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April 29, 2024
 

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NEW ART SEEN

Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 2, 2002
Oppai -obsessed oeuvre that isn't well-rounded
I'm often asked the question: "What characterizes Japanese contemporary art?" At the risk of over-generalizing, I usually reply that two qualities recur among artists at the vanguard of this country's creative culture -- an obsessiveness vis a vis the subject, or an obsessive attention to detail in the actual execution.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 25, 2002
Tumultuous art made in tumultuous times
It is always a pleasure to spotlight an exhibition that seems to have slipped in under the art radar, as is the case with the group show "Quobo -- Art in Berlin 1989-1999" now at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 18, 2002
Two dimensions good, three dimensions better
I got some positive feedback on my review last week of the Doug Aitken show at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery. My remark, "I just don't like visiting galleries to sit on the floor and watch videos," struck a chord with a number of readers. Not that I don't like video and new media art, but most galleries -- even those focused on contemporary art -- were not designed as theaters. I have taken to calculating the time required to view the videos at recent contemporary art shows, with many totaling a knee- and back-straining several hours. The floor is not a nice place to spend this length of time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 11, 2002
Take the plunge into 'Vegas' art
I'm just back from hot and dry Las Vegas, where the world's high rollers, faced with lavish entertainment options such as performance-art ensemble Blue Man Group and magicians Siegfried & Roy, have made the Cirque du Soleil's "O" the hottest ticket in town. The central attraction of "O" is not its troupe of body-painted dancers or a disappearing white tiger, but -- as its title derived from the French word eau suggests -- plain old water.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 28, 2002
All things in the universe, and some
The very idea of a comprehensive retrospective of Tadanori Yokoo's work is a daunting one. How to bring together an oeuvre that spans almost a half-century and is, by turns, strident, nationalistic, homoerotic, funny and cosmic; that is both representational and abstract; that comprises posters, photographs, paintings, sculpture, installation, and thousands of vintage picture postcards of waterfalls?
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 14, 2002
A 'fantasy war' artist who draws the lines of conflict
Wars are fought by people, but equipment has always been critical to their ability to perform in battle. Now, imagine a time machine that could equip Genghis Khan with rocket launchers, or Napoleon with a division of Panzer tanks -- that would change the course of history, wouldn't it? Tokyo artist Akira Yamaguchi explores the idea from a Japanese perspective with the hallucinogenic history lesson that is his new exhibition, "Japan/China and Japan/Russia Fantasy War Drawings."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 7, 2002
Vincent Gallo: the one that got away
Twenty-odd years ago, I moonlighted as a cab driver in Toronto. I still remember how easy it was to glance in the rearview mirror and peg visitors from the American city of Buffalo, N.Y. They were generally polite and well-dressed, but in the affected manner of a child done up in his Sunday best, squirming a little on the sofa in grandma's parlor. Gazing out the windows at the unlittered boulevards of Canada's most sanitized metropolis, the weekenders would often initiate conversation with a line like, "It's so clean and safe here in Toronto." "Yes, I suppose it is," I would reply. I felt like offering them a bowl of big white peppermints.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 31, 2002
Man vs. nature: the frontline
Blockbuster solo shows now running at the Bunkamura (Rene Magritte) and the Setagaya Art Museum (Joan Miro) are already ensuring this is one of Tokyo's best summers in years for aficionados of 20th-century art. Now, thanks to a bit of bold curating by Taro Amano, the Yokohama Museum of Art is host to another of this hot season's must-see shows.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 24, 2002
Contemporary art that digs deep
There are several contemporary art shows worth seeing before most Tokyo galleries close for a summer break.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 17, 2002
Taking a balanced view of life and death
Kristian Haggblom has some quirky ideas. Like the notion that an estimated 29,000 Lego building blocks are currently floating on the oceans of the world. I don't know where the Australian artist dug up this weird statistic, but he mentioned it twice in the course of our conversation last week. Haggblom is also interested in eclectic French philosopher Michel Foucault. And symmetry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 10, 2002
The Sept. 11 Care Bear Bunch
Cleveland-born, New York-based Dan Asher lives and works in an East Village apartment/studio. Although the 54-year-old artist didn't actually see the hijacked jetliners crash into the Twin Towers on Sept. 11 last year, he has followed -- with not a little consternation -- the many changes that struck his neighborhood, his city and his country in the aftermath of that day.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 3, 2002
A photographer records the naked truth
On April 25, 1990, San Francisco photographer Jock Sturges' life changed forever. On that day, police raided his studio and office. They confiscated cameras, film, prints, computers and records -- on the suspicion that Sturges was involved in the production and distribution of child pornography.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 26, 2002
Photo selection offers the whole picture
Before World Cup events kicked off in Japan, there were distressing media reports of how hotels planned to refuse service to foreigners; and of stadium-area restaurants and bars intending to close their doors on game days, from fear of furigan (hooligans).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 19, 2002
Piecing together the picture
There are hundreds of good -- even great -- art spaces in New York's West Chelsea, the world's largest and most important contemporary art gallery district. It's a wonderful place to browse, but this is best done with an open mind. I've often been frustrated when visiting art fairs or gallery districts hoping to find work that matched an image I had in my mind. But that's the position I found myself in a few years ago, a few days before Christmas, as the sun set on a snowy West Chelsea day.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 12, 2002
Two for one at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery
Tokyo's Opera City Art Gallery has taken a novel approach with its summer show: Instead of the usual one-man or themed group exhibition, it is running a couple of concurrent but totally unrelated one-man shows at its Shinjuku exhibition space.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 5, 2002
A Japan-Korea joint show that's wide of goal . . .
By this time, even the most blinkered of Tokyo's art enthusiasts will be aware that the planet's premier sporting event, the World Cup, is taking place in Korea and Japan. There is just no ignoring the newspaper and magazine coverage, the live television broadcasts and the hordes of dumbfounded soccer tourists roaming the streets.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 29, 2002
The naked truth about (male) beauty
I'm thinking, as I write this, about beauty. I'm thinking about beauty because I'm flying over Siberia, and below me there is an expanse of softly sculpted white. I'm thinking about beauty because I'm returning from Paris, where I spent the last few days -- ostensibly on a writing assignment, but mostly exploring old neighborhoods, drinking good wine in cafes and visiting museums and galleries.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 22, 2002
From the edges of 'reality'
At the most basic level of classification, most paintings can be assigned to one of two broad but fairly clear-cut categories: representational or abstract. This is to say that what appears on the canvas has generally evolved either from people, places or things found in the real world; or from ideas and feelings conjured up in the artist's imagination and expressed through colors and forms.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 15, 2002
Weird science, but great art
It's the old quantity-versus-quality problem. Though there are only a couple of private contemporary-art museums in Tokyo (the Watari-Um and the Hara), their shows are almost always good and focus on providing authoritative coverage of some of the domestic and international art scenes' most important figures.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 8, 2002
A cult hero hangs on to his cool
From the moment one squeezes through the six thick hanging slabs of foam that serve as the old saloon-style entranceway to Jun Miura's current exhibition at the Laforet Museum, it is apparent that this is no ordinary art show. "Jun Chan Intense #3" is the latest installment in the artist's popular Laforet series and it offers up a postmodern smorgasbord of Japanese pop culture, as seen through the eyes of a seemingly ageless pop culture hero.
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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