A bilingual art magazine that introduces Japanese art and culture, focusing on contemporary art, architecture, fashion, music, and other aspects of Japanese art and culture without borders in both Japanese and English.

Film director Kawase Naomi

Kawase is about to release the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – Side A / Side B, the official documentary film of the Tokyo Olympics for which she served as general director.
Kawase talked about her personal upbringing, the origins of her creative process, her unique filming style, and the struggles she faced in the creative process, from her debut film Embracing to her latest work.

Architect Junya Ishigami

Gigantic KAIT PLAZA, covered by a ceiling with a view of the sky, the cave-like restaurant House & Restaurant, and the SOLATOTSUCHINIKIERU, an ice architecture that melted and disappeared as soon as it was completed in the HOKUTO ART PROGRAM.
Architect Junya Ishigami has freed architecture from its formal form and continues to expand the definition of the word “architecture.” Journalist Nobuyuki Hayashi uncovers the appeal of Ishigami’s works, which are somehow poetic and appealing to art lovers.

Contemporary Artist Yukinori Yanagi

Yanagi is internationally acclaimed for his works that combine a strong social message with humor, including the Inujima Seirensho Art Museum, which attracts many visitors during the Setouchi International Art Festival. His provocative expressions have sometimes been the subject of controversy.

We will look back on his creative activities from his origins as an artist to the present day at his activity base Art Base Momoshima.

Media Artist Yoichi Ochiai

The series provides an insight into the world of media artist, Yoichi Ochiai, through his own words and works. In the 6th edition of this series, Ochiai, who has been presenting his works in Fukuoka, Tokyo, Kyoto, Gifu, and Osaka, all over Japan from the end of last year to this year, talks about his creative activities with keywords such as rag, Gunpla, Daigoji, Mingei, and NFT in an exclusive interview.

Curator Yuko Hasegawa

The series by Yuko Hasegawa, an internationally renowned curator, delves into complex topics from an artistic point of view.

In this fourth edition, to renovate the existence and its performance of Japanese armor having its own aesthetic within the design, Hasegawa ,the curator of the exhibition, introduces the highlights of “Kacchu Anatomy: The aesthetics of design and engineering,” currently on view at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

Contemporary art collector Ryutaro Takahashi

Ryutaro Takahashi is a psychiatrist and contemporary art collector. His collection, which includes many valuable works by prominent Japanese contemporary artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, and Yoshitomo Nara, has become known as the Takahashi Collection and is now indispensable in the Japanese contemporary art scene.

In this sixth edition, Takahashi introduces the world of Makoto Aida, a prodigy in the Japanese contemporary art world who takes “artistic impudence over social good.”

《New Serials》 Art Journalist Yoshio Suzuki

Art journalist Yoshio Suzuki presents “Learn the New and Visit the Old,” a new series of articles in which he will compare and contrast contemporary works of art with works from the past that may have directly or indirectly influenced contemporary ones or that evoke the viewer’ inference about the connection between them.

In this first edition, Suzuki introduces Cherry Blossoms at the Yoshino at Tatsuta, featuring Damien Hirst’s Cherry Blossoms, which was exhibited at the National Art Center, Tokyo, and is still fresh in our minds.

《New Series》Media Aesthete Mitsuhiro Takemura

Film Art Director Yoshihito Akatsuka

Yoshihito Akatsuka has been involved in the artwork for famous Hollywood films such as Babel, Kill Bill, and Fast & Furious, and is currently active as a production designer in Taiwan, China, and others.

In this series of articles, he is going to interview some of the most notable production designers in Japan. In this second installment, he introduces Hidefumi Hanatani, the production designer who worked on The Lady Shogun and Her Men and 125 YEARS MEMORY.

Visiting ART COLLECTORS – The First Installment: Koji Nakao

In this series of “Visiting Art Collectors,” we talk to some of the notable art collectors in Japan.

In the first edition, we interview art collector Koji Nakao, former chairman of medical device manufacturer Terumo. At Gallery Cafe ULTRA where he exhibits his own collection, including Yukinori Yanagi, Miyako Ishiuchi, O Jun, and Kazuki Umezawa, Nakao talks about the direction of his collection, issues surrounding freedom of expression, and what Japanese people should find valuable.

《ONBEAT PICKS》Akira Fujimoto

Akira Fujimoto is a socially-conscious artist whose art activities focus on “energy” as its theme.

Focusing on the art project “2021,” which was started to show what Japan should be like after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, we will explore the true meaning of Fujimoto’s artworks and projects, including a work using “marine debris” left on the beach and a project to pass on the memory of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima.

List price 2,500 yen + tax