Jeff Michael Hammond - The Japan Times

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Jeff Michael Hammond

For Jeff Michael Hammond's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Mar 12, 2014

The many reinventions of Masamu Yanase

If ever an artist was in a constant state of reinvention, it was Masamu Yanase (1900-1945), now the subject of a full-scale exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama. "Yanase Masamu: A Retrospective 1900-1945" brings together more than 500 of the artist's works, large and small, for a comprehensive overview of his career.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Feb 26, 2014

Hi-Red Center's quiet actions still reverberate today

Few artists would consider cleaning the city streets, designing custom-built nuclear shelters or fighting charges of counterfeiting money as part of their activities. But then most artists don't share the concerns that the members of Hi-Red Center (HRC) had as one of the most radical art groups to have emerged from postwar Japan.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jan 22, 2014

Encounters with the modern that both frustrated and inspired Japanese artists

When Japanese audiences turn their attention to modern art they tend to favor the 'original' works from the West, while foreign viewers all too often find Japan's foray into oil painting too similar to the Western model.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Sep 18, 2013

Tokyo Photo 2013 heads for Zojoji Temple

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.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Aug 28, 2013

The Powers behind American Pop Art

Brash, bold and unabashedly low-brow, much of Pop Art took inspiration from the imagery of popular culture to forge what many consider to be the preeminent art form of the mid-20th century.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

May 2, 2013

An art expedition to Southeast Asia

Confronting the ongoing state of transformation that characterizes their native Singapore, two artists exhibiting at a new exhibition, "Welcome to the Jungle," adopt quite different approaches and media. Francis Ng in "Constructing Construction #1" turns his camera on an unfinished section of an ugly new highway, a speeding bus whizzing by. Hong Sek Chern, meanwhile, applies Chinese ink to traditional rice paper to map out a multiple-faceted view of the country's public-housing apartments in "Constructing Old and New."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 4, 2013

Exploring India's rapid urbanization, alienation

The art space now known as Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo was originally part of the luxury brand's store, designed by Jun Aoki and opened in 2002 in the fashionable Tokyo shopping district of Omotesando. It was reimagined in 2011 as a space for the company to showcase contemporary art, and is now holding its sixth exhibition, "Urban Narratives."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jan 23, 2013

The art and poetics of a domestic environment

Jaws dropped as American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, arriving in Japan in the 1980s, named Yasujiro Ozu as one of the directors he was most inspired by. Ozu, active from the 1920s up to the 1960s, was then considered old fashioned for his slow pace and lack of movement, and for the middle-class sensibilities of his dramas set, usually, in domestic spaces. He is still largely neglected by Japanese youth today, so one wonders how the art crowd will respond to two Portugese artists taking Ozu and mu, most often translated as "nothingness," a concept associated with the director's films, as the theme to their show.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jan 10, 2013

Looking out for the sound of art

In Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," the riotous clash of cymbals and blowing of trumpets in the hands of the revelers can almost be heard. In similar ways, artists from at least the Renaissance onward, have attempted to suggest the presence of music in their paintings. By the modern period, many artists had abandoned representational styles altogether and were beginning to consider the language of painting as akin to music, a development that gave us the dynamic and wholly abstract compositions of Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and other pioneers.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Nov 22, 2012

Step into the Lynchian world of oddities

While mostly recognized as the director of such films as "Eraserhead," "Wild at Heart" and "Mullholland Drive," David Lynch has long turned his hand to other media. About 80 of his works, encompassing photography, painting, music and short films are being brought together for an exhibition at the Laforet Museum. "David Lynch: Chaos Theory of Violence and Silence" includes some of his early pieces as well as those created in recent years, which are being shown in Japan for the first time.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Nov 1, 2012

Res Artis plots a path for future art residencies

The 1990s saw a tremendous emphasis, continuing through to today, on artist residency programs, run by museums and galleries, educational establishments or independent foundations and organizations.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Sep 27, 2012

Tadanori Yokoo prepares to 'move on' in different ways

Tadanori Yokoo, bad boy of the Japanese art scene since the 1960s, is showing nine works, most of which were made within the last couple of years, at Scai The Bathhouse in the Yanaka district of Tokyo. The small exhibition, titled "Destination the Teshima Art House Project" serves to not only showcase these specific works but to also introduce plans for a new museum on the island of Teshima in the Seto Inland Sea of Kagawa Prefecture. The museum will be part of Benesse Art Site Naoshima, which is centered on the bigger island in the area, and will host a permanent exhibition of some of Yokoo's works from spring next year.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Sep 20, 2012

The art of photography

This weekend sees the fourth installment of "Tokyo Photo" — Japan's first international photography fair, and now the biggest event of its kind in Asia. Since its inception in 2009, the fair has cast its net wide, and this year has more than 35 agencies and galleries taking part. Over half of them are from Tokyo, and they are joined by those from Shanghai, Berlin and Amsterdam, as well as some from New York, Los Angeles, London and elsewhere. With names such as Anders Peterson, Mika Ninagawa and Naoya Hatakeyama involved, the fair will have more than 1,000 photos on display, ranging from documentary and fashion to art photography.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jul 26, 2012

Japan's one-time rebellious artistic vanguard

The term "art group" barely does justice to the collective of artists in postwar Japan known as Gutai. Founded in 1954 by Jiro Yoshihara, the group renegotiated the borders of art, incorporating performance, installation and even the natural environment into their creations.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jun 14, 2012

Max Ernst: The artist who raised eyebrows with 'pictorial' texture

Despite several major exhibitions of his work that have been held in Japan since the 1970s, Max Ernst is still widely considered here to be one of the most difficult and obscure of the Surrealists. Constantly exploring new ideas, methods and materials, his art is perhaps less instantly recognizable than that of, say, Rene Magritte or Salvador Dali, and less easily fathomed. Presenting a solo exhibition of the artist to a public still largely unaware of Ernst's range, concerns and importance thus poses some challenges.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 19, 2012

Looking beyond the giant canvases

The image of Jackson Pollock as the archetypal American artist, making big gestures on giant canvases, is firmly entrenched in the public consciousness. Dripping paint on canvases laid out on the floor, working in rather than working on his art, Pollock epitomizes the rebellious artist, disregarding the figurative in a whirl of energy touched by higher inspiration. "Jackson Pollock, A Centennial Retrospective," currently showing at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, adds some depth to that depiction of the controversial and polarizing painter.

CULTURE / Art

Apr 19, 2012

Looking beyond the giant canvases

The image of Jackson Pollock as the archetypal American artist, making big gestures on giant canvases, is firmly entrenched in the public consciousness. Dripping paint on canvases laid out on the floor, working in rather than working on his art, Pollock epitomizes the rebellious artist, disregarding the figurative in a whirl of energy touched by higher inspiration. "Jackson Pollock, A Centennial Retrospective," currently showing at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, adds some depth to that depiction of the controversial and polarizing painter.

Japan Times

MULTIMEDIA

Oct 13, 2011

When the 'City of Water' was a font of culture

From the Byzantine times in the 9th century, Venice was a strategic trading center straddling Europe and the East. Venetian merchants traded wool and silk textiles for spices, grains and other commodities from Asia, making the city — and the Venetian Republic of which it was the center — one of the most powerful and prosperous regions in Europe until the start of its decline in the 15th century.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jun 23, 2011

Impressionists and friends: on the verge of the modern

There seems to be an exhibition of Impressionist art somewhere in Tokyo every year, such is its popularity in Japan.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

May 5, 2011

From within the 'outsider' came a wealth of imagination

"American Innocence, Welcome To The Realms of the Unreal" at the Laforet Museum brings together 64 paintings and some personal objects of the "outsider artist" Henry Darger, who was born in Chicago in 1892.

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

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.

The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces

By Stephen Mansfield

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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