Julia Cassim - The Japan Times

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Julia Cassim

For Julia Cassim's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

CULTURE / Art

Jun 11, 2000

Public art goes to the grass roots

In the golden bubble days, when public money flowed like wine at an alcoholic's banquet, the urban landscape of Japan was colonized by sculptural objects of such widely differing quality that some areas took on the appearance of a garage sale. The public was not fooled and has treated these objects with the disrespect they deserve. They have propped their bicycles against them, stuck on fliers advertising this and that and let pigeons deliver the coup de grace.

CULTURE / Art

May 14, 2000

Triumph or disaster in Trafalgar Square

LONDON -- The jury for Trafalgar Square was still out when Prue Leith got stuck in her traffic jam. The debate had shifted elsewhere, to other public art projects that had similarly raised hackles or won praise, like Anthony Gormley's "Angel of the North." This 20-meter-high statue erected in 1997 above the A1 motorway at Gateshead near Newcastle was controversial, but safely in the north of the country where it impinged on no one except the locals. Leith's idea to place a sculpture on the fourth plinth brought the debate right back to a place considered the symbolic heart of the nation's capital.

CULTURE / Art

May 7, 2000

Of statues and men -- the fourth plinth problem

LONDON -- Trafalgar Square is all things to all people. For out-of-towners and tourists, it is where you have your photograph taken with the National Gallery and the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields as a backdrop, or of you feeding the pigeons or climbing Sir Edwin Landseer's lions. Four of them stand at the base of Nelson's Column, the central feature of the square. (Smaller replicas guard the doors of Mitsukoshi department stores in Japan.)

CULTURE / Art

Mar 26, 2000

Vast private collection housed in London's 'unofficial attic'

LONDON -- Museums in Britain are nervously awaiting the results of the Internet publication of an official inventory of 350 works of art in British national collections whose provenance in the period between 1933 and 1945 is unclear. More than half belong to the National Gallery and the Tate, 109 and 80 paintings respectively. Although the directors of both institutions stressed that nothing had been positively identified as property stolen during the Nazi period, there is a distinct air of nervousness in their public statements and of the other gallery directors involved.

CULTURE / Art

Feb 6, 2000

Mysteries at the top of the staircase

Be it the elegant neoclassical past or that of the Hollywood musical of the 1930s and '40s, staircases that are immortalized on canvas, paper or celluloid tend to be those designed expressly for a spectacular entrance. Hitchcock and other directors shifted the focus from the ornateness of the staircase's construction and the person who descended to what lay shrouded in darkness at the top, on the landing or behind the closed door.

CULTURE / Art

Feb 5, 2000

Calligraphy breaking the silence

For any child, gaining literacy is the skill that follows speech on their road to self-expression. The act of writing one's name is the first step to the establishment of a public identity.

COMMUNITY

Jan 3, 2000

Picture-book village looks to the children

Once upon a time, sometime in 1992, there were two communities, Kijo-cho and Ishikawauchi, nestled high in the mountains of Miyazaki Prefecture. As in many such rural communities, the sound of children's voices was becoming a rarity as young families left to find their fortune in the city of Miyazaki, 40 minutes down the winding mountain road.

LIFE / Travel

Dec 8, 1999

A life less ordinary: Anne Frank's legacy

Amsterdam must be the only European city whose most popular tourist attractions occupy different ends of the sliding scale that begins with virtue and ends with vice. It is likely that many of those who wait patiently in the queues that snake daily around the canal-side block where the Anne Frank Huis stand will make a similar pilgrimage in the evening to the red-light district on the east side of the old town. Doubtless no disrespect is intended, it is just that voyeurism is too powerful an urge to resist, and Amsterdam is a very small city indeed.

CULTURE / Art

Sep 4, 1999

Architect walks not-so straight line

In the 1960s and '70s, one book you were likely to find on the shelves of architect's offices and university architectural departments was "Architecture Without Architects," by Bernard Rudofsky -- a wide-ranging, predominantly photographic study of indigenous housing and structures built by man and insect.

CULTURE / Art

Aug 7, 1999

Through the unflinching eye of realism

Most painters, whatever style they eventually adopt, generally start their career by setting their own likeness down on canvas. It is a kind of baptism by fire attempted once and usually abandoned. This we know because there are far fewer portraits of artists in middle or old age than in their youth. For while the self is best known to self, capturing its essence in one image so that it transcends physical appearance is a mighty difficult affair. The eyes may be mirrors of the soul, but in realistic portraits there are too many temptations to gild the lily and enhance both them and the other bits.

CULTURE / Art

Jul 31, 1999

Putting art back into everyday life

The Kanazawa Citizen's Art Center belies the truth of the expression that you cannot put new wine into old skins.

LIFE / Travel

Jun 2, 1999

Learning through landscapes

ARBORFIELD CROSS, England -- When Susan Humphries was appointed head of the Coombes Infant School in Arborfield Cross, Surrey, an hour's drive from London, it was doubtless a satisfying moment in career terms. A school of her own at last. What she did not realize, and is likely to dismiss modestly today, was how far-reaching her educational example would prove. The wall at the entrance to the school, covered from ceiling to floor with environmental education awards, tells part of the story.

CULTURE / Art

Apr 14, 1999

A British art gallery finds an answer to a perennial problem

SOUTHAMPTON, England -- The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is generally acknowledged to be the world's first modern museum worthy of the title. Unlike its predecessors, it was not just a cabinet of curiosities -- archaeological relics and anthropological wonders amassed by some explorer and shown in his own home. Nor was it a rich man's art collection that stayed firmly attached to his walls but still called itself a picture gallery. The Ashmolean was specifically designed for the public display of its collection -- and therein lies the difference.

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

Leading Japan’s sustainability from Tokyo

Leading Japan’s sustainability from Tokyo

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