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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 13, 2007

The printer who wished to paint

Masuo Ikeda's polymath abilities in the arts — ranging from printmaking to writing and ceramics — is mirrored in his diverse depictions of feminine eroticism. Posed provocatively in Ikeda's works are his versions of Venus, virgins, brides, generic types and femme fatales, the Madonna of the Annunciation...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 8, 2007

New MOT curator aims to do a lot with a little

Yuko Hasegawa delivers instructions to her staff in an even, polite manner that often belies the burden they impose. It's a style perhaps more suited to a corporate boardroom than an art museum. But, since she took over as chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT), in April last year,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / DECENTRALIZATION SYMPOSIUM
Oct 3, 2007

More government money won't close urban-rural divide

Any attempt to close the widening gap between urban and rural areas by increasing public-works spending and subsidies from the central government will only cover up the root cause of the problem, Yoshitsugu Hayashi, an economics professor at Kwansei Gakuin University told the Sept. 18 symposium.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 30, 2007

Immersed in playful worlds

Tokyo Opera City Gallery has one of the best art spaces in the city, and a program that ranks it with The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo near Kiyosumi in eastern Tokyo and the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 26, 2007

Demented in NY

It's almost counterintuitive — in the midst of the glorious chaos that is China as it modernizes itself, Chinese painters are technically spotless. In their hands, paint has been tamed, a tool with which they slickly create canvases with flawless surfaces that almost hide their workmanship.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 12, 2007

Graffiti artist comes in from the cold with a varied show that keeps its street cred

Thirty years ago, graffiti stepped off the street to became the darling of the modern art world. With its visual diversity, and despite its defiance of those who viewed it as vandalism, New York galleries came to embrace it during the 1980s in the name of the avant garde. But as Japan's still small-scale...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 29, 2007

Third point of Roppongi

With the opening of Tokyo Midtown on Friday, the Art Triangle Roppongi concept is now complete. Comprised of the Mori Art Museum, the new National Art Center (NAC) and the elegant new Suntory Museum of Art -- part of the Midtown project -- the idea of a new precinct for art in Tokyo is ready to be tested....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 25, 2007

A great space waiting to be filled

Wow. It's huge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 14, 2006

Plentitudes to show

'The thing that has been consistently with me is the notion of creating something today that didn't exist yesterday; to make things for me is a kind of curiosity," says the prolific 55-year-old artist Shinro Ohtake.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 19, 2006

Playing with energy

Though on the surface it's easy to think everyone else has got it sorted out, things are not always what they seem. From time to time we all feel like a blip in the universe, trapped by things beyond our control -- whether unbending social powers, finicky laws, monetary limitations or annoying office...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 24, 2006

Contemporary Japanese edition prints

Many local goodies appeal to the expat population of Japan -- kimono, sake and next-generation electronic goods to name a few. The area of fine arts, however, can be daunting, with most paintings and even photographs by established contemporary artists priced from the millions to the many millions of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 6, 2006

Three artists piece together contemporary Japanese art

Art since the 1960s has reveled in a directional pluralism devoid of dominant mediums or movements, with no consensus on how the range of artists and styles might add up to a more significant whole.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2006

Successor inherits ever-unpopular deficit mess

Most banks have shed their burden of bad loans. The Nikkei 225 average has recovered from rock bottom and the economy is finally picking up. But what about Japan's debt-ridden finances?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 4, 2006

Bridgestone museum celebrates 50th anniversary

During the past 130 years or so following the Meiji Restoration, many industrialists are remembered not only for having made huge fortunes, but also for using part of their riches to amass collections of art.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 20, 2006

Outer turmoil and art as therapy

One of the quickest ways to understand an artist is to look at his self portraits. Van Gogh's reveal his intensity and passion, while Rembrandt's show the calm dignity to which he aspired in his art and his life, and with which he faced aging. But what is to be made of the self portraits of Horst Janssen,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 22, 2005

'Manga' publishers see cell phones as the future

Cartoon-strip publishers, whose printed-matter sales have been losing steam, are actively embracing mobile media because cell phones are what young people are spending their time and money on.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 23, 2005

Miro's best critic shows with stars of Surrealism

"Drifting Objects of Dreams: The Collection of Shuzo Takiguchi" is an exhibition which features the diversity of this famous Japanese artist and a host of collaborators. Though it started in the West, the Surrealist movement was expansive and noone, not even its founder-cum-leader Andre Breton, had a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 1, 2004

Liberate your mind and art

The conductor walks away. The crowd applauds. Beethoven's 5th? A moving rendition by the orchestra? Eric Satie? Closer, but wrong again. The performer is Ben Patterson and he's just completed George Maciunas' "Solo for Conductor." For this, he bent over to face the audience, placed his baton on the floor...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 10, 2004

Manga animates new millennium

Manga took a giant leap into its future on New Year's Day 1963, when space-age cartoon images from Osamu Tezuka's famed comic book "Tetsuwa Atomu (Astro Boy)" came to life in Japan's first original animated TV series. This was the birth of anime, which has now mushroomed into a multi-billion-dollar global...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 12, 2004

The Emperor's phantom porcelain set

Rarely, if ever, has a dinner set taken on such a mysterious aura as the maboroshi (phantom) porcelain service made by the late Yoshimichi Fujimoto (1919-92). Used only once and then, for reasons that remain enigmatic, hidden away for years, it comprises 230 pieces, enough to serve 15 diners. Only two,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 11, 2004

You are always on my mind

Familiarity with an object or place can dampen the senses. It may not necessarily breed contempt, but it often leads to indifference. We see it all too frequently, as in the simple case of not visiting wonderful places in our own neighborhood, or the attitude folk here in Shizuoka have toward Mount Fuji:...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 23, 2003

Klimt's women: more feared than loved?

Pornography and women's liberation: It is an incongruous coupling, but one that characterizes the artistic output of Gustav Klimt.
EDITORIALS
Feb 24, 2003

Cozy business-political ties die hard

The question of politics and money remains very much alive in Japan. It was the subject of intensive debate at Thursday's special session of the Lower House Budget Committee. Central to the debate was the legality of corporate donations to political parties, a question that has taken on new meaning in...
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2003

Diet's role in cleaning up politics

The economic debate in the Diet appears to be distracting legislators from an issue that is no less important: political ethics. It would be a great pity if this issue were to be sidelined under the pretext of prioritizing economic-recovery measures. Recent developments involving scandal-tainted politicians...
JAPAN / KANSAI BEAT
Nov 30, 2002

Literature museum goes into cyberspace

KOBE -- The opening earlier this month of a new museum of literature in Hyogo Prefecture was marked by the usual ceremonial pomp.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 30, 2002

The noble art of collecting

Artists trying to earn a living before these days of government grants, international art fairs and global cultural celebrity were at the mercy of the people holding the purse strings. Teaching was (and remains) a way of getting by, but for the premodern artist, real security depended largely on catching...
Japan Times
JAPAN / MUSEUM MUSINGS
Aug 24, 2002

Taro Okamoto museum throws open artist's inner sanctum

Even to those who are clueless when it comes to art and culture, the name Taro Okamoto will probably ring a bell. After all, the late avant-garde artist was responsible for the famous statement "Geijutsu wa bakuhatsu da!" ("Art is an explosion!")
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2002

Toil -- you're on candid canvas

In the mid-19th century, the French village of Barbizon was the artistic equivalent of the reality-TV show "Big Brother." In this tiny village with a population of just 352 (according to the 1872 census), the locals were under constant observation by the 100 or so artists reputedly living among them....
Japan Times
JAPAN / MUSEUM MUSINGS
Aug 3, 2002

Artist's work brings copper plate color prints to life

An impression of stillness amid the wonder of color is a beautiful thing to behold.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 31, 2002

Joan Miro: Reflections on the renewal of Spain

No artist's life and work -- not even Picasso's -- better represents the modern history of Spain than that of Joan Miro (1893-1983), whose early work from 1918 to 1945 is now on display at the Setagaya Art Museum.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan