The prolific director / actor / film editor / stand-up comedian / TV presenter / author / poet / painter / sculptor / videogame designer / general no good layabout Beat Takeshi Kitano has taken over the Fondation Cartier in Paris [read more]
To coincide with the current Utamaro exhibition, The Art Gallery of NSW is presenting a free Japanese ‘floating world’ film series, kicking off this week [read more]
Soap bubbles, inflatable alter egos and crystal baubles all feature amongst the handful of artists representing Japan in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, currently showing at GOMA in Brisbane [read more]
Found on every civilized continent, the spiral has been called the most ancient symbol of all. The damn thing is everywhere: in flushing toilets, in our fingerprints and dna composition, in the very structure of the galaxy [read more]
Surely the most narcissistic of all mediums, video art since its rise to fame in the 1960s has been closely associated with explorations of the self and, more broadly, the nature of identity. At the forefront of the rise of video art was Takahiko Iimura, an artist whose explorations of selfhood delved deeper into the unknown than many of his contemporaries and successors. Having spent most of the ‘60s in New York mingling and collaborating with the likes of Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono, he returned to Japan in the early ‘70s and continued his experimental work there [read more]
In the traditional, highly refined Japanese artform of banraku puppetry, the three men required to manipulate each puppet are in clear view to the audience. Because the art and the labour are exhibited simultaneously, the artiface of it because an integral part of the performance rather than something to disguise. In a similar way, this film makes no attempt to appear natural and is self-conciously highly constructed and stylised [read more]
The highly stylised Kabuki-esque aesthetic and ghostly soundscape of this 1964 cinematic gem create a dream-like state that makes no attempt to be realistic. Director Masaki Kobayashi spent five years in preparation before he started shooting; painting and building the elaborate sets almost single handedly and renting an aircraft hanger to use as a sound stage. The opening credits establish the unforgettable restrained beauty that runs throughout the four stories which make up the portmanteau film [read more]
For your cinematographic and art direction … ographic pleasure: a selection of stills from the Art Theatre Guild of Japan’s early films. Founded in 1961 as a distributor of European art house in Japan, the ATG became a production company in the late 60’s and established itself a vital platform for experimental film, playing a decisive role in the development of Japanese new wave cinema in the decades to come [read more]