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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jul 10, 2002

Summer sees ceramic talents in full bloom

Crunchy powerhouses of protein and vitamin E, sunflower seeds are much consumed in the West though their health benefits have never really been appreciated here in Japan. When it comes to pottery, we sometimes see himawari (sunflowers) painted on porcelains, but I've never come across a ceramic one complete...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2002

Mastering the fine art of science

"Japanese Botanical Art and Illustrations from Siebold's Collection," on show at the Iwate Museum of Art till July 28 (then traveling to Chiba and Tokyo), is the kind of exhibition one expects from a public museum trying to attract and please a wide audience. The creators of this show, it's tempting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 19, 2002

Piecing together the picture

There are hundreds of good -- even great -- art spaces in New York's West Chelsea, the world's largest and most important contemporary art gallery district. It's a wonderful place to browse, but this is best done with an open mind. I've often been frustrated when visiting art fairs or gallery districts...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 12, 2002

Two for one at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery

Tokyo's Opera City Art Gallery has taken a novel approach with its summer show: Instead of the usual one-man or themed group exhibition, it is running a couple of concurrent but totally unrelated one-man shows at its Shinjuku exhibition space.
JAPAN / INTERNATIONAL RATIONALE
Jun 7, 2002

Japan toys with transparency in building sector

Open a black box and take a peek at the notoriously opaque Japanese construction industry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 22, 2002

The beautiful game becomes art

Soccer commentators, in their hyperbolic struggle to convey the excitement of the sport, sometimes refer to it as an art. This analogy isn't totally offside, as there's no denying the aesthetic element of a sport requiring so much strength, speed and coordination. But what happens when the kinetic art...
EDITORIALS
Mar 7, 2002

Put paid to graft

The arrest Monday of Tokushima Prefecture Gov. Toshio Endo on bribery charges is a reminder that an old habit -- using political influence for monetary gain -- dies hard. Tokyo prosecutors say he received 8 million yen from a Tokyo-based consultancy for the role he had played in securing a public works...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2002

The mind has mountains

"It's true," a friend who has lived here for more than a decade insisted. "Because for them it's the most important mountain in the world, Japanese schoolchildren don't draw Mount Fuji the sloping shape it really is, but as incredibly tall and pointed."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 13, 2002

An art collector's dream on display

"In the mid-1950s, I saw an irresistible inflow of Western culture, mostly American, into war-devastated Japan. I witnessed a fading of our culture, which had been passed to us from generation to generation. As I watched the change, I felt a sense of fear that our next generation might not know what...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Nov 14, 2001

To see a world in a bowl of tea

"Kokoro shugetsu ni nitari," which translates as "My mind is like the autumn moon," is a line from a Chinese poem expressing the Zen sensation felt strongly during this harvest season. Pure and reflecting without hesitation, the moon is a metaphor for our hearts and one that all of humanity could do...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 31, 2001

A window on Miyazaki's animated world

Colorful characters and animals come alive in the stained-glass windows of Ghibli Museum Mitaka.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

Gimmickry belies a true phenomenon

A survey of 20th-century art would identify few individuals with as remarkable a story as Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), the Mexican painter whose life was one of those stranger-than-fiction phenomena. Already crippled by polio, the teenage Kahlo was impaled on a steel handrail in a trolley accident that shattered...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 27, 2001

Unleashing the power of color

The keynote of the ongoing exhibition at the Yasuda Kasai Museum in Shinjuku is the brilliance and vividness of color.
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2001

Contractors in Tottori punished over scam

The central and Tottori prefectural governments on Friday ordered 14 contractors to suspend business due to their involvement in illegal subcontracting in a public works project.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 9, 2001

The evolution of ceramic form

The creative journey for many an artist begins with an inner dialogue, a conflict, questioning. A voice in the inquisitive mind doubts existing rules and boundaries while challenging the artist to redefine and broaden them.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Apr 15, 2001

Music of the gods on 20 koto strings

There is a wealth of contemporary compositions for the koto. Since the war, various Japanese composers have expanded the repertoire of this ancient string instrument and provided new contexts for its traditional sonorities while encouraging the development of new and experimental techniques.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 17, 2001

Taking the Watanabe optional tour

Few of us can understand why the Taliban in Afghanistan is destroying the awe-inspiring giant Buddhist statues at Bamiyan instead of turning them into profitable tourist sites generating millions of dollars in T-shirt and other souvenir sales. Someone who might, however, is Satoshi Watanabe, whose own...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 17, 2001

Ukiyo-e treasures make brief return

The Baur Collection of ukiyo-e woodcuts by several of Japan's top masters is this country's own version of the Elgin Marbles. Perhaps this is why the 200 works are only on display so briefly. If you want to see these excellent examples of print art in their homeland, you have only a short time.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Dec 23, 2000

A life fired by devotion to ceramics

Many a foreign Japanese pottery scholar or collector owes a great debt to the life and work of Fujio Koyama (1900-1975). He wrote countless books and articles and some were fortunately translated into English; they are still a great source of knowledge and pleasure. These include the wonderful "The Heritage...
BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2000

Economists unhappy with latest budget

In its attempt to formulate a budget with the dual and dueling purposes of bringing about an economic recovery and preparing for painstaking reform, it seems the government has managed to do neither.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 30, 2000

Of solitude and simple settings

In the early 20th century, Europe played host to a procession of distinct art movements which continued until a procession of black boots stomped the creative life out of the continent.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 9, 2000

Opposition gives flawed economic message

According to some Western pundits, the recent Lower House election was going to be a big yawn, with little debate over real issues. In fact, from the start there was a very real debate between the coalition, which argued that the economy still needed pump priming, and the opposition, which claimed that...
CULTURE / Music
Jul 2, 2000

High art from cold metal: Brass music matures at last

There is something powerfully appealing about an ensemble of brass players. Brilliant trumpets and trombones, mellow horns and tubas -- when they are beautifully played, the sound, the strength and the artistry of the playing is quite compelling.
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2000

Keeping it in the Takeshita family

IZUMO, Shimane Pref. — The younger brother of the late Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, the Liberal Democratic Party kingmaker, recently addressed a crowd of some 5,000 people, pledging to carry on his brother's wish to revitalize Japan's "furusato," or hometowns.
BUSINESS
Jun 10, 2000

0.5% '99 growth first rise atop minus line in two years

The economy grew 0.5 percent in fiscal 1999 from the year before, recovering from negative growth logged for the preceding two years but slightly falling short of the government target of 0.6 percent growth for fiscal 1999, the Economic Planning Agency said Friday.
COMMUNITY
Apr 20, 2000

Calligraphy with a global message

Tim Jensen confesses that the first time he saw Mitsuo Aida's calligraphy poems his immediate reaction was "I could do that!" Now Aida's greatest fan and translator of three volumes of his work into English, Jensen is not alone in his initial reaction. According to Aida's son Kazuhito, director of the...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 12, 2000

NHK Symphony Orchestra performs American classics

The world of music is global indeed. Great musicians have originated from a bewildering array of places, studied far from home and made their careers around the world. The United States of America can claim its share of eminent instrumentalists and singers, giving birth to some, training others and nurturing...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 16, 2000

The essence of Japanese film

FROM BOOK TO SCREEN: Modern Japanese Literature in Film. By Keiko I. McDonald. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 326 pp., with b/w photos. $62.95 (cloth); $25.95 (paper) Keiko McDonald's 1994 "Japanese Classical Theater in Films" (Associated University Presses) has become an indispensable text. Anyone...
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2000

Business minds look for bright spots at Kansai seminar

Staff writer KYOTO -- The fear of losing out to the U.S. in economic globalization will be among the topics raised at the 38th annual Kansai Economic Seminar, which opens today in Kyoto. Sponsored by the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives, the seminar brings together the region's top business...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past