Book Review: "Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns" by Isaac Titsingh

Accounts of foreign lands are interesting both because of what they reveal about the country but also because of what they reveal abou...

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Land of the Rising Crescent: Muslims in Japan & Japanese Muslims

Hitomi Tsukidate and Imam Yenturk Islam in Japan has an interesting history. Like most things in this country, it didn’t just happen ...

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Leonard Foujita: Paris's Pet Oriental

Self Portrait, 1936 It wasn’t for nothing that the Ecole de Paris was called a school. In the early decades of the 20th century artis...

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Hisashi Tenmyouya: Samurai with a Paintbrush

Para-para (Great Empire of Japan) vs. Break-dancing (America)  (2001) One of the strangest and most interesting characteristics of ...

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Teppei Ujiyama: Ad Hoc Accumulations Create Musical Universes

Kegon No. 11, 1970s While the exuberance of youth has played its part in countless artistic breakthroughs, the power of the mid-life...

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Exhibition: Nobuyoshi Araki

The key to being a great photographer is being pushy while having a slightly daft appearance, so that when you intrude on people's...

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Exhibition: Shinji Ogawa

The great modernist skinflint architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said, "Less is more." This is also the ruling principle...

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Hello Dolly

Imagine a hard-working but shy Japanese guy, having trouble meeting women. He finally sits down to compose a lonely hearts ad. After t...

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Exhibition: Henri Riviere

The Japanese never tire of telling us how they were responsible for all the major developments in late 19th century European painting. T...

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Exhibition: Six Provocative Nihonga Artists

The big joke here is that Nihonga artists are supposed to be the least provocative people on the planet – serenely grinding their organic p...

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Exhibition: Itoh Jakuchu

The good thing about this exhibition – centering on Japanese painting from the 18th and early 19th centuries – is that it reflects art t...

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Exhibition: Giacometti and Yanaihara

Alberto Giacometti (1901 – 1966) is widely considered the greatest sculptor of the 20th century. Originally attracted to Cubism and Surreal...

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Exhibition: Boston Museum of Fine Arts Ukiyo-e Collection

Ama Divers with Abalone by Kitagawa Utamaro One of the effects of Japan's Westernization was an exaggerated devaluing of everyth...

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Exhibition: Jiro Yoshihara

Temperamentally, there are two main types of artist. There is the tortured loner, working hard in his atelier, taking a few minutes from hi...

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Exhibition: Seiki Kuroda

If one believes that each distinct culture is equally valid and worthwhile, then somebody like Seiki Kuroda (1866-1824) is the cultural equ...

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Exhibition: Chen Chin

Accordian (1935) by Chen Chin Ah, the 1920s and the 30s! The 'good old days' of the rise of the 'Greater East Asia Co-Pro...

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Exhibition: Kumi Machida

Japan is one country that doesn't have any problem producing talented female artists – Yayoi Kusama, Fuyuko Matsui, and Natsuko Taniguch...

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Exhibition: Isamu Noguchi

Noguchi's Hiroshima Peace park Design   For Isamu Noguchi, his sculpture was a way of coming to terms with who he was. Born to an Ameri...

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Exhibition: Yoshihiko Ueda

The main danger a commercial photographer faces is the aura of banality that photographing consumer goods inevitably gives. To counter...

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Area Focus: Roppongi

BASES, BARS, & BRAVE NEW WORLD If Tokyo has a gaijin ghetto, that place is definitely Roppongi, the most cosmopolitan and intern...

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