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Junko Museum of Art
2021年
Junko Museum of Art スコットランドのハイランド地方、この地方特有の見渡す限りヒースが生い茂る、木の生えていない、人家もない、緩やかな丘陵地が延々と続く。細い曲がりくねった道をDufftownに向かう途上に忽然と現れるGrouse InnというWhisky Barがある。店に入ると
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The meeting of art and architecture in Iwate By KATE THOMSON
2005年
By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times Takeshi Honda's "Houses of Rice" The concept of architectural heritage is still new to Japan, but sometimes a building holds so much history for local citizens that they refuse to let it be forgotten. The 1927 Art Deco Iwate-ken Kokaido (Iwate Prefecture Civic Hall), designed by Dr. Koichi Sato (who also did the Hibiya Town Hall), acted as Iwate's main cultural center until, like many old buildings in Japan, it was made redundant by more up-to-date public facilities in the 1970s. Located in the center of Morioka City, it was a prime candidate for redevelopment, and the hall was declared "dangerous" by the prefectural government in 2000. Local architects who valued the it for its record of the transition from modern to contemporary design voluntarily surveyed it and proved that it was actually still safe for public use. Together with the Kokaido
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Dolls' surreal influence Kachina beliefs inspired Horst Antes
2005年
By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times Kachina dolls, embodying the beliefs, social structure and moral values of the Native American Hopi have fascinated and inspired artists for a century. "Taawakatsina" (Sun Kachina) and "Summer Figure" (1981) Andre Breton, the founder of the surrealist movement, started collecting Kachinas in 1927 and established their place in the art world when he featured a Kachina on the poster for an exhibition of Surrealist objects in Paris in 1936. Many artists soon wished, in Breton's words, to "accede" to a newly discovered system of knowledge and cultural relationships: Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Roberto Matta, Jorge Camacho and Harold and Louise Corbusier all owned Kachinas. Horst Antes, one of Germany's best-known 20th-century artists, has spent a lifetime collecting hundreds of these mystical dolls. In "Horst Antes and Kachinas" currently at the Iwate Museum of Modern Art, a retrospective of Antes' painting and sculpture
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A new world order in a school gym
2004年
'Asian Field' visits Tokyo By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times British sculptor Antony Gormley (born in London in 1950) is one of the foremost sculptors of his generation. A winner of the Turner Prize in 1994, Gormley is a conceptual artist working in a physical medium: He revitalized the sculptural vocabulary of the human form to articulate the universal abstract qualities of human experience. Antony Gormley's "Asian Field" figurines The basic concept of his global "Field" project, which began in 1989, is to go to a particular region and then ask people of all ages local to the clay, to form it into a surrogate world population. The project has now traveled to the four corners of the world including Brazil, Britain, Germany and Mexico. The Asian version of the project involved 350 people from Xiangshan village, northeast of the city of Guangzhou in south China, making 190,000
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Emancipating art
2004年
The Mori Art Museum celebrates its first anniversary this month. Director David Elliott talks to sculptor Kate Thomson about how the museum is articul
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An Eastern art show to rival Venice
2004年
Gwangju Biennale presents over 200 contemporary artists By KATE THOMSON Special to the Japan Times On May 18, 1980, the city of Gwangju, South Korea, hit the headlines with an explosion of civilian dissent against the military junta that had seized power the day before. The junta's brutal crackdown culminated in the Gwangju Massacre of hundreds of students and civilians. The uprising would spark South Korea's democracy movement, and ultimately the overthrow of the military dictatorship and the installation of its first civilian-led government in 1993. Above, Korean artist Ok-san Lim's "Communication Cafe" made from bombshells collected from the Maehyang-Li site and Japanese artist Momoyo Torimitsu's robot Asian and American "enterprise soldiers." Below, Korean artist Jin-ran Kim's "Exercise in Futility" The Gwangju Biennale was established in 1995 as an international contemporary art festival to revitalize cultural life after years of political and economical crisis. Rather than mimicking the predictable format
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Kaleidoscope of colorful fashion
2004年
'Colors: Viktor & Rolf KCI' at the Mori Art Museum By KATE THOMSON Special to the Japan Times Viktor & Rolf are internationally renowned as the Gilbert and George of the fashion world for presenting conceptual work as sophisticated art performances in haute couture and pret-a-porter shows. Take their installation of their Spring/Summer 1996 collection in a contemporary art gallery in Paris October 1995. Titled "L'Appearance du vide" as a reaction against the fickle focus on supermodels of the fashion industry, golden dresses hung in the air like empty shells while the black clothes were cast like shadows or discarded second skins on the floor. The models were only present in the form of their names projected on the walls and whispered through speakers. "Jacket Autumn/Winter 2003" by Viktor and Rolf, collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute They explain the consistent success of their collaboration with the sum 1+1=3. For
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Sculptor who molded open-air art
2004年
HENRY MOORE Sculptor who molded open-air art By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times I have been a professional sculptor for 20 years, and in that time Henry Moore has toppled from the pedestal I put him on when I was 14 and first saw his "Helmet Head" series of bronze sculptures on display in my home city of Edinburgh. marks its 35th anniversary by launching an exhibition devoted to the artist. PHOTOS BY TOSHIHIDE KAJIHARA/HENRY MOORE FOUNDATION ARCHIVE/MICHEL MULLER; ALL (C)HENRY MOORE FOUNDATION What excited me then was how vividly sculpture could convey the complexity of the human condition, navigate the currents of international art movements and also capture a sense of belonging to a particular place. Moore's work seemed to exemplify all of that. Then, after I had spent 15 years living and working in Japan, overexposure to Moore's bronze figures dotted in the open air all
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SCULPTURE SYMPOSIUMS International ideas take shape in Lebanon
2002年
By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times Though the word "symposium" comes from Plato's ideal of a drinking party held to facilitate philosophical discussion, most of us are familiar with its modern usage, meaning a conference or meeting. Few people, however, know about the sculpture symposium movement, started by Karl Prantl in Austria in 1959. In the Cold War environment in Europe, it was difficult for sculptors to make ambitious works and to meet each other to discuss ideas with their peers. So Prantl invited sculptors from both East and West to leave their studios for several weeks to work in a mutually supportive camp in a disused stone quarry in St. Margarethan, Austria. Participating artists took the idea back to their home countries, and international sculpture symposiums have been taking place all over the world ever since. Kate Thomson's sculpture "Under the Same Sky" (top) and a portion
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Let there be light in the urban darkness
2002年
NAOYA HATAKEYAMA Let there be light in the urban darkness By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times Naoya Hatakeyama's stunning photographs use finely tuned modern techniques to discover harmonious beauty in places where we often perceive only competing layers of chaos. They filter our all-too-familiar environment, revealing its underlying complexity and, in the process, leading us to question the true "nature" of the world and our place in it. Naoya Hatakeyama's photographs, such as "Underground" series (2000) and the "Untitled 1989-2001" series (below) illuminate man's relationship with nature. This is a well-organized exhibition (at the Iwate Museum of Modern Art in Morioka until Sept. 16 before traveling to Osaka) which leads the viewer through the development of Hatakeyama's ideas to the realization that man and nature are still inextricably linked; that the organic still lingers within the constructed. This chain of reasoning finds its finale in the dramatic shots
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Mastering the fine art of science
2002年
SIEBOLD'S BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATIONS Mastering the fine art of science By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times "Japanese Botanical Art and Illustrations from Siebold's Collection," on show at the Iwate Museum of Art till July 28 (then traveling to Chiba and Tokyo), is the kind of exhibition one expects from a public museum trying to attract and please a wide audience. The creators of this show, it's tempting to speculate, were appealing to the Japanese passion for gardening and flower arranging -- and the affection with which the Bavarian-born physician and naturalist Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866) is remembered here for pioneering European advancements in natural sciences in Japan, and for introducing the fascinating wealth of Japanese flora to the world. An illustration by Shimizu TokokuAn illustration by Muzutani Sukeroku An illustration by Katsuragawa HokenA European copy of an illustration by Katsuragawa A European copy of an illustration by Katsuragawa
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Impressionist master of time and space
2002年
New exhibition in praise of Claude Monet, his curators and champion By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times If the world seems like a dark place at the beginning of the present century, an exhibition of work completed at the beginning of the last may help put things back in a more optimistic perspective. "Monet -- Later Works: Homage to Katia Granoff," is on show at the Iwate Museum of Art till Feb. 11 and then travels to Sakura, Chiba Prefecture, and to Nagoya. "Water-Lily Pond" (1917-19; catalog No. 28) represents the matured vision of impressionist pioneerClaude Monet. PHOTO COURTESY OF IWATE MUSEUM OF ART The first exhibition in Japan to focus exclusively on Monet's paintings of the water-garden he created next to his house in Giverny, this display pays special attention to the penultimate series of canvases produced in preparation for the artist's grand "Water Lilies" murals, now
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Putting the regions back in the spotlight
2001年
By KATE THOMSON Special to The Japan Times There is cultural life thriving outside Kanto and Kansai. As proof of this, if proof were needed, the new Iwate Museum of Art in Morioka City opened to the public last month. Its core collection -- of 20th-century prints, paintings and sculptures by artists born, trained or resident in the region -- gives visitors a chance to appreciate the immense contribution of rural regions to Japan's cultural wealth. As Hideya Sasaki, the museum's director, said in his opening address, "Growing interest in art among the residents of Iwate Prefecture led to the desire to establish a prefectural art museum as a new focal point for artistic activities in Iwate." In 1991, an organization was set up to work toward this goal and, after a decade of preparation -- including the purchase of more artworks -- IMA was designed and purpose-built by Nihon
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「ケンブリッジ紀行」、岩手日英協会、会報寄稿文、2001
2001年
ケンブリッジ紀行 ー2001年初夏ー わたしは三つの風景をいつも持ち歩く。太平洋に続く唐桑の光る海、堅く乾いた岩盤の上に密生するリンダブルンの松林、そして、絨毯のようなヒース広がるラムスデンの丘。時を経て幾重にも折り畳まれたその印象がいつしか心の奥に絹のひだとなって脈打ち、未だ見ぬ風景を、柔らかく、
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会報寄稿文、東北スコットランド協会、1996
1996年
私とケイトが二人で、日本のスコットランドといわれる岩手県のとある地方に住んでみたいと思い始めたのは、なによりも、岩手山の雄姿と、漂うように広がる草原が気にいったからである。自然は、なんといっても力強い方がいい。 日本の自然の豊かさを語るとすれば、北海道とか、長野の日本アルプス周辺あたりの方がいいかも
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現代のモニュメントとは何かー八戸市類家南土地区画整理事業竣工記念碑を製作してー
1996年
組合区画整理No.51, 1996年7月号 彫刻家 片桐 宏典 芸術家は謎に包まれている。 ロダンにせよ、ミケランジェロにせよ、ピカソにせよ、ゴッホにせよ、岡本太郎にせよ、芸術家たちは、一心不乱に仕事をしているかと思えば、その実、何を考えているのか傍から見ると見当もつかない。話をしていても、機嫌がよ