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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 25, 2011

Asian art challenges Western museums' way of thinking

Art from Asia has enjoyed increased global interest in the past few decades, which has brought major changes to the way in which the art scene now views this hitherto neglected region. In a special symposium, "How is the World Engaging with Contemporary Asian Art?," at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo on...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 4, 2011

Tadasu Takamine shocks us, yet again

In their endless efforts to make us see things in new ways and generally mess with our minds, contemporary conceptual artists such as Tadasu Takamine may often do more to distort their own view of the world than change the way the wider public sees it. This would explain why, in 2004, Takamine attempted...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2011

Hirayama: Paying simple tribute to the Silk Road

Recently Stephen Fry's BBC comedy quiz show "QI," was in trouble over panelist's comments regarding Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a survivor of both atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Amid generally admiring chit chat about Yamaguchi, panelists treated the bombings with a degree of levity typical of the show, prompting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2011

Saving the individual in times of conflict

The Japanese Western-style painter Saburo Aso (1913-2000) came of age as an artist during Japan's crescendo of militarism that began with the Manchurian Incident of 1931 and came to an ignominious end in 1945. But he refused to be drawn into the officially promoted propaganda painting of the time. The...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 22, 2011

Frenchwoman follows pearl of destiny to Japan

A Frenchwoman who was fascinated by the shine of Japanese pearl works has come here all alone to master the skill from an artisan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 19, 2011

Hackers worldwide Kinect with their creative sides

When Kinect, Microsoft's latest add-on for the Xbox 360 game console, was released worldwide in November 2010, it was the beginning of a success story, but not in the way Microsoft may have been expecting.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / WEEK 3
Jan 16, 2011

Calligraphy writ large takes in choreography, too

Japanese calligraphy is a challenge at the best of times. So why go to the trouble of using a piece of paper as large as the side of a bus, and a brush that's almost two meters long and weighs 50 kg?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 14, 2011

Spelling out China's calligraphic influence

At the end of the Edo Period (1603-1868), as Japan began to change its long-held cultural reference point from China to the West, a strong Sinophile interest was maintained by the nation's cultural and political elites. From the late 19th century, however, the cultural reorientation to the West had deleterious...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 7, 2011

Fill up on Morimura's unusual 'side dishes'

Some artists are accorded such historical importance that virtually everything they do or have done comes under close scrutiny. Other artists are effectively known for a single thing, such as the nominal Italian Surrealist, Giorgio de Chirico, who is primarily known for his so-called "metaphysical paintings,"...
EDITORIALS
Jan 7, 2011

Straits of local governments

Not only the central government but also the nation's local governments face financial difficulties. According to the former's local finance plan, the local governments' total revenue for fiscal 2011 will be ¥82.520 trillion, up 0.5 percent from fiscal 2010 or the first increase in three years.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 3, 2010

Dancing on Mishima's waves

Childhood, a time of purest innocence, is also a spring of dark imagination. Maurice Bejart, French choreographer and collaborator with the Tokyo Ballet in the 1990s, took the childhood and life of writer Yukio Mishima as his muse when creating the original ballet "M" in 1993, but his imagination of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 19, 2010

Rethinking traditional urushi lacquerware

London, it appears, is a good place to learn about both past and present Japan. Last year, as Britain celebrated 150 years of cultural exchange with Japan, it hosted a number of major shows, including a large-scale matsuri (festival) in Spitalfields Market, a comprehensive exhibition of Utagawa Kuniyoshi...
COMMUNITY
Nov 13, 2010

Dream becomes reality for Scottish manga creator

It sits in a place of beauty, incongruously bordered between Japanese stone art and a vivid blue ink painting: "2000 A.D.," a classic British comic book from the 1980s. The apocalypse orange cover shrieks "Revenge of the Warlock" but — muted by a plastic overlay to protect its condition — the sci-fi...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 9, 2010

Muslims in shock over police 'terror' leak

This time last month, Mohamed Salmi says he was just another anonymous foreigner living and working in Japan. Today he fears his life here may be over, and receives phone calls from reporters asking him if he is an al-Qaida "terrorist."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 29, 2010

The depths of traditional Japanese painting

While China's long-running contribution to Japanese art is usually acknowledged, it is often assumed that Western models only started to have a significant impact in the Meiji period. Part of the reason for this is the sharp reaction to Western artistic influence that occurred in the late 19th century,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 8, 2010

What artists see in themselves

Visitors to Florence in Italy have long been awed by the works in two of the city's finest museums: the Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace. But, perhaps preoccupied by prime examples of Raphael, Botticelli and other Renaissance artists, many visitors let their stay come to an end without enjoying the...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 1, 2010

Arabic calligraphy: Let ink make you think

Calligraphy has always been popular in Japan, but some people here are now attracted to an imported, yet equally profound, form of the traditional art: Arabic calligraphy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2010

Exploring the stylistic diversity of nihonga

"The Avant-Garde of Nihonga 1938-1949" at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto takes issue with nihonga (Japanese-style painting) of the period as a reaction to what has been passed down to the present as the traditional aesthetics and thematics of the genre. These include the conventional materials...
LIFE
Sep 26, 2010

The return of Lafcadio Hearn

I came to Japan in '90 — 1890, that was — died 14 years later, and here I am again after more than a century, exploring my old haunting ground just like in the good old days.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 17, 2010

New exhibition anticipates a design museum for Japan

In March, with the opening of the Design Museum Holon, Israel added its name to a long list of countries that have at least one full-fledged museum dedicated to design. Japan, despite its reputation as a design powerhouse — hard-earned during the 20th century by innovative work such as Sony's Walkman,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 10, 2010

Nabeshima ware: made to order

Talk about a nightmare of a client. They expect deliveries tailored to their precise instructions — once every year. They send missives along the lines of, "You should be a bit more creative with your designs," and then append them with casual reminders that they will be happy to vet any innovations....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Sep 10, 2010

'Look at Me'

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 1, 2010

TV examines the morals of the story

The new Hollywood spy thriller "Salt" has received good reviews, even if a sizable portion of them admit that the plot is preposterous. What critics appreciate is the protagonist's uncertain nature as a hero. Angelina Jolie is a CIA operative outed by a Russian defector as a sleeper agent. The question...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 30, 2010

Who deserves to sit alongside Chagall?

There are many ways to view the lush, colorful, dreamlike and apparently naive art of Marc Chagall, one of the undoubted greats of 20th-century painting. "Marc Chagall and the Russian Avant-garde, from the Collection of the Centre Pompidou" at The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of Arts, makes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / INSIDE ART
Jun 25, 2010

Japan learns about itself from the outside

Corporate Japan's high-profile purchases of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces during the bubble-economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s are generally seen as examples of senseless posturing. But imagine how those paintings — the ones that remain in this country, that is — would...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Jun 25, 2010

'Fergus Feehily: Inland'

Misako & Rosen
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 11, 2010

Closing the distance on David Elliott

Few non-Japanese can claim to have exerted a major influence on the machinations of the domestic Japanese art scene. David Elliott, the Briton who served as the founding director of the Mori Art Museum, from 2001 until 2006, is one of them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 11, 2010

China's modern art that grieves for the old

The art on display in "From the 11th Chinese National Art Exhibition 2009: Contemporary Fine Art from China" at the Nara Prefectural Museum of Art is of a different species than the headline-grabbing pieces that have propelled Chinese art into a much sought-after commodity frequently at the forefront...

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