's sexual orientation, although further differences between the two artists could be explored here). On the other hand, Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989 at age 42, is regarded as perhaps the most controversial photographer of our times, a man whose irreverent lifestyle and homoerotic nudes ignited in America a series of protests and debates about censorship and arts funding that raged through the late 1980s and early 1990s.

CULTURE / Art

Apr 17, 1999

Kobayashi stirs up the still-life genre with brushes, oil and inspiration

In these times of multiplying media choices, it is not uncommon to find those artists whose interests run to realism tripping the shutters of cameras, while their more introspective contemporariesput brush to canvas, with often grand or abstract results. The painter, after all, works from an inner source of impressions, ideas and emotions, while the photographer creates from concrete subjects found in the environment. The serious still-life painter, it seems, has fallen in the divide.

CULTURE / Art

Apr 3, 1999

New faces fail to make an impression

It is more than a little strange to be greeted at the entranceway to an art exhibition by a sign which warns that the work on the walls inside might be better appreciated if visitors lowered their expectations. But the text posted outside the NTT Intercommunication Center's current "New Media New Face 01" show says just about that in its description of "works which, while they may lack in technical development or may not be sufficiently refined, attempt to develop a variety of fresh and highly interesting ideas." As for the participating artists, the sign goes on to describe them as "creators [who] will only later reach perfection."

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.

The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Students ‘study abroad’ on island of Suo Oshima

Students ‘study abroad’ on island of Suo Oshima

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