Tag: Japanese art
Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow
Friday, December 15th, 2017 Art Column,Yayoi Kusama has been the most hyperproductive of artists, but old age seems to have inspired even more prodigious feats. At 88-years-old her annual output of retrospectives, surveys, commercial exhibitions, public art projects and self-penned publications is mind-boggling. Most artists would feel pleased if they achieved as much during an entire lifetime. It helps, of […]
Hokusai
Friday, September 1st, 2017 Art Column,If ever an image deserved to be called “iconic” it is The great wave off Kanagawa (1830-34), by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Everyone knows this famous print of two boats menaced by a monstrous surge of water that reaches out like a hungry predator with a hundred talons. This was exactly the way the picture struck […]
Tabaimo
Saturday, August 2nd, 2014 Art Column,It would be fascinating to try and understand why some cultures are fixated on one artform more than others. The period we call the Golden Age in the Netherlands, which spanned the 17th century, produced one of history’s greatest flowerings of the visual arts but little in the way of notable literature or music. Britain, […]
Fukushima: Art & Disaster
Saturday, March 15th, 2014 Blog,Disaster haunts the Japanese psyche. Think of the great fires that have swept up Tokyo, or the major earthquakes that have struck the country at unpredictable intervals. Think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all the ways that nuclear energy has been portrayed in popular culture. This ranges from Tezuka Osamu’s popular cartoon hero, The Mighty […]
Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2012
Saturday, August 4th, 2012 Art Column, Australian Art, International Art,When Japan was devastated by the Tohoku earthquake on 11 March last year, one of the casualties was a century-old farm house in the tiny community of Urada, in the mountains near Tokamachi City. Less than two years previously this building had been designated ‘Australia House’ at the 2009 Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial (ETT), serving […]
Kamisaka Sekka & Hiroshige
Saturday, July 21st, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, International Art,Art in Japan has been through all the same upheavals as art in the west, but no other country has managed to retain so much of its own distinctive character. The defining characteristics include a respect for tradition that shines through even in a critical or satirical mode; a love of beauty and craftsmanship; and […]
Masami Teraoka, Migration
Saturday, June 2nd, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, International Art,One of the strangest developments in the Sydney art scene is the sudden upsurge of galleries showing and selling high priced international art. This is surprising, given the fact that these are dismal times for retail and the art business is essentially retail with delusions of grandeur. There are only two explanations: either there are […]
Tokujin Yoshioka, Shen Shaomin & Chun Kwang-Young
Saturday, December 3rd, 2011 Art Column, Art Essays, Chinese Art, General Art Essays,There is an emerging trend in town: slipper art, and it has nothing to do with the new Speaker in Federal Parliament. At two venues this week the viewer is asked to slip a protective covering over his or her shoes, so as not to soil the art. This is slightly at odds with the […]
The Golden Journey
Saturday, May 16th, 2009 Art Column,Late last year the Art Gallery of NSW held a small but fascinating show celebrating the thousandth anniversary of Genji Monogatari – often hailed as the world’s first novel. One of the delights of that exhibition was the sense of cultural continuity that ran through the display, from the decorated screens of the early 1600s […]