SAN FRANCISCO — Claude Monet owned more than 200 Japanese prints and once told a critic, “If you insist on forcing me into an affiliation with anyone else … then compare me with the old Japanese masters; their exquisite taste has always delighted me.”
Japan
Posted inArt
The Beautifully Dressed Skeletons in Japan’s Closet
In a letter dated July 23, 1938, sent by the Japanese modernist poet Yone Noguchi to the Nobel Prize winning author Rabindrath Tagore — the first non-European to receive the award — Noguchi wrote the following justification for his country’s invasion of China, effectively ending their friendship:
Posted inArt
In 1970s Japan, a New Art of Experiments, Edgy Photos, and Big Ideas
There are certain exhibitions in which some or many of the works on display are so interesting, provocative or well-made that they somehow manage to surmount whatever restrictive or overwrought critical-theoretical trappings their organizers have erected around them, defying the analytical filters through which they are meant to be considered and understood.
Posted inArt
Hand-tinted Photos of Geishas and Idyllic Landscapes in Early Modern Japan
Japan’s Meiji period (1868–1912) is commonly described as a time of quick economic and political modernization and self-conscious competition with Western military might and colonial aspirations.
Posted inArt
Through a Lens, Inquisitively: Modern Photo Visions, of and from Japan
Most photographs of real-life events tend to be documentary by nature, but the kind of photographic image-making that makes a point of approaching its subjects with an “objective” viewpoint and a for-posterity sense of purpose — can such photos ever convey a truly neutral position vis-à-vis their subjects?
Posted inArt
Revitalizing a Dying Region of Rural Japan with Art
Every spring, a resurrection occurs in the Echigo-Tsumari area of Japan’s Niigata prefecture.
Posted inArt
Japan Wipes Away Pretentiousness with Art Festival Devoted to Toilets
Relieve yourself of the conventional biennials and triennials of the art world with the first art festival dedicated entirely to bathrooms.
Posted inIn Brief
Divers Denounce Japanese City’s Shallow New Mascot
Late last year Shima, a city of about 50,000 located 100 miles east of Osaka in Mie Prefecture, unveiled a new municipal mascot.
Posted inIn Brief
Nude Drawing Classes Are Therapy for Middle-Aged Japanese Virgins
The Hollywood trope of the 40-year-old virgin, lampooned in Steve Carrell’s 2005 film, isn’t a joke in Japan.
Posted inArt
Photographers Bring Home a Picture of Fukushima
One of art’s greatest functions might be the way it helps us share our common experiences, though those experiences are sometimes all too tragic.
Posted inBooks
The Massive Men of Homoerotic Manga
Amidst the magical girls and sentient robots that dominate the Japanese graphic novels and comics known as manga, pockets of intrigue and eroticism lie.
Posted inIn Brief
Woodcut Kitty Porn of the Edo and Meiji Periods
A new exhibition coming to the Japan Society this spring brings a different perspective to bear on our feline friends.
