Monty Dipietro - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

May 5, 2004

Sometimes, for whatever reason, a "buzz" develops around an art exhibition, and soon everybody is talking about it. I'm still not sure exactly why, but there was a real buzz at the vernissage for "I Dreamt of Flying," a new Rika Noguchi show comprising about 40 photographic prints that is now showing at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Apr 28, 2004

Kanashii is a many-colored thing

For the longest time, my inner dictionary of prosaic Japanese simply tagged the word kanashii with "sad." But no more. In classical Japanese, I have discovered, kanashii has the dual meaning of both sorrow and tenderness, and can be written with the Chinese characters for either sadness or love.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Apr 7, 2004

Mario A -- a 'Japanese artist' who provokes admiration

"This is Not a Pipe," the title of Rene Magritte's 1926 painting of a pipe, succinctly illustrates a paradox in perception. On Magritte's canvas is a representation of a pipe, not an actual pipe, and so the title is perfectly valid. But how tempting to scoff at this, to regard Magritte as mischievous, slippery. That looks like a pipe, reasons modern man, therefore it is a pipe!

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Mar 31, 2004

Ishiwata's hands make 'Lightworks' at Uplink

In the event that you find yourself up in Edogawabashi, be aware that the northern Shinjuku neighborhood is not completely off the map, art-wise. Two very pleasant spaces occupy a building just a few minutes walk from its eponymous station -- the Uplink Gallery and La Galerie des Nakamura.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Mar 10, 2004

To view life in Lomotion, try denying the details

In photography and image processing these days, the general idea is that higher resolution and more faithful color rendition makes for better images. Of course, that is only the general idea. Thankfully, there are some creative types out there who disagree.

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP

Mar 7, 2004

Yayoi Kusama: Lost and found in art

Yayoi Kusama was just shy of 30 when she left her hometown of Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture and headed to America to meet her hero, the painter Georgia O'Keeffe.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Feb 25, 2004

Discovering the bright side of the 'dark continent'

When I was young, Africa and its people were represented to me through two distinct sets of images. The first, delivered by National Geographic and other anthropological sources, were the cliched photographs of tribesmen gripping spears in their hands and bare-breasted woman balancing baskets on their heads. The second sort of pictures I saw, these from Oxfam and other international aid organizations, were of dirty and undernourished children, abdomens distended from malnutrition, a terrible pleading in their young eyes. These images, taken by and for Westerners, fixed themselves so firmly in my memory that they remain there to this day.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Feb 11, 2004

Contemporary art currents crossing at Roppongi's Mori

"Roppongi Crossing," which opened last weekend at the Mori Art Museum, is a smorgasbord of an exhibition, with work by 60 artists and designers from across Japan.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Jan 28, 2004

A love/hate relationship set in concrete

In the classic 1971 British action film "Get Carter," Michael Caine plays a small-time criminal who avenges the death of his brother by tossing one of the gangsters responsible (played by Brian Mosely) off the top of a multistory car park in the gritty northeast England town of Gateshead. From what I learned last week, I'd guess there are more than a few Gateshead residents who wish Caine had tossed architect Owen Luder off the roof instead.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Jan 14, 2004

Zoom in on Shinjuku for photogalleries galore

Arguably the premier creative medium in Japan, photography has undergone significant changes over the last few years. The advent of digital imaging has made it easier and cheaper for people to experiment with photography, while the latest generation of inkjet printers have made it possible to display these images at sizes that were all but unimaginable just a few years ago.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Dec 31, 2003

Looking back to find new beginnings

New Year's is about endings and beginnings. People we've lost, places we've discovered, what's gone and what's to come. Some thoughts as we cross over:

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Dec 17, 2003

A family unit to value in tech's brave new world

The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Shinagawa used to be a family home, and it must have been a very nice one because it is a beautiful place, designed and built in the late 1930s in the Bauhaus style. The hardwood floors and comfortably high ceilings create a relaxing atmosphere in the one-time dining, sitting and bedrooms that now serve as galleries. In a couple of weeks, the Hara will celebrate its silver anniversary as a museum (1979-2004) and what better way to do so than with a show about families?

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Dec 3, 2003

Take a closer look

Contemporary art sure can be divisive. Every year, the British press fills with angry opinion pieces lambasting the finalists for that nation's Turner Prize. In the United States and elsewhere, citizens' groups regularly mobilize against the controversial in art exhibitions -- be it Robert Mapplethorpe's homoerotic nudes or Chris Ofili's paintings daubed with elephant dung. A lot of people, it is clear, think it very important that everyone should like all the art they see.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Nov 19, 2003

A helping handyman

Watching Didier Courbot at work, you would probably think he was a nut.

CULTURE / Art

Nov 5, 2003

Borderless abstraction

The Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Art defines Op Art as: "an exactly prescribed retinal response . . . repeated small scale patterns arranged so as to suggest underlying secondary shapes or warping or swelling surfaces."

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Nov 5, 2003

The goldfish have finally had enough

Long a darling of the Japanese photography scene, Mika Ninagawa's latest exhibition, "Liquid Dreams," brings a riot of color to the Parco Museum in Shibuya. Ninagawa has always been fond of bright and bold hues. What is most surprising about her new work is her choice of subject matter. Although she has enjoyed great success with pictures of people and flowers in the past, this time around Ninagawa has turned her attention to, of all things, goldfish.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Oct 29, 2003

250 reasons to be happy, then some

I'm happy! The reason I'm happy is I love art, and this month a total of four -- yes four -- new contemporary art spaces opened in Tokyo.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Oct 8, 2003

The future's so pink ...

In preparation for the arrival of Junichiro Koizumi, George Bush, Vladamir Putin and 18 other world leaders for the Oct. 20-21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok, Thai authorities have swooped down on the city. They have rounded up and shipped out hundreds of Cambodian beggars, thousands of stray dogs and tens of thousands of homeless people. The red lights of the Pat Pong and Soi Cowboy districts have been dimmed, and, if you believe some of the talk, brown patches in the parks alongside official motorcade routes have been painted green to look like grass.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Sep 24, 2003

Ito's embroidered art has got it all stitched up

The Watari-Um Museum of Contemporary Art in Shibuya is one of Japan's most respected private museums. Now, it seems, the beautiful, Mario Botta-designed art space has also become one of the country's leading supporters of young artists.

CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN

Sep 10, 2003

Enjoying the view from up on high

Last Wednesday, in the early evening, a tremendous thunderstorm crashed through Tokyo. There were blackouts, the lightning started fires, even the rain-or-shine Yamanote Line was shut down for three hours. Meanwhile, Yumiko Okui was putting up her show at the Kenji Taki Gallery in Shinjuku.

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