MetaFilter posts tagged with Japan and art

Baseball Bromides (Japanese baseball cards)

OmieWise — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:09:05 -0800

Besuboru Bromides (Japanese Baseball Cards) from the collection of John Gall, as featured at A Journey Round My Skull. Here is an earlier essay by Gall about Japanese baseball cards.

Painting From History

netbros — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:45:18 -0800

Tomokazu Matsuyama was born in Japan. He moved to the US when he was around ten years old, not speaking any English, and being overwhelmed by the culture shock of 1980s Los Angeles. His artistic work is a reflection of this upbringing. Matsuyama’s paintings envision traditional Japanese imagery through the lens of American pop art, creating a unique and beautiful hybrid. He strives to portray this global melee through a conscious “appropriation” of all of his influences: cultural, artistic, and personal. Matsuyama’s unconflicted and positively ebullient works do not ask, “What am I?,” but assert, “I am everybody.” (via) Matsu's work is a more conscious and introspective response to the tensions of bi-cultural experience. An upbringing split between Japan and America spurred the questions of national and individual identity that figure prominently in the style and subject matter of his paintings — attempting to parse the “natural chaos” of our social environment, Matsuyama pushes viewers to confront their conceptions of cultural homogeneity, which seems to contradict notions of Japaneseness. Discerningly appropriating influences from modern art and Japanese art from the Edo and Meiji eras, Matsuyama’s paintings are an aesthetically exciting and culturally fascinating facet, which portrays the lifestyle of this time.

HARUKU SMASH!

Artw — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:26:51 -0800

The Incredible Hulk, as told by Koike Kazuo, of Lone Wolf and Cub fame, and Yoshihiro Morifuji. More scans here.

Salt Sculptures

netbros — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:04:29 -0800

Following the death of his sister to brain cancer, Motoi Yamamoto adopted salt as his primary artistic medium. In Japanese culture salt is not only a necessary element to sustain human life, but it is also a symbol of purification. He uses salt in loose form to create intricate labyrinth patterns on the gallery floor or in baked brick form to construct large interior structures. As with the labyrinths and unnavigable passageways, Motoi Yamamoto views his installations as exercises which are at once futile yet necessary to his healing.

Art is everywhere

tellurian — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:54:06 -0800

Mingei is a transcultural word which combines the Japanese words for all people (Min) and art (Gei). The site has a flash interface and features over 5,000 high resolution, zoomable objects. More information on the Mingei Movement.

Watch out for the fireball sac secretions

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:37:41 -0800

Lateral post-medial anterioöptical anatomical monster drawings

The digital collection of the Tokyo National Museum

Kattullus — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:08:24 -0800

The digital collection of the Tokyo National Museum is full of wonder. TNM is the oldest museum in Japan and collects archaeological objects and art from Japan as well as other parts of Asia. The collection can be browsed by type or region. Here are some of my favorites: Buddha's life, The name "Korin" given to pupil, Tale of Matsuranomiya, Coquettish type, Tea caddy in shape of bucket with handle, Mirror, design of sea and island, Traditionary identified as Minamoto no Yoritomo, Seated Monju Bosatsu (Manjusri) and attendants, Sword mounting of kazari-tachi type and (my current desktop background) Figures under a tree. This is but a small sampling of all that can be found in the digital collection

Mono-Ha

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:01:28 -0800

Phase — Mother Earth, a piece created by Mono-ha artist Nobuo Sekine in 1968, has been re-created:

Consisting of a hole dug into the ground, 2.7 metres deep and 2.2 metres in diameter, with the excavated earth compacted into a cylinder of exactly the same dimensions, Phase — Mother Earth was instrumental in the early development of work by the Mono-ha artist group, and has been considered a landmark work in Japanese postwar art history.

More about Mono-ha inside. What is Mono-ha?

‘Mono-ha’ refers to a group of artists who were active from the late sixties to early seventies, using both natural and man-made materials in their work. Their aim was simply to bring ‘things’ together, as far as possible in an unaltered state, allowing the juxtaposed materials to speak for themselves. Hence, the artists no longer ‘created’ but ‘rearranged’ ‘things’ into artworks, drawing attention to the interdependent relationships between these ‘things’ and the space surrounding them. The aim was to challenge pre-existing perceptions of such materials and relate to them on a new level.

Other Mono-ha artists: Kishio Suga Lee U-Fan Koji Enokura Noboru Takayama Noriyuki Haraguchi Narita Katsuhiko Katsuro Yoshida Koshimizu Hayao

Cartoons AGAINST Narrative!

defenestration — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:14:04 -0800

“A Dream To Have In Heaven” (Tengoku De Miru Yume - 天国でみる夢) is a non-narrative, surreal manga created by Maki Sasaki. It was published in the November 1967 issue of Garo, a now-defunct alternative and avant-garde monthly manga anthology magazine that peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

A blog about Japanese photography seen from abroad.

chunking express — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:38:20 -0800

A blog about Japanese photography seen from abroad. The site hasn't been updated in quite some time, but it is still full of a lot of interesting stuff.

Floating World

Kattullus — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:07:22 -0800

Viewing Japanese Prints is an encyclopedia of Floating World art (or ukiyo-e) and related genres. It has lots of images to go with the articles. Once you've gone through the site and familiarized yourself with pre-modern Japanese printmaking you might want to browse through the humongous image archive of Tokyo Metropolitan Library. Here are a few images that caught my eye: musicians attempt to keep a lady entertained, samurai pirate jumps into the water, crazed sea-captain wields very big axe, two samurais in combat, elfin man watches split-tailed cat dance while a giant feline stares angrily and giant toad belches up samurai while another samurai fights a gigantic fish and a third samurai observes the action from the banks of a river.

Nobody knows Emperors and Queens more intimately

tellurian — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:39:16 -0800

Pictures of 100 poems by 100 poets, explained by a Wet Nurse - Hokusai's pictures describe what the poems do in the head of a wet nurse. With high resolution scans.

Don't play with your food - well, OK, go ahead.

desjardins — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:02:56 -0800

Sushi art. Weird sushi art. Sushi ASCII art. Sushi soap. Sushi jewelry. Sushi candles. Wind-up sushi. And finally, sushi made of chocolate!

Takashi Murakami

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:45:35 -0800

Hentai sculpture sells for $15m (NSFW) Murakami! Murakami! Murakami! Murakami! Murakami! Murakami!

The Japanese Garden

Effigy2000 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:54:57 -0800

Paradise: The Gardens of Tokyo. A collection of amazing photographs of Japanese gardens as taken by Tim Porter. Impressed and want to see more Japanese gardens? Look here and here for more links to more photos of some beautiful Japanese-style gardens from around the world. For further reading, check out Meditations on the Japanese Garden and The Modern Japanese Garden. And if after all of that you feel inspired to turn your garden into a Japanese garden of your own, The Japanese Garden Journal has you covered. Mind you, building the bridge sounds kind of tricky...

Howl's Moving Castle papercraft

jonson — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:33:19 -0800

Howl's Moving Castle - in papercraft. Stop motion animation of the assembly here, flickr set of the finished product here, details on the kit here. Found via.

Patchwork of Art

artifarce — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:09:51 -0800

TOKYO International Great Quilt Festival 2008, a photo collection of beautiful Japanese art quilts. From Moonstitches via CRAFT.

Tiny treasures - classic and contemporary netsuke

madamjujujive — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 09:10:10 -0800

Netsuke of the Meiji Period is an online exhibit from the Los Angeles County Museum, noted for the depth of its collection. (more). The György Ráth Museum and the Ferenc Hopp Museum also house a fine classic collection. (more). Today, netsuke carving is alive and well - see the Kiho Collection for one young master. If you would like to explore more sculpture for the hand, the International Netsuke Society has a good link list to many excellent contemporary netsuke artists.

No Change Given

Xurando — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:00:30 -0800

It's late at night and you're being followed by thugs. The solution: become a vending machine.

Rice paddy art.

dersins — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:32:21 -0800

"Pimp my rice paddy." Crop art for aliens, instead of by them.

pliable beauty

nickyskye — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:17:22 -0800

Contemporary Japanese bamboo art.

scholar's rocks

nickyskye — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:09:52 -0800

Known as scholar's rocks or gongshi, viewing stones are rocks of complex shapes that suggest worlds within worlds, microcosms in stone. In Japan they are called Suiseki, from the Japanese characters for water "sui" and stone "seki", placed on a daiza, a carved wood base. They are at once a miniature landscape and a point of imaginative departure…

manga review of da Vinci's "Annunciation"

gen — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 09:20:53 -0800

Painter and comic artist Jun-Pierre Shiozawa visited the Tokyo National Museum recently to view da Vinci's Annunciata which created protests in Italy when the Uffizi Gallery lent this artwork to Japan. Shiozawa then created a fantastic "manga review" of the experience for Tokyo Art Beat's TABlog. You can see the steps Shiozawa made to create his manga review on Shiozawa's Flickr account or blog.

Post Apocalyptic Tokyo in Lithograph

jonson — Thu, 10 May 2007 13:03:34 -0800

Hisaharu Motoda’s “Neo-Ruins” series of lithographs depict the cityscape of a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where familiar streets lie deserted, the buildings are crumbling and weeds grow from the broken pavement. More here, here & here.

Illustrated Ise Monogatari

languagehat — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 07:59:00 -0800

An illustrated edition of the Ise Monogatari (Wikipedia, review of translation). Yeah, yeah, it's in Japanese, but just keep hitting the forward button (the leftmost of the two on the right, red/brown rather than blue/green) and you'll find lots of pretty pictures. I can't improve on the descriptions by Matt of No-sword, where I found it, so I'll just quote him: "Behold our hero maxin' and relaxin' at his writing-desk, looking like he just got hired as a middle manager at his dad's lighter-flint concern! Thrill to the famous scene where he is visited by the Pineapple of Golden Week Past! Laugh as he is mistaken for a member of Aerosmith! Wonder why everyone is just sitting around smiling contentedly when the building is obviously on fire!"