Hara Museum of Contemporary Art January 25 – April 12, 2020 In 1989’ Noriaki Kitazawa released his book 眼の神殿: 「美術」受容史ノート / Me no shinden: “bijutsu” juyōshi nōto. Noriaki’s analysis of how the concept and institution of “art” had been imported from the West and then ‘Japanised’ in the late nineteenth century certainly prompted widespread cultural revaluation.…
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There are four works being exhibited by Bontaro Dokuyama, Aichi Triennale. “Time Goes By” (2017) shows Taiwanese senior citizens who grew up under Japanese colonial rule recounting memories of that time and singing songs such as the Japanese national anthem and “Hotaru no Hikari” (“Auld Lang Syne”). Recounting their experiences of Japanese occupation and of…
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I visited Nagoya last week to see the Aichi Triennale and here are some images of FUJII Hikaru’s recent work which again focuses on reenactment, as a means to act out past events. In the blacked-out gallery, 5 films in total are exhibited, one in monochrome and four in full colour and high resolution. The…
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Riusei Kishida (1891-1929) became aware of the works of artists referred to as Post-Impressionists, such as Van Gogh and Matisse, while studying at the Aoibashi Yoga Kenkyujo run by the Hakuba group led by Kuroda Seiki, and produced avant-garde oil paintings with intense colors and brush strokes as a way to create his own style…
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In Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony the artist follows the way of Tea -in order, as Isamu Noguchi put it, to pursue the “true development of an old tradition”- Sachs has produced a complete, alternative material culture, from bowls and ladles, scroll paintings, vases, and bronzes, to a motorized tea whisk, a shot clock, and an…
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End sequence from Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (書を捨てよ町へ出よう Sho o Suteyo Machi e Deyō) is a 1971 Japanese feature-length experimental drama film directed by Shūji Terayama. A metaphor for Japan’s descent into materialism, it follows a young man’s disillusionment with the world around him and his determination to achieve something in…
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I met and interviewed Masato Nakamura yesterday, general director at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo. Not our first occasion to meet, the other being back in 2009 when I was invited to look at the soon to be renovated Rensei Junior High School – his organisation had recently been awarded the right to convert and manage…
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