John L. Tran - The Japan Times

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John L. Tran

For John L. Tran's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?

Nov 16, 2019

Yoshi Shimizu: Curiosity and the camera

Taking an elective course on photography while studying business in California changed the whole course of Yoshi Shimizu's career.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 7, 2019

Yayoi Kusama: The underdog story of a Japanese art maverick

A documentary tells the story of Yayoi Kusama's battles with racism, sexism and mental illness during her 70-plus years of creating art.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Nov 6, 2019

The power of cultural and economic capital

Compared to exhibitions in which art objects are meant to seduce us into epiphanic transcendence, the works in "Surface and Custom," a group show at Shiseido Gallery organized by Berlin-based artists Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda, are more akin to frank expositions about the exchange of cultural and economic capital.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Oct 25, 2019

Bicycles and bees on Papersky’s Tour de Nippon

Papersky's Tour de Nippon project combines cycling with other activities, such as gastronomy, hiking and craft workshops.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?

Oct 19, 2019

Taku Sekine: Paris, liberty and cocktails

Shifting from a background in political science to studying languages and then training as a chef, Sekine says he only serves a menu degustation at his Paris restaurant Dersou because, 'I want to be free, actually ... from everything.'

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Oct 15, 2019

So much to say — so many ways to show it

Same-sex relationships, American bases in Okinawa, globalization, the Olympics, the atomic bomb, national identity, the exploitation of natural resources — 'Image Narratives: Literature in Japanese Contemporary Art' at The National Art Center, Tokyo, does not lack for hot button topics.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Oct 8, 2019

'Reading Images': Take the time to read into photography

The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum exhibition "The Time of Photography" starts with kitsch late 19th-century Yokohama shashin — hand-colored photos of Japanese scenes for sale to foreigners — and ends with the evanescence of Rinko Kawauchi's photography of everyday life made poetic through the artist's particular use of light and color.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Sep 24, 2019

Art at a science museum: When worlds collide

The premise of 'Illuminating Landscapes: The Integration of Art and Science,' as designer Taku Satoh puts it, is to explore 'art and science together, not separated, as is too common in today's world.'

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?

Sep 7, 2019

Mio Yamada: A life-changing cycle in Africa

Mio Yamada has a deep voice with a reassuringly matter-of-fact quality about it. She tells me that her day, like every day in Rwanda, is going to be spent troubleshooting. This is mostly what life is about for her at the moment: dealing with electricity blackouts, water getting cut off ...This affects her business, running Kiseki, Rwanda's first Japanese restaurant, but it's also just everyday life.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Sep 3, 2019

Julian Opie: A fascinating view of the mundane

Julian Opie's schematic reductions of people, animals and landscapes to planes of color may be fun and casual, but it's not just eye-candy — he gets us to see much more than he shows us.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Aug 20, 2019

Minimalism: Not as straightforward as it seems

It's 100 years since the Bauhaus art and design school first opened in Weimar, Germany, and the new Muji flagship store in Ginza is as good a venue as any to hold an anniversary exhibition celebrating the values of simple, affordable modernist design.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?

Aug 17, 2019

Shiori Aiba: Getting the right paperwork

Life in Berlin inspires textile designer Aiba to branch out into jewelry.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Aug 10, 2019

Reborn-Art Festival: A Tohoku community gets a new lease on life

Climbing the stairs of Ishinomaki's first department store, built in 1930, I can hear the sound of a man singing and the gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar. The voice is not one of a professional crooner; it's raspy and unsure, and sounds like an amateur retelling a tale of sorrow without too much regard for being melodious or soothing. Arriving at the second floor, I can see hundreds of rice bowls filled with water and arranged into circles. A picture of an eye floats in each one.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Aug 6, 2019

'What Do You See When You Look at Pictures?': Reading between the brushstrokes

'What Do You See When You Look at Pictures?,' the current exhibition at the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, presents itself as an exercise in visual literacy and is full of thoughtful provocations.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jul 2, 2019

Sachiko Kazama: Objections on paper

Sachiko Kazama's epic black-and-white compositions scratch at the history of Japanese fascism, refusing to let it hide behind prevarication and bad text books.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jun 25, 2019

Tadanori Yokoo: From the shadows within

The blotchy, salty self-portrait that confronts you as you enter Tadanori Yokoo's exhibition of recent work "B29 and Homeland: From My Childhood to Andy Warhol" (2018) has a hangman's noose in the top left corner. This recalls one of the artist's most renowned works, the 1965 "Having Reached a Climax at the Age of 29, I Was Dead," a vividly colored and exuberant silkscreen print that juxtaposed the image of a hanged man with the backdrop of the Rising Sun flag design.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jun 4, 2019

Ryuji Miyamoto: Looking back to go forward

'Invisible Land' at the TOP Museum doesn't showcase Ryuji Miyamoto's best-known works. Instead, it offers insight into the photographer's development of a style that led to international recognition.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

May 28, 2019

Yu Araki: What you get is what you see

The minimalist elegance of Yu Araki's 'Le Souvenir Du Japon' at first seems to be an affirmation of civilization and the redemptive possibilities of beauty; however, within the gorgeous setup is a postcolonial ambivalence about the social and historical conditions of 'taste.'

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 21, 2019

'Roppongi Crossing': The right connections

If you're going to see big cartoon characters in an art gallery, the Mori Art Museum (MAM) is a good place to do it.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 18, 2019

Kyotographie 2019: It's in the space

The banner image for "Vibe," the seventh edition of the Kyotographie International Photography Festival, is Scotsman Albert Watson's sepia-tinted portrait of Ryuichi Sakamoto, which was used for the musician's 1989 album "Beauty." It's an outrageously self-indulgent image, but so gorgeous, and the album itself so perfect, the indulgence can absolutely be forgiven. As an event that covers a broad range of photography appealing to different audiences, Kyotographie may never be able to hit all the right notes for everybody, nevertheless, this is Japan's most comprehensive, and most beautifully set event dedicated to the medium.

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

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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