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.