March 29-June 16 The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) is re-opening after almost three years of renovation work. To celebrate, it has selected some of the best pieces of its collection of more than 5,400 works for an exhibition surveying 100 years of Japanese ...

March 26-June 2 When the capital of Japan was named Kyoto in 794, Toji temple was founded as a state-sponsored institution in order to provide divine protection for the nation and its people. In 823, Emperor Saga assigned Toji to Kukai (aka Kobo Daishi, 774-835), ...

April 5-June 2 Suiboku-ga (Japanese ink painting) developed from a technique brought to Japan from China during the 14th century. It later became an established Japanese art form, peaking during the Muromachi Period (1392-1573) through the work of Sesshu Toyo, Sesson Shukei. Hasegawa Tohaku (1539-1601), one ...

March 23-June 16 American artist Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) is well-known for his assemblage artworks — surrealist arrangements of objects that he collected and framed inside handmade wooden boxes. These 3D collages used clippings from books, photographs, various everyday objects and found items. His film works were ...

March 20-May 20 On loan from the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, this collection of 170 treasures from the Ottoman Empire reflects the diverse cultures of one of the largest and longest lasting empires in world history. In addition to costumes, jewelry, ornaments, crafts, tableware, ...

March 21-May 26 After two years of renovations, the Fukuoka Art Museum is reopening with its largest exhibition since its establishment in 1979. Three hundred exhibits have been selected from its collection of 16,000 works, covering 100 years from Japanese Meiji Era (1868-1912) works to Western ...

A Feb. 16 report on the country’s literacy has been causing a stir on social media, prompting a number of users to warn of impending intellectual doom. The report on Bunshun Online discussed a 2013 study compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and ...

March 15-June 30 When art director Katsumi Asaba traveled around the world, he found that humor played an important role in his communication with others and his perception of objects. Likewise, he chooses to express his own sense of humor through his designs and personal ...

March 14-June 9 Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82) was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848), a group of English painters, poets and critics who wanted to reform the British art scene. The Pre-Raphaelites dismissed popular mannerist stylized imagery and instead championed detail, realism ...

March 16-June 2 Seto, in Aichi Prefecture, first began producing ceramics in kiln-equipped potteries during the 13th century, giving rise to the term "setomono," which is now often used to refer to pottery in general. The area began mass producing novelty works, such as porcelain figurines ...