Tag - mingeikan

 
 

MINGEIKAN

Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 9, 2019
How folk craft found its place in the art world
'Japanese Tableware' highlights the passion with which Soetsu Yanagi — one of the founding fathers of the Japanese folk crafts movement — appreciated artisanal works into his own life, displaying the actual tableware that his family used when they gathered for meals.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 30, 2019
Motohiko Katano: Tied to shibori dyeing
A pioneer of shibori textile dyeing, Motohiko Katano created striking modern designs and fascinating tessellations of motifs that seemed to defy the capricious nature of resist dyeing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2018
White is not as monotone as some think
Devoid of ornamentation, yet still sculptural and expressive, Korean Joseon dynasty porcelain could change the way you think about minimalist ceramics.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 9, 2017
Keeping up with the Joneses, Edo style
The Edo Period (1603-1868) is renowned for the flourishing of material culture — a time when major advances and innovations in Japanese folk crafts and design were prized by the burgeoning commoner class of Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Osaka.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 3, 2016
The Korean roots beneath Japan's folk art movement
The folk craft movement in Japan owes a great debt to Soetsu Yanagi (1889-1961), who coined the term "mingei" ("folk crafts") in 1925. Yanagi pioneered the notion that Japan's vernacular crafts had their own intrinsic artistic worth, and should be valued, collected and curated. His desire to share an appreciation of these simple objects with the public grew from an admiration for the Korean craft tradition and it became his mission to foster opportunities for the public to rediscover Japanese and other Asian traditional crafts firsthand. Thanks in large part to Yanagi's efforts, the mingei aesthetic was born, which led to a growing appreciation of folk crafts.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OBJECT-ORIENTED
Mar 4, 2016
Slippery history of an English dish in Tokyo
There is a 19th-century English roasting dish that has lived in the Mingeikan (The Japan Folk Crafts Museum) since this venerable institution opened its doors to the public in 1936. How this piece of slipware (pottery decorated with a mixture of clay and mineral, known as "slip") got there is something I've wondered about since I first saw it in the museum some years ago. A visit to the Mingeikan to ask some questions of the staff about its journey to Tokyo revealed an interesting chain of cultural exchanges between Japan and England that influenced many of the leading ceramicists of the early 20th century — in both the East and West.

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores