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April 29, 2024
 

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NEW ART SEEN

Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 6, 2005
New fairy tales of gloom
I have been an admirer of Miwa Yanagi since encountering her series "My Grandmothers" at the 2001 Yokohama Triennale. In that body of work the artist displayed extraordinary skill in using makeup and staging to transform a number of young women into images of their ideal grandmothers, such as screamingly insouciant sexagenarians motorcycling over the Golden Gate Bridge -- that sort of thing. The large photographs were colorful, funny and full of life, suggesting it was only natural to leapfrog the spirit of childhood over the conventions of middle age, and catch hold of it again in one's senior years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 22, 2005
Becoming Japanese to satisfy the American eye
The elegant and enigmatic new exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, "The End of Time," is a retrospective on four decades of work by Hiroshi Sugimoto. One of Japan's most internationally acclaimed artists, Sugimoto uses photography to condense events in celebrated time-exposure series such as "Seascapes" and "Theaters," and explores the viewer's perception and understanding of reality with series such as "Portraits" and "Diorama," which take as their respective subjects Madame Tussaud's lifelike wax mannequins and the wildlife mis-en-scene found at museums of natural history.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 7, 2005
'Palookaville' gets gallery treatment
I was chatting with old friends in Toronto last week, and our conversation came round to the subject of Japanese manga. I made clear my reservations regarding the popularity of pulp manga in Japan, and bemoaned the fact that many manga artists have even had gallery shows here.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 24, 2005
The best from a bygone era
I was recently tempted to term the handsome old Bridgestone Museum as "the last of a dying breed." But that hardly seems appropriate any more, considering the Nihonbashi art space's ongoing evolution. Instead, the Bridgestone might be better described as "a survivor" -- and one of the best -- from a bygone era.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 10, 2005
Market dreams of glory
Tokyo art collectors were out in force as the first-annual Tokyo Art Fair (TAF) debuted this past weekend (Aug. 6-8) at the Tokyo International Forum in Yurakucho. The fair saw participation from 81 galleries and art-related companies.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 27, 2005
Funhouse of the avant-garde
Like many people of my generation, I became aware of Laurie Anderson in 1981, when her song "O Superman" was an improbable radio hit. The eight-minute number featured a simple and hypnotic, breathy backing track, over which Anderson half spoke and half sang through a vocorder. The quirky lyrics repeatedly referenced Superman, "mom and dad" and the ominous approach of "American planes, made in America."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 13, 2005
Interesting times in China
Chinese contemporary art made a splash in the late 1990s with the so-called Mao Goes Pop movement, which broke big among Western gallerygoers and collectors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 29, 2005
World Press prizewinning photos get to the heart of the story
Every year the Dutch-based non-profit organization World Press Photo sifts through thousands of news photographs from around the world in search of images that "represent an event, situation or issue of great journalistic importance and demonstrate an outstanding level of visual perception and creativity."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 15, 2005
The art that rocks the boat of war in Iraq
If you don't like U.S. President George W. Bush -- particularly if you don't support his war in Iraq -- then there is a new gallery exhibition in Tokyo that you will relish.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 1, 2005
A voyeur for today
The photographer Richard Kern grew up in a small town in North Carolina, the son of a newspaperman. As a teenager, Kern had a part-time job changing the marquee at the local cinema, and one of the perks was free films. It was during a screening of Roger Vadim's camped up 1968 sci-fi flick "Barbarella" -- featuring the comely Jane Fonda as a frolicking space kitten -- that Kern experienced a sexual awakening while masturbating in the balcony.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 18, 2005
Roppongi's art gallery boom
Roppongi, which used to be chiefly known as a pick-up party pit for Tokyo's ex-pat population, has recently begun to emerge as a contemporary art center. Spurred by the Mori Art Museum's opening in 2003, the neighborhood now presents the possibility of a short walking tour of new and interesting art spaces.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 4, 2005
Girls in the company of wolves
For more than a decade female Japanese artists have been a dynamic force in contemporary photography, and now they are making big waves in other artistic media as well, as the phantasmagoric work of Tomoko Konoike best illustrates.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Apr 27, 2005
Soft-focus images to unsettle us
The first Yokohama Triennale, held back in 2001, was a critical success, and so I was delighted to hear that the second incarnation of the contemporary art extravaganza has been set for September.
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Apr 6, 2005
From Zen to story, a tale of artists East and West
The Mori Art Museum in Roppongi is not yet two years old but the two new Mori shows that opened last weekend -- "The Elegance of Silence: Contemporary Art from East Asia" and "The World is a Stage: Stories Behind Pictures" -- suggest a space now comfortable with its potential and its limitations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 23, 2005
Drawing circles is the secret to a new visual language
It is exceedingly rare for a contemporary art show to sell out at the opening reception, and especially so in Japan. It is rarer still to arrive at a vernissage to discover that the show has sold out even before it opened. But that was the case with the Keegan McHargue exhibition that debuted at the Hiromi Yoshii Gallery in Roppongi last week.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 9, 2005
Thank you to all art
Today, in case you didn't know it, is Thank You Art Day, a day to celebrate contemporary art made by anyone anywhere. Artist Yoshiaki Kaihatsu, a Tama Art University graduate, began the annual event in 2001 with an eye to, as he says, "vitalizing the Japanese art scene, because the Japanese art market is very weak."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 23, 2005
Lights up on gifted artist
The Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts is the ne plus ultra of honors in Canadian art. Some 2,000 of the country's cultural elite attend the annual awards ceremony, a black-tie affair held at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. But last year, organizers faced a dilemma: Performance artist Istvan Kantor, due to receive the award, was officially banned from entering the National Gallery.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 9, 2005
Feminist life actually: singing in the pain of Japan
The word "feminist" has been stripped of the luster it had back in the 1970s, and few Japanese women are more aware of this than Michiko Kasahara. Widely regarded as one of Japan's leading feminist curators, Kasahara was responsible for groundbreaking exhibitions such as "Gender: Beyond Memory" at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in 1996.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 26, 2005
Time to reflect on transition
Japan is in the midst of a "Korea boom." It seems that the smiling face of Bae Yong Joon is everywhere, and almost 10,000 (mostly) female fans greeted the superstar Korean actor when he arrived at Narita airport last November. Perhaps sparked by 2002's jointly hosted soccer World Cup, films, fashion, food and all things pop-cultural are cross-pollinating between the two nations at an unprecedented rate.
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 12, 2005
Blue skies over architectural utopias
The latest offering from the Mori Art Museum lives up to its big name: "Archilab: New Experiments in Architecture, Art and the City, 1950-2005." The first architecture exhibition at the Mori, this is a big show, ambitious in both scale and manner of presentation. Featuring drawings, videos and maquettes of some 220 projects by 90 architects, "Archilab" is being presented in association with FRAC (Fonds Regional d'Art Contemporain du Centre), a radical architecture center located on the Loire in Orleans, France.
Number of homeless in Japan hits record low
Homeless people sleep on the street in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in August 2021.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
In Japan, regional revitalization fails to halt population decline
Sakiyama elementary school in Tamba, Hyogo Prefecture, in March .Over the past decade, the government has directed efforts toward policies designed to give young people incentives to base themselves in rural areas.
Putin’s war will soon reach Russians’ tax bills
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting in St. Petersburg on Friday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

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