Japan

Richard Hill and students demonstrate kendo, a Japanese martial arts form, at the Asian Art Museum’s educator workshop for the Lords of the Samurai exhibition on September 5, 2009.

See demonstrations of employing both traditional (no electric needles!) and modern techniques. Joining Horitaka’s diverse, talented crew of tattooists are special guests from Japan — Shige, a powerhouse tattoo artist who has been showcased all over the world; Mutsuo, who’s designed for Bathing Ape and Hysteric Glamour; and Kazunobu Nagashima, a client of Shige who will proudly display his backpiece, which won a 2007 Milano Tattoo Convention award.

Hailed as one of the most important photographers of our time, New York-based Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto is also an accomplished architect. He approaches his work from many different perspectives, with architecture as one component in designing the settings for his installations. As a photographer of the highest technical ability, with equal acclaim for the conceptual and philosophical aspects of his work, Sugimoto has created works in his “Five Elements” series that are constructed as shrines to a primordial birthplace. Using geometric symbols from thirteenth-century Buddhism, Sugimoto encases a single image from his iconic Seascape series in each glass structure.

Japanese artist and pop icon Fuyuko Matsui explores the haunted, interconnected realms of traditional and modern aesthetics. As one of the few women to have attained top training and mastery of traditional Japanese painting (nihonga) techniques in Japan, Matsui also cites centuries-old artistic influences, such as the iconoclastic eighteenth-century painter Soga Shohhaku and the fifteenth-century painter Soga Jasoku.

In all lacquer objects, regardless of when they were produced, a resinous sap coating preserves the core material and allows for decoration. The material for lacquering is extracted from lacquer trees (Toxicodendron vernicifluum; formerly Rhus verniciflua), which is the same genus as poison oak. Learn more in this award winning documentary on Japanese lacquer.

Mari L’Esperance reads a poem she wrote in response to seven paintings by Fuyuko Matsui in the exhibition Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past (on view at the Asian Art Museum from May 18–September 2, 2012). This presentation was part of MATCHA. Co-presented by Litquake.

Andrea Horbinski of the UC Berkeley History–Social Science Project, gives a talk to teachers at the Japan Teacher Institute at the Asian Art Museum on Japanese history, folktales, anime, and more.

Large plate with map of Japan, 1800-1868. Japan; Arita region, Saga prefecture. Porcelain with cobalt decoration. The Avery Brundage Collection, B72P1.

Yo Azama, 2012 National Language Teacher of the Year (Japanese Education) discusses language and learning during his keynote address at the Japanese Language Symposium held on February 18, 2012 at the Asian Art Museum. Presented by the Japan Society of Northern California, co-hosted by the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco, the San Francisco Unified School District and the Asian Art Museum.

Artist Koki Tanaka discusses his works.