(C) MURAKAMI1995 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved
Oct 29, 2007-Feb 11,2008 at MOCA
Arguably the most internationally acclaimed artist to emerge from Asia in the postwar era, Takashi Murakami effortlessly navigates between the worlds of fine art and popular culture and is best known for his cartoon-like, “superflat” style. This large-scale retrospective includes key selections that span the early 1990s to the present. More than 90 works in various media—painting, sculpture, installation, and film—will be installed in three sections, occupying over 20,000 square feet of exhibition space at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. The first portion will be an immersive, theatrically lit environment, recreating the annual “Wonder Festival” comic market convention. It will feature many of Murakami’s acclaimed large-scale otaku-inspired figure projects of the late 1990s, including a new version of Second Mission Project Ko2 (2000-07). The second section will comprise a grid-like shelving display of all of Murakami’s merchandise, including multiples, collectibles, and maquettes, among other items. The final section will trace Murakami’s artistic development since 1991, including early works that engage branding and the evolution of his signature character, DOB. Of particular importance will be the premiere of a new animated film, kaikai & kiki, and the debut of Buddha Oval, an enormous self-portrait sculpture in the guise of a Buddha. The exhibition is organized by MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel with Research Assistant Mika Yoshitake and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.
Sep 15-Nov 10, 2007 at JACCC George J. Doizaki Galley
Tuesday-Friday 12 noon - 5pm
Saturday & Sunday 11am - 4pm
244 S.San Pedro St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
The Japan Foundation presents this exquisite and extensive exhibition of traditional Japanese arms and armor. With this exhibit, gallery goers can travel back into feudal Japan and glace at some of the most dangerous and romanticized professions of all time including Samurai Warrior.
FOREST OF WORDS: Origin of Japanese KANJI Ideogram
World-Music specialist Prof. Robert Garfias on the Traditional Japanese Music and Yamatogaku
Saturday, November 17 at 3 p.m.
Pacific Asia Museum
46 North Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101
(626) 449-2742
Yamatogaku is a fusion of traditional Japanese instruments and Western singing style, created by Baron Okura Kishichiro in 1933 in Tokyo.
A rare opportunity of this hybrid Japanese traditional music will be materialized on Saturday, January 5, 2008 at James Armstrong Theatre in Torrance by visiting of twelve Yamatogaku School players with the Headmaster Yamato Hisamitsu.
Prof. Robert Garfias, ethunomusicology specialist in UC Irvine, will explain about the traditional Japanese music and features of the Yamatogaku with guest performers of Minyo master Mme. Matsutoyo Sato, singer Marisa Kosugi and Japanese classical dancers from Bando Mitsuhiro Kai in Los Angeles. Free with museum admission.
For more information, call Cultural News at (213) 819-4100, info@culturalnews.com
Early written signs of Chinese script were found on tortoise shells and ox bones and date back to the Shang dynasty (14th-11th Century BCE).
These first characters were direct interpretation of nature, signs of medicine, practice of divination and agriculture.
The Chinese characters, being composed of ideograms, has preserved and enriched these original pictographic images: Learning how to write these characters enriches your perceptual memory of natural surroundings, animals, insects and sensitivities.
Chinese characters and Buddhism came to Japan via Korea in the sixth century and over the centuries Kanji, or “words from the Han Dynasty,” has developed into a present form where little has changed.
Through the Japan Foundation’s international program, two outstanding figures working in collaboration, Tesuji Atsuji, Professor, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University and Hirokazu Kosaka, Artistic Director of Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, will explore the evolution of Chinese ideogram with an intimate lecture and calligraphic demonstration.
Accompanying this program will be a collection of calligraphy brushes, including those made from the whiskers of rats, eyelashes of an ostrich and the hair from a boy’s first hair-cut; a variety of specialty calligraphic ink; traditional paper; and scrolls from distinguished calligraphers of Japan.
JAPANESE OUTLAW MASTERS RETURN September 6-9 at the Egyptian Theatre
6712 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA90028
More of the wildest, fastest and most uncompromising from the Golden Age of Japanese Genre cinema (and many are not on DVD)! We've got SWORD OF DOOM (a sought-after, aweinspiring and hard-to-seeon-the-big-screen samurai classic) ans Shohei Imamura's emotional cyclone of a movie, VENGEANCE IS MINE, about a real-life serial killer; plus a bouble feature from Seijun Suzuki--eye-dazzling pop confections, including the action-packed, ultra-mod DETECTIVE OFFICE #23-GO TO HELL< BASTARDS!
9/6 7:30PM "SWORD OF DOOM" & "THE GREAT MELEE"
9/7 7:30PM "PIGS AND BATTLESHIP" & "INTENTIONS OF MURDER"
9/8 7:30PM "VENGEANCE IS MIND" & "PUNISHMENT ROOM"
9/9 7:30PM "DETECTIVE OFFICE #23-GO TO HELL " & "FLOWER AND THE ANGRY WAVES"
KATSUDO SHASHIN
Classic Japanese Films Return to Little Tokyo!
Sep 30, SUN at Aratani/Japan America Theatre
244 S.San Pedro St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Charge -by -Phone Tel: 213-680-3700
Box office Open Mon.-Sat 12-5pm
General Admission
Festival Pass: $30, $25 JACCC Members
Single Tickets(per film): $10, $8 JACCC Members, Seniors, $6 Students
"Three Outlaw Samurai" courtesy of Shochiku Co., Ltd
11am Sambiki no Samurai¡¡¡¡ »°É¤¤Î»ø¡¡(Three Outlaw Samurai)
1967(95 min., B&W)
Gosha's directorial debut star Tetsuo Tamba as a wandering ronin (masterless samurai) who joins together with a small villege in a fight to the death against a cruel magistrate.
"Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron" courtesy of Shochiku Co.Ltd
1pm Kumokiri Nizaemon±À̸¿Îº¸±ÒÌç (Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron)
1978(163min., Color)
This film teams Gosha with one of his favorite leading men, Tatsuya Nakadai, who portrays a former samurai warrior who abandons his class to become the leader of a gang of thieves.
"Samurai Rebellion" courtesy of Mifune Productions Co., Ltd
Directed by respected chambara expert Masaki Kobayashi, stars Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai, who previously worked opposite each other in "Yojimbo" and "Sanjuro." This films sets love as the backdrop in a determined, yet seemingly futile battle for justice.
7:30pm Kumonosu-jo ÃØéáÁã¾ë¡¡(Throne of Blood)
1957 (105min., B&W)
This film directed by Kurosawa stars Mifune who portrays Eashizu Taketori, a feudal lord whose bloodthirsty ambition is surpassed only by that of his wife's, portrayed by Isuzu Yamada. In the final scene of this powerfully shot film, Kurosawa scrapped the idea of effects and instead opted to use real archers with arrows shooting at Mifune to heighten the scene of reality.
Due to graphic images of violence and strong sexuality "Samurai Rebellion", "Three Outlaw Samurai", "Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron" are recommended for mature audiences only.
Placing Nebuta onto its base curt and a short lecture by Master Hiroo Takenami, who designed/constructed the LA Nebuta float will be performed.
¡úFree to join
Hiroo Takenami
- Nebuta Award
Best Producer Year 2005
- Overseas Production
Produced Nebuta at Budapest for the
1100th national foundation festival of
Hungary in 1996
One of the top producers of Aomori Nebuta
The Cycle Plays
Saturday, July 7
Theatre of Yugen is developing The Cycle Plays, five plays performed during the course of a one-day-only presentation informed by the ritualistic Japanese Noh theater, written and directed in an ensemble process by Yugen’s Artistic Associate and playwright Erik Ehn. Musical composition by Allen Whitman and Suki O’Kane with the Yugen Orchestra.
This marathon theatrical event presents American stories told in the signature poetic, dance-drama style of Yugen, with its roots in the spirit of Noh, reaching up to new movement and narrative forms through pioneering contemporary music. The five categories of plays forming the traditional Noh architecture are re-invented in the lexicon of Western archetypes and with American legendary figures.
July 7th, 2007
at Project Artaud Theater in San Francisco
FREE – reservations strongly recommended
(415) 621-7978
Jubilith as Helen Keller, photo: Kagami
The Jump to Japan Exhibition
Sangre de Cristo Arts Center to celebrate opening of Japanese exhibits with all-day celebration on June 15
(PUEBLO) On June 15, be immersed in the culture of Japan in an all daycelebration of the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center's fine art exhibitions and the Buell Children’s Museum featuring "Tokonoma: A Place of Simple Elegant Beauty" and "Jump to Japan."
From 11am to 4pmWith your paid admission, you can…
Watch a Dragon Dojo performance (11 a.m.) Experience "Jump to Japan: Discover Culture Through Popular Art"
Discover the fine art exhibitions
Draw your own manga (comics) with Justin Morenz (Noon-1 p.m.)
Learn to write Japanese calligraphy with Mamiko Ikeda (2-3 p.m.)
Fold origami with members of the Origami Society
Watch a tea ceremony conducted by a Master of Tea Ceremony (3-4 p.m.)
Create a wood block print From 5pm to 7pmFree public reception includes…
Art exhibitions
Complimentary Japanese fare & spirits Watch a performance by the Japanese drum ensemble, Denver Taiko (6:30 p.m.)
The celebration and the exhibitions are sponsored by the Mahlon Thatcher White Foundation; The Japanese Foundation, Los Angeles, Mini-Grant Program and media sponsors NewsFirst 5 & 30 and Hot 95.5.
Admission to the Arts Center is $4 for adults and $3 for children. Members of the Arts Center receive free admission. The galleries and children’s museum are open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, please call 719-295-7200, stop by the Arts Center located at 210 N. Santa Fe Ave., just off of I-25, exit 98b or go online to www.sdc-arts.org
May 25, 2007 - June 30, 2007 at University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive
(C) Janus film : Pigs and Battleships
"I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure."-Shohei Imamura
The Japanese master Shohei Imamura (1926-2006) is famous for the controversial subject matter and raw energy of his films. Imamura's Japan is a sensual and often cruel universe untouched by the tea ceremony, Zen, or conventional gentility. Imamura shared with his contemporary Nagisa Oshima a deep social commitment, and a fascination with time-fragmented narration and the ambiguities of illusion and reality. Yet his films look and feel nothing like those of Oshima, or any other director for that matter. At once sensuous and structured, outrageous and analytical, they forage in the primordial Japanese spirit, the ancient drives on which modern life thrives. In the world he observes, women are not the long-suffering, lovely Japanese female of many a screen and fan; rather, they are survivors-self-aware, self-serving, and sexual. ("My heroines are true to life-just look around you at Japanese women. They are strong, and they outlive men. Self-sacrificing women like the heroines of Naruse's Floating Clouds and Mizoguchi's Life of Oharu don't really exist," he said.) Imamura has been called the "anthropologist" among the Japanese New Wave directors, but the scientific method is in part a clever stylistic device contrasting with the irrational and instinctual forces his films ultimately celebrate.
The Aurora Foundation and Kasloff Foundation present Special screening of Mako Iwamatsu.
Sunday,April 29,2007
Aratani Japan America Theatre
244 S. San Pedro St, LA, CA 90012
“Itsukushimu Inochi” a documentary about painter, Taro Yashima (1994) (45 minutes)
Japanese Language version (No English subtitle)
Show: 1p.m. (House open: 12:00pm)
“Homeland- Sokoku”(2005) (108 minutes)
Japanese Language version (No English subtitle)
Story and Screenplay by Yoji Yamada
Directed by Tonko Horikawa
Show: 2:30p.m.
For more information, including sponsorship, please contact the Aurora Foundation at (323) 882-6545 or Kasloff Foundation at (310) 457-6281
E-mail: AuroraFoundation@usa.net
Please check the JLSF website at www.jlsf-aurora.org.
Japan’s feminist noir author, Natsuo Kirino, makes appearance on the west coast in promotion of her latest translated novel, Grotesque. An acclaimed author of 16 novels and winner of Japan’s premier literary awards – including the Izumi Kyoka Literary Award for the Japanese version of Grotesque – her work have been celebrated in 19 languages.
Join us in one of her stops in San Francisco/Bay Area, Seattle, and Los Angeles for a session of reading, Q&A, and booksigning (reading and Q&A not available in San Mateo) and find out why The Independent (London) praises it, “Engrossing.”
Saturday, April 7
11am, Booksigning
M is for Mytery
86 East Third Ave., San Mateo CA
(650) 401-8077 http://www.mformystery.com/
2pm, Reading, Q&A, booksigning
Kinokuniya Bookstore
1581 Webster Street, San Francisco CA
(415) 567-7625 http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/
Monday, April 9
7:30pm, Reading, Q&A, booksigning
Elliott Bay Book Company
101 South Main Street, Seattle WA
(206) 621-6600 http://www.elliottbaybook.com/
Wednesday, April 11
7:00pm, Reading, Q&A, booksigning
Book Soup
8818 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood CA
(310) 659-3110 http://www.booksoup.com
11:00AM Korean Animation "Aachi&Ssipak" Rated R
12:30 Break (Free sandwiches and water)
1:30PM Japanese Animation "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time"
3:20PM Panel Discussion with Animation filmmakers
Ken Duer(Producer, Phuuz Entertainment)
Bum-Jin Joe(Director, AACHI&SSPAK)
Mamoru Hosoda(Director, THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME)
Jae Y Moh(President, Sunwoo Entertainment)
Mizuko Ito(Research Scientist, USC)
Free Admission Reservation Required
LAST UPDATE: 2010-08-23 14:38:59
Copyright 1999-2010 The Japan Foundation Los Angeles
"Three Outlaw Samurai" courtesy of Shochiku Co., Ltd
"Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron" courtesy of Shochiku Co.Ltd
"Samurai Rebellion" courtesy of Mifune Productions Co., Ltd
