Exhibition Featuring Rare Artwork From Japan on Display at the Cleveland Museum of Art

NEWS 5 CLEVELAND
By Kaylyn Hlavaty

Seated Tenjin, 1259. Kamakura period (1185–1333). Wood with color; 94.9 x 101.5 x 68.8 cm. Yoki Tenman Jinja, Nara. Important Cultural Property. Photo: Nara National Museum

CLEVELAND---The Cleveland Museum of Art is welcoming an exclusive exhibition straight from Japan, featuring 20 works designated as Important Cultural Properties by the Japan government. The exhibition, Shinto: Discovery of the Divine in Japanese Art, features art exemplifying Shinto, which is Japan's unique belief system focused on the divine phenomena called kami. The exhibition is an expression of the everyday engagement of people with divinities in their midst, according to a release from the museum. Inside the exhibition about 125 works in different media—from calligraphy, painting, sculpture, costume and decorative arts— are a collection of more than 20 religious institutions and museums in Japan. [More]

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Exhibition Focuses on Shrines Across Japan

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Kansa Shrine at Lake Tazawa, from the series Souvenirs of Travel III, 1927, Kawase Hasui (Japanese, 1883 - 1957), Woodblock print; ink and color on paper. René and Carolyn Balcer Collection.

This Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibition features twelve woodblock prints by Japanese artist Kawase Hasui (1883-1957). Selected from nearly 700 Hasuiprints donated to the museum by René and Carolyn Balcer, these works focus on scenes of temples and shrines across Japan, celebrating their sacred architecture and connections between people and nature. This installation is curated by Li Jian, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art, and coincides with the 100th anniversary of the first prints created by Hasui in 1918. [More]

Japanese Art and the two paths of Buddhism and Shintoism: Faith in the Snow

MODERN TOKYO TIMES
By Lee Jay Walker

“Art of Buddhism and Shintoism and Two Paths in the Snow,” by Utsumi shows that two religious paths can co-exist naturally without seeking to crush and humiliate the other.

TOKYO---The latest art piece by Sawako Utsumi, a contemporary Japanese artist who hails from Northern Japan, utilizes the snowy landscape by highlighting the respective strengths of Buddhism and Shintoism despite terrible adversity. Of course, the adversity applies to the terrible weather conditions faced by the holy men of Buddhism and Shintoism in this art piece. However, on a bigger nuance, then it applies to certain international events that have decimated Buddhism and Traditional Beliefs throughout history – and is still happening today. “Art of Buddhism and Shintoism and Two Paths in the Snow,” is an adorable piece of art by Utsumi. This is based on the amazing landscape, the three holy men of Buddhism and Shintoism, the terrible winter conditions, the power of faith, and the distant Buddhist temple and Shinto shrine. [More]

An Obsessive Collector Who’s Drawn Royalty to Brooklyn

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Robin Pogrebin

Steven Korff is surrounded by his collection of Japanese ceramics in his Brooklyn home. Credit Dave Sanders for The New York Times

NEW YORK---Put your feet up on the coffee table, and you might knock over those pieces by Kakurezaki Ryuichi and Mori Togaku, or that vase by Matsui Kosei. Splash around in the upstairs bathtub, and you’re likely to spray water on the sculptures to your left or your right by some of Japan’s most influential 20th-century ceramic artists. This simple house in Flatbush, Brooklyn, is not only where Steven Korff and Marcia Van Wagner, a married couple, raised their two boys — now 18 and 21 — but where Mr. Korff keeps the more than 400 sculptural vases, bowls, sake cups and flasks that have quietly made him one of the leading collectors in contemporary Japanese ceramics. [link]

'Kubo and the Two Strings': A Movie Inspired by Shinto and Buddhist Traditions

SLANT MAGAZINE

By Oleg Ivanov

Movie poster

An American production, this stop-motion animated film is set in a fantastical vision of medieval Japan, forming part of a rich history of combining occidental and Japanese literary and theatrical traditions in order to look at both cultures anew. Kubo and the Two Strings employs a Japanese setting to show American (and other foreign) audiences a different way of conceptualizing death, mourning, and memory. In presenting a metaphysical conception of the afterlife inspired by Shinto and Buddhist traditions, the film offers a powerful metaphor for the manner in which we carry the memories of our departed inside ourselves, one that both complements and provides a compelling alternative to Judeo-Christian beliefs on the subject. [link]