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May 01, 2024
 

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Donald Eubank
For Donald Eubank's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2008
Digital, rough and maybe deadly
Zaim is dirty. The floor is scuffed, the windows old, the building a strange maze of rooms with low ceilings. Compared to the slick show on a couple blocks away at this year's Yokohama Triennale, the exhibition space that used to be a government office building is beat-up and ready for trouble.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2008
'Masaki Ogihara'
Gallery Hashimoto
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2008
More far-flung festival fun at Sado Island's Earth Celebration
Niigata grannies munching on bento lunch boxes, tattooed Tokyo roughnecks pounding beers, an ex-military man in from London with two Shanghaiese kung-fu sisters: taiko (Japanese drum) troupe Kodo's annual Earth Celebration on Sado Island this past weekend drew an eclectic crowd.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2008
'Parallel Worlds'
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2008
Olodum at Earth Celebration
After last year's all-star lineup for Earth Celebration's 20th birthday, this year taiko drumming troupe Kodo mark the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil by inviting Olodum from the Brazilian state of Bahia to headline. An Afro-Brazilian culture group, Olodum started out in 1979 as a bloco afro (black percussion group) Carnival association that championed the African diaspora of Bahia. In the 1980s, Olodum pioneered a mashup of styles that came to be known as samba reggae. In the performances at EC, you can expect Kodo to meet their Brazilian rhythms with thundering taiko beats.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 5, 2008
Torifune celebrate the birth of butoh's founder
Last month in his ongoing series Japanese Cinema Eclectics, author Donald Ritchie screened "Horrors of Malformed Men" (Toei, 1969). An "unsung classic" of Japanese film, "Horrors" features the only cinematic performance of Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of the butoh dance movement. Hijikata, who would have celebrated his 80th birthday this year, died in 1986, depriving later audiences a chance to see his groundbreaking performances in the flesh.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 29, 2008
The last splash of spring
Tokyo's multifaceted gallery scene usually slows down a bit in the summer, so May has seen a whack of openings across the city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 15, 2008
Butoh — Omnivorous and best not defined
In a small studio in Kichijoji, a director is telling three dancers that their heads are potatoes rolling around on a plate. And their three bald pates, poking up through a single piece of cardboard that holds them together, certainly have the appearance of earthy spuds, wobbling uncertainly across the makeshift surface.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 8, 2008
An aura of controversy in the chase for the new
Ever since 1917, when Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal to the Society of Independent Artists' exhibition, arguing that it was art, anything has become acceptable. Artist Chris Burden shot himself in the arm in a Los Angeles gallery in 1971; Piero Manzoni canned what was allegedly his own feces and sold it as "Merda d'artista (Artist's Shit)" in 1961; Martin Creed had a light in a room flick on and off for the Turner Prize exhibition when he won in 2001. That work, "Lights Going On and Off," is now at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in a dim room at its latest exhibition, "History in the Making: A Retrospective of the Turner Prize."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 2008
Halls of light in a city of horses
Something for everyone — that seems to be the motto for the new Towada Art Center in Aomori Prefecture. With cash in hand and a desire to see their town turn around, Towada has banked on art as a way to bring back vitality to an area that has lacked it of late.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 10, 2008
The making of a market center
Almost everything was sold before he even arrived at Art Fair Tokyo, but that didn't stop gallerist Peter Nagy from coming to Japan anyway. The impulse to dip his toes into what could become contemporary art's next deep pool was just too strong to resist, so three large canvases by artists Thukral & Tagra from his hot Indian gallery, Nature Morte, made the journey with him.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 3, 2008
One huge fan of civilization
As long as you've at least half a sleepy eye slightly focused on popular culture, you've seen his art work, even if you never go to galleries. Up until two years ago, he'd never even shown in one, at least not the ones where you stand around sipping wine and eating imported cheeses.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 3, 2008
Orphan and the Old Single
Yamamoto Gendai, Tokyo's Shirokane
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 27, 2008
VOCA: A look at the state of 2-D
Given the profusion of events lined up for next week, it's easy to believe that Tokyo is going through a contemporary art renaissance. Since the opening of the Mori Art Museum in 2003, contemporary art has arguably enjoyed a higher profile than it has in the past 30 years in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2008
Making modern Japan
The suspension of disbelief required by kabuki is massive, making the possibility of a play failing to express its intended meanings always imminent. Rather than show you reality, kabuki tries to convey its most important messages in abstract and stylized portrayals of emotions, events and people — making it, as Tokyo's National Theater of Japan describes it, a "presentational" art rather than a "representational" one. Misunderstand the meaning of kabuki's actors and you are metaphorically left at sea.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2008
The mathematics of music
So forward-looking that it's hard to categorize him — Is he an artist? A musician? A conceptualist? — Ryoji Ikeda makes the music that we'll lull the robots to sleep with when they ultimately try to take over. Or that we'll use to convince ourselves that we are the robots.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 28, 2008
Human reeds swaying in a museum maze
It's dangerous to talk to an artist. Whatever you think of their art, after a conversation with them, you are bound to walk away intrigued, enchanted — maybe even disgusted (which isn't necessarily bad) — but mostly, hopefully, enlightened by a new understanding of their work.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2008
"Sarah Sze"
Maison Hermes 8th Floor, "Le Forum"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2008
Tilting the balance back to darkness
In the minds of casual observers, Japan is simple. Between lovers of tradition and those enraptured by Japan's quirky window into an urban future, it's either the former land of austere, honorable warriors or the current one of air-headed, emotionally overwrought manga characters.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 17, 2008
"Kazuharu Ishikawa: Dear friends"
Yukari Art Contemporary
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Yen rebounds strongly after first slide past ¥160 since 1990
The yen dropped to ¥160.245 per dollar on Monday before heading into the other direction to ¥155.01 amid speculation of an intervention by Japanese currency authorities.
Did Japan intervene to prop up the yen? Analysts think it did.
A man walks past an electronic board displaying the exchange rate for the yen against the U.S. dollar (right) in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
Golden Week crowds greeted with high temperatures as holiday period kicks off
The departure lobby for domestic flights is crowded with travelers at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Saturday, the first day of this year's Golden Week holidays.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

Podcast

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

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

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