Search - works

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 22, 2007

We make great pets

Imagine if you will a female Japanese artist who dresses as a hamster and scurries round amid wood chips and scraps of torn paper, wide-eyed, nibbling on croissant-size, cookie-dough "sunflower seeds." Yes, in this city with its insatiable sweet tooth for art, it does sound like yet another serving of...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Mar 20, 2007

Where can I get an original Japan gift?

Another creperie In reply to Sophie's recent plea for an authentic creperie in Tokyo, Yolande writes: "I am French and always enjoy the exquisite and authentic crepes served with delicious Brittany beer at 'Le Bretagne' in Kagurazaka. They also have a restaurant in Omotesando."
Japan Times
JAPAN / INNOCENT VICTIMS
Mar 20, 2007

Kids' group home a safe respite

Despite the understaffing and overcrowding, the atmosphere at the Kibo no Ie (House of Hope) residential home for children lives up to its name: It is a place of optimism, a place of warmth.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2007

Abe should be looking forward, not back

HONOLULU -- What was he thinking? That is the question most Japan-watchers grappled with following Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's fumbled questions about the imperial Japanese government's role in recruiting "comfort women" during World War II. His responses came close to undoing the progress he...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Mar 13, 2007

COSMIC WONDER, Shibusei and Monocle magazine

Cosmic reconceptualization
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 8, 2007

The Germans come to play

In most all of the world's larger cities, traditionally the grandest buildings have been religious in orientation. As places of congregation, they were necessarily characterized by large open spaces. As conduits to the spiritual, their design included surging spires, pagodas or minarets. The current...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 1, 2007

Storm clouds over an artist's life cut short

In the summer of 1924, fresh out of art school in Japan and settling into the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, Yuzo Saeki (1898-1928) was taken by his classmate Katsuzo Satomi to have his work critiqued by the Fauvist painter, anarchist and journalist Maurice de Vlaminck. Just when he was getting...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 25, 2007

Upstairs, downstairs and inside old Japan

Companions of the Holiday by Donald Richie, with an introduction by Timothy Harris and an afterword by the author. Tokyo/New York: Printed Matter Press, 181 pp., $15 (paper) Donald Richie is known to readers of The Japan Times for his regular reviews of books dealing with Asia, and more particularly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 22, 2007

Breaking into an insider's tea-drinking club

The term "gaijin artist" can be something of an insult to those who make Japan their home. It is, after all, parochial and old-fashioned to differentiate artists strictly on the basis of what passport they carry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 25, 2007

Dairakudakan dancers play with Josef Nadj

Speaking in Tokyo a year ago, Josef Nadj, one of the most respected choreographers in the contemporary dance world, said that for his next project in Japan he wanted to create something playful for the audiences in collaboration with Japanese dancers and Japanese culture. The 49-year-old Yugoslav-born...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 19, 2007

'The Departed'

When the Hong Kong thriller "Infernal Affairs" came out in 2002, it was apparent at a glance that the filmmakers had a thing for Michael Mann, and his film "Heat" in particular. All sleek, cool, blue-tinged urban noir imagery and equally cold, controlled performances, "Infernal Affairs" was a tight exercise...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 29, 2006

Mansfield Center eyes lay judge debut

A new system that gives ordinary citizens in Japan a role in deciding the outcome of criminal trials debuts in less than three years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Dec 28, 2006

Only representations of the real thing

Something recurring -- a style, a mood or a tendency that threads its way through the previous 12 months and, in doing so, traces a theme -- that's what I look for when it comes once again to appraising another year-in-art. This time round the resonating word is "representation."
BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2006

Tax yield lifts '07 budget

The Finance Ministry on Wednesday handed the Cabinet the fiscal 2007 draft budget, which, due to projected increased tax revenues, reflects the first spending rise in two years but also slashes the issuance of new government bonds.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 21, 2006

New show offers breakthrough installation

About a month ago at Tokyo's Shugoarts, photographer Yasumasa Morimura gave a performance in which he coopted the speech author Yukio Mishima gave from the balcony of the Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo in 1970 before committing ritual seppuku inside the building. In his performance, Morimura...
BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2006

Abe banks on continued growth

The government will cut new bond sales by the largest margin on record, curb spending across the board and take a sharp bite out of the deficit under the fiscal 2007 draft budget submitted Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 7, 2006

"Toru Seno: From Cradle to Grave"

Maru GalleryCloses in 24 days
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 1, 2006

Journey into the mind of a musical genius

Agnieszka Holland has long been known for translating classical/historical material into pop-culture matter (in "Total Eclipse," for instance, she cast Leonardo di Caprio as a punkish Arthur Rimbaud) and her latest, "Copying Beethoven," is a fictional biopic of the famed composer during the last years...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 30, 2006

A RETURN TO THE REAL

The dominant image of contemporary architecture in Japan is one of serene simplicity: spaces that are light, bright and weightless, in which structure and materiality are reduced to the minimum.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?