Andrew Maerkle - The Japan Times

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Andrew Maerkle

For Andrew Maerkle's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 8, 2011

'Mama Bush' puts black women in a powerful light

Based in New York, Mickalene Thomas is known for mixed-media paintings, photographic collages and videos that explore representations of beauty in art history and pop culture through images of African-American women.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Oct 15, 2010

Fischli and Weiss: Creative pile ups

I n 1987, the Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss completed a film of what can best be described as a dysfunctional experiment carried out in an anonymous warehouse space.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

May 21, 2010

New history of art in the 21st century

To the extent that it exists in the popular consciousness, contemporary art is frequently associated with ideas of "newness" and "antitradition." This is partly to do with the legacy of the early 20th-century Dada movement. Responding to the social ferment surrounding World War I, the Dadaists rejected received values of art and beauty, which they associated with capitalist ideology, and invented radical new approaches to creative expression. Ironically, in doing so the Dadaists set a precedent that scores of subsequent artists have since followed.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 9, 2010

Modernism put in perspective

Currently based in Seoul, Lee Bul is one of Korea's leading contemporary artists. She first became known for street performances incorporating provocative soft sculptures of her own design and then went on to create sculptures and installations commenting on contemporary culture and aesthetics.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 2, 2010

More than a few favorite things

Museum curators are usually in the position of assessing an artist's career, but rarely turn that same critical lens upon themselves. However, the exhibition "My Favorites-Index of a Certain Collection: Selections from the MoMAK Collection," which opened to the public on March 24 at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, was an opportunity to do just that for Shinji Kohmoto. Kohmoto has been employed at MoMAK since 1981, first as a curator and then, since 2006, as chief curator. Retiring this April, Kohmoto has turned his parting exhibition into an oblique retrospective of his own storied career and a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the museum system.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Mar 26, 2010

Chronicling a collection

Last fall, Tokyo's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT) quietly launched a series of exhibitions seeking new interpretive approaches to the institution's permanent collection of modern and contemporary art. Tucked away in a modest group of second-floor galleries, the first exhibition in the series, "Chronicle 1945, 1951, 1957: A Revision of Post-War Japanese Art," investigates three momentous dates in Japanese art history as well as the history of the museum's collection.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Mar 19, 2010

Reinterpretations of modern history

One of Japan's pre-eminent contemporary artists, Yasumasa Morimura is known for his gender-bending self- portraits reinterpreting canonical works of Western art history. His works combine aspects of painting, sculpture, set design, performance and photography, and often use humor to subvert revered icons.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Mar 5, 2010

Dan Graham: In defiance of convention

New York-based Dan Graham is a pioneer of conceptual art who has defied convention throughout most of his 40-year career. Born in Illinois and raised primarily in New Jersey, he started out by creating text-based concept pieces intended for distribution in magazines. Then he moved on to performances — using video recorders, live-feed monitors and mirrors to complicate the relationships between performer and spectator. He has since become known for making pavilions, large-scale works fabricated from two-way mirror glass and metal that balance between artwork and architecture.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Feb 19, 2010

Visions of art in an alternative key

In its own quiet way, Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions was one of the standout art events of 2009.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Feb 5, 2010

Spring blooms early in art world

Seasons play an important role in Japanese culture, which has long celebrated the appreciation of ephemeral beauty as a reflection of life itself. One of the most important seasons in Japan is New Year's, a time for families to gather and celebrate with several days of elaborate feasts. Traditionally, this holiday fell between late January and mid-February and led directly into spring, until Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873. Vestiges of this tradition, however, remain apparent in salutations such as "new spring" (shinshun) and "welcome spring" (geishun), somewhat incongruous as they are now written on New Year's cards sent in mid-winter.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Feb 5, 2010

G-tokyo: The 'boutique' art fair

Although its contemporary art market is considered small in relation to the country's overall economy, Japan has no shortage of commercial art fairs.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Jan 8, 2010

Yang Fudong on the beauty of living

Based in Shanghai, Chinese artist Yang Fudong has gained worldwide recognition for his multimedia installations incorporating material shot on richly textured, black-and-white 35 mm film. His five-part film cycle "Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest" (2003-07) was one of the defining works in the 2007 Venice Biennale, where each film in the cycle had its own viewing booth in a line down the center of the Arsenale exhibition hall.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Dec 11, 2009

Australia shows off Asia's talent

BRISBANE, Australia — Over the past year, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made waves in his country and across the region with his plans to spearhead the development of an Asia Pacific Community. Rudd is in part picking up where former Prime Minister Bob Hawke left off 20 years ago, when Australia played a central role in the formation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group in 1989. In terms of cultural exchange, however, a Brisbane institution, the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAG|GOMA), has long been at the forefront of developing regional ties through its flagship international art event: the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT).

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Dec 4, 2009

Nature's way of perceiving things

Born in Denmark to Icelandic parents, Olafur Eliasson is best known for large-scale works that, in recreating natural phenomena, ask viewers to reconsider how they perceive their daily environments. In the "Weather Project" (2003), Eliasson installed a blinding sun — made of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps — at one end of the cathedral-like Tate Modern Turbine Hall in London. And for the "New York City Waterfalls Project" (2008), he erected man-made waterfalls along the New York waterfront. However, such works are not merely spectacle: They emerge from deep consideration of how to create communal experiences that also allow for individual reflection.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Nov 20, 2009

Rediscovering Rebecca Horn

If you've been paying attention to recent contemporary art, both in Japan and abroad, you might be struck by the question "Why now?" during a visit to German artist Rebecca Horn's survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT), Tokyo.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Nov 13, 2009

No longer going straight to video

In addition to exhibition and workshop components, the recently opened International Festival for Arts and Media Yokohama 2009 (also known as CREAM) features a monthlong screening program of international feature-length and short films as well as prize-winning submissions to the CREAM Competition, which was open to works in all moving-image genres by amateur and seasoned artists alike.

CULTURE / Art

Nov 6, 2009

Not all smooth at CREAM festival opening

The celebratory mood surrounding Yokohama's new CREAM — Creativity for Arts and Media — festival was disrupted when one of the participating artists, Masaki Fujihata, unexpectedly announced that he would be withdrawing his work.

CULTURE / Art

Nov 6, 2009

Yokohama gets creative directive

In 2004, Yokohama launched an ambitious initiative to promote urban renewal centered in its Minato Mirai district called Creative City Yokohama. Rather than simply attempting to attract business, the Creative City initiative has focused on building cultural capital through the funding of alternative art spaces such as BankART 1929 and ZAIM, continued support for the Yokohama Triennale, first held in 2001, and the addition of educational facilities such as Tokyo University of the Arts' Film and Media Department.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Oct 30, 2009

Bringing SecondLife into the real art world

Born in Guangzhou in 1978 and now based in Beijing, Cao Fei is one of China's most prominent young artists, known for photographs and videos that combine elements of fantasy and documentary to reflect on cultural shifts since the country's economic opening at the start of the 1980s.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Oct 16, 2009

Love and light at Hara Museum

In 1979, when he founded the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in his grandfather's former residence in Tokyo's Shinagawa district, Toshio Hara was driven by the vision of creating one of Japan's first institutions dedicated to living artists. At the time there were precious few other venues for contemporary art and government support was minimal.

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

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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