NEWSWORTHY
Keiichi Tanaami's visually trippy past
Sometimes innocent, sometimes pornographic, influences percolated, exploded and re-formed in multiple and mutant ways during Keiichi Tanaami's career, which took off in the 1960s and is still going strong.
The painterly prayers of Higashiyama
Kaii Higashiyama's best-known works are often called "quintessentially Japanese landscapes," but they were also examples of the artist's conservative dialogue with European and American abstraction.
Indulging in post-apocalyptic nostalgia
With a theme of total annihilation and a techno-horror aesthetic, Hiroki Tsukuda's exhibition at Nanzuka sounds like it would be grim, but this isn't the work of a hopeless nihilist.
Kazunori Hamana: Simple vessels of complex self-reflection
Inspired by a love for the craftsmanship of traditional items, Kazunori Hamana abandoned his vintage clothing business in Tokyo to make clay tsubo jars that have since won him critical acclaim.
The Louvre has a new seat of power
Kohei Nawa talks about his 3-ton golden "Throne," which takes a seat of honor at the Louvre as one of the works for Japonismes 2018, Paris' large-scale event celebrating 160 years of France-Japan relations.
Tanaka Isson: Better late than never
Limited success in Tokyo led Tanaka Isson (1908-77) to burn his sketchbooks, sell his house, and move to Oshima, where he lived in near poverty painting in a vibrant style that posthumously captured the nation's heart.
Mami Kosemura says it with flowers
Where Flemish still-life painters combined fruit, vegetables and flowers that could not normally be picked in the same season, and portrayed them together in an imaginary, but highly realistic pictorial space, Kosemura uses contemporary tools to achieve the same with photographic detail.
Jomon art: Japan's prehistoric charm
Fertile periods of artistic endeavor are not hard to come by in Japanese history. Many would cite the Edo, Muromachi or Heian periods. The Tokyo National Museum, however, reminds visitors of one era often forgotten — the ancient Jomon Period.
A photographer's return to Aomori
"I photograph landscape like it's skin" — artist Masako Kakizaki on her "Aonoymous: Full Circle" project
Tokyo art space battles against the current
Repurposing old buildings to show art is becoming increasingly mainstream in Japan, but the route by which Koichiro Osaka ended up creating the Asakusa gallery has been circuitous, and an odd mix of chance and determination.
Tomoo Gokita: Exposing the underbelly of pop culture
Tomoo Gokita's deformations of his subjects are surrealistic with a precision mix of austere black, white and grays, low-brow culture imagery, kookiness and powerfully evocative draftsmanship.
The funny side of Edo Period culture
Sometimes vulgar or ridiculous, and occasionally cliched, the toba-e of Nichosai, Kuniyoshi, Hokusai and Kyosai at the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts offer a panorama of what the historically amusing.
