Art Mar 25, 2021
Tokyo's art scene looks back at recent history
Asian artists and curators examine the present through the lens of the past.
John L. Tran
For John L. Tran's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Art Nov 12, 2020
Multidisciplinary collection in Tokyo depicts a paradox of restraint and restriction
The Fergus McCaffrey gallery has curated works that explore social and regional boundaries as well as the confinements of genre and convention.
Art Sep 25, 2020
The subversive happiness of Tom of Finland’s men
The exhibition, which is the first solo show of Touko Valio Laaksonen artwork in Japan, comes on the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth.
Art Apr 1, 2020
Japan’s art institutions struggle to cope with the COVID-19 crisis
Since the quarantine of the Diamond Princess, Japan has gone from being one of the world’s most at-risk countries to lucky outlier, to being again fearful of COVID-19 getting out of control. At the time of writing, the last 24 hours saw the postponement of ...
Art Mar 25, 2020
Lee Ufan: The same but different
Lee Ufan’s new paintings look very different depending on where you are standing. From a distance, when you can take in several of the large canvases at the same time, abstract shapes seem to emphatically announce themselves as existing; however, they are also pointedly ...
Art Feb 19, 2020
Barry McGee: Painting outside the lines
"Potato Sack Body" can be enjoyed as a semi-abstract display of shapes and colors, but there are also cryptic artifacts, notations and visual references. If you lived through the '60s and '70s, the overall design and color palette will remind you that those decades ...
Art Feb 5, 2020
Constructing the self in 'One's Behavior'
A chamber piece of artworks, "One's Behavior" explores both the connection and alienation that pervades the human psyche.
People | 20 QUESTIONS Jan 11, 2020
Yuko Kikuchi: Celebrating Japan's hybridity
As a professor of art and design, Yuko Kikuchi has some surprising things to say about mingei (Japanese folk art).
Art | 2019 in Review Dec 17, 2019
Creative expression stifled by 'safety concerns' in Japan
As the taboo-busting comic Joan Rivers used to say after pressing her audience's buttons, "Can we talk?" On the evidence of this year's Aichi Triennale, if it's about World War II atrocities, the answer seems to be "no."
Art Nov 20, 2019
Yukinori Yanagi: Resurrecting Akitsushima
For Yukinori Yanagi, whose work from the late '80s and '90s featured ants burrowing through national flags made of sand, nature is not synonymous with an anthropomorphically friendly "harmony" or "balance"; it's disruption, chaos, decay and metastasis.