News Digest June 29 to July 3

Tokyo Art Beat Blog gives you the lowdown on some of the art news stories from the past week.

poster for Chim Pom, So Otsuki, Sota Sugahara and Yasuhiko Shimizu Talk Show

Chim Pom, So Otsuki, Sota Sugahara and Yasuhiko Shimizu Talk Show

at At Btf
in the Kiyosumi, Odaiba area
This event has ended - (2009-07-04)

In In the News by William Andrews 2009-07-04 print

Obituaries

Much of the arts news this week was dominated by the death of choreographer Pina Bausch at 68, and also Michael Martin, the graffiti artist who died aged 50.

In the Tokyo arts scene, there were two other deaths.

One was a thing, or more precisely, a magazine. Studio Voice has become one of the many recent print media here to close down, part of the global media recession. Though the editors were not answering the rumours at first, it has now been confirmed that the August edition will be its last. It is thought that the magazine will be making the shift online but, as we saw from the demise of Ping Mag last year, even that is not a safe realm.

The second thing to die was an application, namely that of Ueno’s National Museum of Western Art to become a World Heritage Site. In spite of the local pride in the Le Corbusier-designed building, it apparently does not meet the standard of the UNESCO brand.

Talk of the town

Chim↑Pom members are some of the speakers appearing at a Shop Btf event today (July 4), continuing their hegemony of the Tokyo art scene.

William Andrews

William Andrews. William Andrews came to Japan in 2004, around the same time Tokyo Art Beat launched. Sadly, these two events, though equal in their significance for Japan, remained unconnected for some years. Meanwhile William lived in Osaka, working as a teacher and a translator for Kansai Art Beat. He came to Tokyo in 2008 and, when not exploring art galleries, can often be found in the city's theatres. He writes on the performing arts for The Japan Times and a blog about Tokyo contemporary theatre: www.tokyostages.wordpress.com » See other writings

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