Think! Turn off your device, turn on your mind, and engage with the sights and sounds in front of you. This exhortation, supported by the lack of explanatory panels, seemed to lie at the heart of The State of This World: Thought and the Arts, an exhibition that ran from 10 December 2016 to 12 February this year at the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History (located in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture). more...
Spirited Stones at Chichibu Chinsekikan, the Hall of Curious Rocks
Susan Rogers Chikuba
The land outside your train window grows steadily greener as you travel the 80 kilometers northwest from Ikebukuro to Chichibu, Tokyo's suburban sprawl giving way to steep forested slopes. When you alight at Seibu Chichibu station you'll find yourself surrounded by mountains and, depending on the hour, by the hikers, campers, and day-trekking rock hounds this area attracts in droves. more...
Netsuke: An Impish Marriage of Form and Function
Alan Gleason
An exhibition of 300 sculptures sounds like it would barely squeeze into one of the big museums in Ueno, let alone a small municipal gallery in the Tokyo suburb of Mitaka. But the works in question readily fit several dozen to a showcase -- they are netsuke, and they are as entertaining as miniature art gets. more...
