Tag - japanese-photography

 
 

JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY

Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 24, 2018
Masatoshi Naito: 'The other face' of Japan
When Masatoshi Naito first began researching Tohoku folklore, he expected to find places 'haunted with a macabre atmosphere.' Instead, he stumbled into a vivacious traditional society 'filled with elderly women who throw boisterous bashes all night long.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2018
Noritaka Minami's city of broken dreams
Noritaka Minami's aerial photographs of the failed urban project of California City in the Mojave Desert are quietly devastating. Purposefully using high-ISO film that shows grain even at low enlargement, his images of a planned city — mostly a network of uninhabited roads — are pale planes of dots and lines
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 12, 2016
An exhibition of things that make you go 'hmm'
The subtitle of the Mori Art Museum's triennial "Roppongi Crossing" exhibition three years ago was "Out of Doubt." This year it's "My Body, Your Voice." In 2013, the group show was inflected by the destruction caused by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, and scepticism about the handling of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima. This year, the central theme is ostensibly an exploration of identity, histories and the body, though it would probably be fair to say that it is also strongly overshadowed by last year's 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 15, 2016
Looking forward through photography
The spectacular landscapes left by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami have been used as source material by photographers to an extraordinary degree. Yes, using the words "spectacular" and "landscape" here may seem indecent, but this is one of many difficult issues that arise when photography and human suffering meet. Another problem is that "good" work, however you want to define it, may have resulted from questionable motives, and vice versa.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 30, 2016
Bringing Japanese folk dance into focus
As with many cultures, before modernization the Japanese people relied heavily on agriculture, holding a spiritual affinity with and respecting the power of nature. Bountiful harvests were celebrated in festivities that played a significant role in community activities, and the distinctive folk rituals that arose in Japan's various regions reflected traditional ways of life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 19, 2016
'Daido Moriyama Photo Exhibition'
Jan. 23-Feb. 20
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 17, 2015
'Yoshihito Sasaguchi Photo Exhibition: Silent Enchantment'
Fashion photographer Yoshihito Sasaguchi — whose work has been featured in ads seen in Vogue, Elle and Harper's Bazaar — is also known for his art photography and short films, including "Foreseeing 2027" (2014), which was a part of a project to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the anime series "Ghost in the Shell: Arise."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 10, 2015
A photo finish between ukiyo-e and the camera
The idea for the smart, complex and challenging exhibition "From Ukiyo-e to Photography" at the Edo-Tokyo Museum started from the discovery of two images. One is a photograph of the Meiji-Era (1867-1912) Minister of Home Affairs Toshimichi Okubo, taken in Paris in 1878. The second is a color ukiyo-e print of Okubo, made in 1878 by the woodblock artist Kiyochika Kobayashi, which is clearly based on the earlier photographic portrait.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 6, 2015
Hiroshi Hamaya: images of an inner war
Most active in the mid-20th century, the photographer Hiroshi Hamaya (1915-99) is best known for his folkloric images of rural life in Niigata Prefecture — images that some consider to be symbolic of his passive resistance to militarism, but for more critical voices are advocacy of a retrograde cultural essentialism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 8, 2015
Pure landscape photography
The exhibition "Stream of Consciousness" at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery is an extremely successful representation of contemporary Japanese photographic art. It combines some of the salient aspects of Japanese culture with the aesthetically formal, yet emotive imagery that is indicative of what gives photography in Japan its particular flavor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 1, 2015
Takashi Homma's window on today's crafts
Broadly speaking, compared to Britain, Germany and the United States, France and Japan have shared an alternative approach to design since the industrial revolution, focusing more on the appreciation of handmade and luxury goods. This economic necessity reverberates today as a mutual affection of these nation's workmanship and craft traditions. As analog film slowly dies off, replaced by the convenience of digital imaging, the window display by Takashi Homma at the Maison Hermes in Tokyo's Ginza district is an interesting reflection on the state of photography and its current place in visual culture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 4, 2015
'Jun Imajo: Pastel Wind'
July 31-Aug. 19
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 28, 2015
Japan's clean aesthetic hid the ugly mess of war
Why would anybody want to go to war? For some of us it's incomprehensible. For others, there will be circumstances that make war justifiable — or even desirable.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 28, 2015
Things that changed photography
In the late 1960s, the mono-ha (school of things) movement arose from the Japanese art-school scene, with the Korean-born artist Lee Ufan — who went from the philosophy department at Nihon University to teaching at Tama Art University — as its most renowned proponent. Using raw materials and with a minimal level of manipulation, mono-ha styled itself as anti-representational, with an implied opposition to mimesis as a "Western" art tradition. Rather than focusing on the form and value of the art object, the emphasis was on understanding existence and the relation between matter, its environment and human consciousness.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 14, 2015
'War and Postwar: The Prism of the Times'
July 18-Jan. 31
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 30, 2015
Don't take everyday objects at face value
Atsushi Okabe's graduation work is an experiment with Rubik's Cubes and abstraction. The result is graphic, colorful and pleasing to the eye. By zooming the lens of his camera while the shutter is open, Okabe creates latticed images that seem to plunge away from the viewer into geometric and unearthly spaces. It's a bit like the tesseract in Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" or op art by Victor Vasarely.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 2, 2015
The big difference a little time can make
The main premise behind "Time of Others" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MoT) is that there is no fixed self — "otherness" can be a matter of recognizing that our identities and qualities as people can change. The curatorial team behind the exhibition do not use "otherness" in its more postcolonial sense of constructed narratives of difference, but want visitors to consider it as an issue of alterity and an opportunity to think about selfhood.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 12, 2015
A prosaic picture of Japan's rural decline
With all the current problems facing Japan's rural communities, "Salt of the Earth" at the Tokyo Gallery is a visual contribution to an ongoing debate on their value and survival. The rhetoric of the show espouses the humble virtues of life in Amami, a group of islands between Kagoshima and Okinawa, though the sum total of the images, whose content is heavily filtered by stylistic devices, does not match the appeal of a gentler way of life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 12, 2015
'Ikko Narahara: Japanesque Zen'
May 11-July 4
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 21, 2015
Yoshihiko Ueda: a life with photography
"What remains is future" were words written on a bag I saw someone carrying at Yoshihiko Ueda's new exhibition "A life with Camera." It's the same phrase that appeared on badges Patti Smith handed out in New York nearly 10 years ago. Fittingly, her portrait now hangs among 300 photographs, which were taken by Ueda from the age of 24 over a period of 35 years.

Longform

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For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on