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Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Exhibitions Across Japan Remember Legacies of 1970 Osaka Expo and Other Expos Past
Exhibitions focusing on the art and architecture showcased at world expositions in the past, including the 1970 Osaka Expo, are being held across the nation to coincide with the ongoing 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo. The exhibitions aim to reexamine the history of these big world events where cultures from across the globe can be encountered. In Kawasaki The Yomiuri Shimbun Photos, documents and other items about the creation of the Tower of the Sun are displayed at the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art in Kawasaki. Among the legacies of the 1970 Osaka Expo, the Tower of the Sun in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, still draws visitors. A temporary exhibition titled 'Taro Okamoto and Tower of the Sun' is running at the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art in Kawasaki until July 6. The event focuses on the artist's ideas that came to fruition in the huge, strangely shaped structure. The tower, which Okamoto designed not long before he turned 60, was created as a symbol of resistance against the modernism embodied in the expo's theme of 'Progress and Harmony for Mankind.' The background to this was the folklore studies that Okamoto undertook as a student in Paris. The experience fostered his attitude of seeking a deep understanding of the roots of people's lives. The exhibition displays photos that Okamoto took after returning to Japan to document festivals, customs and architecture across the nation. The photos indicate that Okamoto had a strong interest in his origins. Among items related to the 1970 Osaka Expo, the exhibits include blueprints for the tower and motion pictures of Okamoto in the process of making the tower. There is also a space that reproduces scenes from the 1970 Expo in which folk items from across the world were displayed in the base of the tower. The tower, with its humorous and dynamic imagery, applauds the very existence of mankind. A curator of the museum said, 'Now that time has passed, I hope this exhibition is an opportunity to reconsider what Okamoto wanted to demonstrate at the [1970] Expo.' In Osaka The Yomiuri Shimbun A life-size design of a velvet wall hanging, named 'Nami ni Chidori,' is displayed at the Takashimaya Archives in Osaka. The Takashimaya Archives in Naniwa Ward, Osaka, is holding an exhibition titled 'Exposition Era' until Aug. 18. The exhibition shows the relationship between world expositions and department stores. The displays include artistically dyed fabrics, rough drawings of the fabrics and award certificates that Takashimaya Co. showed at world expositions at home and abroad from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. They include a life-size design of a velvet wall hanging in the Yuzen style named 'Nami ni Chidori' (Waves and plovers), which Japanese-style painter Seiho Takeuchi supervised. It is on display until June 23. The painting is a fantastical depiction of plovers taking flight over the moonlit sea. The wall hanging was displayed at the 1900 Paris Expo, and French actress Sarah Bernhardt bought it, causing a sensation. This anecdote indicates how highly Japanese craftsmen's skills were valued, in addition to the popularity of Japonisme — a trend that favored Japanese products — in those years. Yuzen-style dyed fabrics and embroidered pictures shown in the exhibition are all precise and take visitors by surprise. Takako Takai, a curator of the archives, said: 'Utilizing the experiences of displaying at the expo, Takashimaya changed its sales approach from a zauri style [in which clerks pulled out goods as customers requested them], to the current style of showcasing products on store shelves. The expo is one of the factors that prompted the evolution from kimono shops to department stores.' Items displayed will be subject to change during the exhibition. In Tokyo The Yomiuri Shimbun Blueprints and photos about attractive buildings at the 1970 Osaka Expo are shown at the National Archives of Modern Architecture in Tokyo. The National Archives of Modern Architecture in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, is holding an exhibition titled 'World Fair in Japan 1970-2005,' which focuses on the role of world expositions from the perspective of architecture. In the first phase of the exhibition that ended on May 25, it showed the efforts of talented architects who, through trial and error, led Japan's architecture in the postwar period, mainly focusing on the 1970 Osaka Expo. At the venue of the 1970 Expo, the 127-meter-high Expo Tower, which was designed by Kiyonori Kikutake, stood opposite the Tower of the Sun. The exhibition displayed the twists and turns before construction of the Expo Tower began, including blueprints for a dynamic four-pillar structure that was ultimately not adopted. The Sumitomo Fairytale Pavilion in the 1970 Expo, designed by Sachio Otani, was shaped like a flying saucer, and the exhibition displayed blueprints depicting precise frames with curved lines, and also abundant sketches suggesting the buds of his ideas. In the next phase from June 14 to Aug. 31, the exhibition will focus mainly on the four expos held at home since the 1975 Okinawa International Ocean Exposition and those abroad.
Japan Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
What can Kenji Yanobe's cosmic cats teach us about humanity?
On a placid lake at the Nordic-themed Metsa Village park in Hanno, Saitama Prefecture, a giant inflatable feline in a neon-orange spacesuit lies curled on its own island. A peek inside reveals it's a nesting cat doll of sorts, filled with smaller cats diving, napping or painting classical art. Called 'Ship's Cat Island,' this creation of artist Kenji Yanobe can be accessed only via boat and is part of Hyper Museum Hanno's inaugural exhibition of the same name that runs through Aug. 31. Yanobe has been tackling thorny social issues with various lovable characters since the 1990s, and his spacesuited felines will be familiar to those who have visited the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka or Tokyo's Ginza Six shopping complex last year. In front of the former, a cat statue stands as if a guardian, while in the mid-air display titled 'Big Cat Bang' in Ginza Six, two space mousers ride through the lofty atrium on a spacecraft modeled after Tower of the Sun, the postwar artist Taro Okamoto's avant-garde monument for Expo '70 in Osaka. The exhibition 'Ship's Cat Island' at Hyper Museum Hanno also includes an island installation of the same name that features a giant inflatable space cat. | Hyper Museum Hanno The spacesuited cats in Yanobe's art are imagined as products of an eruptive event occurring billions of years ago that sent them hurtling through the cosmos, with some of them landing on Earth. | Hyper Museum Hanno Yanobe has long considered Okamoto an aspirational figure , saying in interviews that he considers Tower of the Sun the measure by which he gauges his own works. According to Yanobe's fantastical mythology, his cosmic cats are an update to Okamoto's 'Tree of Life' theory of evolution portrayed with a sculptural installation inside the Tower of the Sun. Yanobe also says that his felines embody Okamoto's maxim 'Art is an explosion' as they are imagined as products of an eruptive event occurring billions of years ago that sent them hurtling through the cosmos. Some of the alien kitties landed on our planet, specifically Hanno's Lake Miyazawa, as explained in the newly detailed fable presented at the exhibition. From there, they preserved life on Earth through five extinction phases until humans emerged, when they began teaching us cave painting and other art fundamentals. That's the story, anyway. As outlandish as it may seem, like all of Yanobe's wild tales, it serves a purpose: to cultivate what he calls the 'grand fantasies' needed to create a future even while humanity threatens its own existence. Ruins of the future Future fantasies are Yanobe's original source of creativity. The Osaka native grew up in the shadow of Expo '70, predecessor of the world fair that is currently being held in the city 55 years later. Having visited the site after its closure, Yanobe describes seeing its deconstructed pavilions as limitless potential for creation and re-creation. 'It was like a time trip to the ruins of the future,' the artist says. 'I realized there that I could create anything.' Yanobe repeatedly returns to the Tower of the Sun in his work, both physically and metaphorically. In 2003, he reenacted a Vietnam War protester's infiltration of the tower during the 1970 expo. Yanobe, wearing an atomic radiation protection suit, scaled the structure in what he called 'a search for another exit to the future,' a daring feat described in the film "Tower of the Sun Hijacking Project: Special Edition" (2007) and also discussed in a documentary screened at the current exhibition. The artist seems to still be looking for this portal — the theme of living in an untenable world riddled with conflict and environmental destruction is deeply rooted in his art. After 2011, Yanobe, whose art warns of disasters, pivoted to more whimsical expression but with the same message. | Hyper Museum Hanno Early in his career, an accident at the Mihama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture in 1991 started Yanobe down the path of building mecha-like sculptures meant to withstand apocalyptic disaster. 'Yellow Suit' (1991) is a set of lead and steel armor for protection against radiation. Fitted with a Geiger counter, it comes with a matching outfit for a pet dog. 'Survival System Train' (1992-97) is a locomotive unit that can lay its own tracks. Equipped with food, water and oxygen, it is designed as a self-propelling escape device. The culmination of Yanobe's preoccupation with catastrophe was his visit to Chernobyl in Pripyat, Ukraine, in 1997. There he staged a photoshoot documenting himself wandering through the nuclear evacuation zone in an Astro Boy-inspired antiradiation suit — this time created as much for function as symbolism. After returning to Japan, those experiences were embedded in his future artworks. In 1998, he posed for a photo with the Tower of the Sun (still standing in Expo '70 Commemorative Park) in his helmeted Chernobyl costume; he faces the camera with his back to the back of the tower, where a black face representing the past is painted. The image is open to multiple interpretations: perhaps Yanobe is saying with his physical stance that he's looking in the opposite direction, to the future; maybe he's suggesting through the juxtaposition that Okamoto's generation has sent his into exile, toward some brave new world. From survival to revival The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011, which saw a triple disaster of earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear plant meltdowns in the Tohoku region, marked an inflection point in Yanobe's career. Disheartened that the warnings of his art had failed to prevent calamity, he decided a new approach was required and shifted his focus 'from survival to revival.' The tone of his works changed as well, from irony-laden grimness to pop-driven cheerfulness. Still, Yanobe insists his message is as serious as ever, it's just the delivery that is different. He says he does not believe that art with a weighty subject necessarily needs to feel heavy. 'If anything, I think that can backfire,' he told The Japan Times at Hyper Museum Hanno last month. 'I want to create accessible works inviting further thought.' Having spent time as a child near the site of the Osaka Expo '70 and playing under Taro Okamoto's Tower of the Sun monument, Kenji Yanobe's work often references Okamoto's work. | Hyper Museum Hanno Collaborations with Japanese lacquer artisans and animators are also on show, and a Roomba-mounted kitty moseys around the room. | Hyper Museum Hanno This stance also seems to be the modus operandi for his current exhibition. Displays include large and small sculptures of the white cat, illustrations (some hand-drawn and others AI-generated), and even an NFT project in which backers can 'return' a Ship's Cat figurine to 'space.' A balloon launch from Oarai Sun Beach in Ibaraki Prefecture is planned for later this summer. Collaborations with Japanese lacquer artisans and animators are also on show, and a roomba-mounted kitty moseys around the room. Outside, a 3-meter-tall Ship's Cat with wings looms sphinxlike in front of the building. 'Ship's Cat Island' also exhibits other characters and their recent iterations. 'Lucky Dragon Concept Maquettes' (2009/24) is a large metal ark alluding to a 1954 incident in which a U.S. hydrogen bomb test near Bikini Atoll hit a Japanese fishing boat with radioactive fallout. Yanobe's ship is filled with several of his self-made icons addressing issues of atomic weaponry and power. Another noteworthy piece is 'Blue Cinema in the Woods' (2006), a set of sculptures featuring Torayan, the character based on a ventriloquist dummy invented and publicly performed by Yanobe's father. Footage of Torayan's adventures plays on a mini theater perched on the back of an aluminum-plated elephant. Anyone curious about the evolution of Yanobian lore and the relationships among his characters should watch the four films about the artist at the exhibition, shown with English subtitles on loop for a total of 120 minutes. Outside Hyper Museum Hanno a 3-meter-tall Ship's Cat with wings looms sphinxlike. | Hyper Museum Hanno There is, however, a nagging contradiction between the message of Yanobe's works –– a stark warning about human-led environmental destruction –– and the questionable sustainability of producing them, many of which are massive metal and plastic objects. NFTs and AI have also generally been criticized for their sizable carbon footprints. 'I think it's about balance,' Yanobe said, explaining that he feels artists with a social conscience do have an obligation to be consistent in how they make their works, but that to truly leave no trace, he would need to abandon his art entirely. 'I want to make work with a broad vision that speaks to but looks beyond its time,' he said. 'I hope its impact will override its imperfections.' 'Ship's Cat Island' runs through Aug. 31 at Hyper Museum Hanno in Hanno, Saitama Prefecture. For more information, visit
The Mainichi
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Mainichi
Osaka Gov. wants 1970 Osaka Expo symbol Tower of the Sun listed as World Heritage
OSAKA -- Japan's Council for Cultural Affairs on May 16 recommended to the education and culture minister that the Tower of the Sun, a symbol of the 1970 Osaka Expo that embodied the design of famed artist Taro Okamoto, be designated an important cultural property. The approximately 70-meter-tall tower, located in the Osaka Prefecture city of Suita, combines ferroconcrete and steel-frame structures, with scholars and architects infusing the cutting-edge technology of the time. Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura told reporters on May 16 about the anticipated designation, "It is of great significance that the Tower of the Sun, a symbol of the Osaka Expo in 1970, will be designated an important cultural property. We'd like to aim for the tower to be listed as a World Heritage site next." While the Tower of the Sun had initially been scheduled to be dismantled after the Expo, formally the Japan World Exposition, Osaka, 1970, requests from local residents and others led to a decision to preserve the monument. Following seismic reinforcement work, the Osaka Prefectural Government has opened the tower's inside to the public since 2018. The prefecture began academic surveys by experts in 2021 with the aim of having the tower designated an important cultural asset. Regarding the ongoing Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Yoshimura remarked, "I was reminded once again that we are carrying out a project of extreme significance." As discussions are underway regarding the preservation and utilization of the Grand Ring, a symbol of the current Expo, after the event, the governor enthused, "The Tower of the Sun, which had been slated to be taken down, is now set to be designated an important cultural property. The Grand Ring has also been appreciated by many people as an amazing piece of architecture. I'd like to pursue the possibility of preserving part of it in its current form." Hiroyuki Ishige, secretary-general of the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, released a comment on May 16 regarding the likely designation, stating, "It will be an event that symbolizes the (1970) Osaka Expo, which still lives on in the memory of so many people, and I think it's wonderful." The Tower of the Sun was designated a national registered tangible cultural property in 2020. In recommending the tower to the culture minister for the designation, the Council for Cultural Affairs highly rated the structure, stating, "It is valuable as a legacy symbolizing Japan in its high economic growth period" that spanned from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s.
Japan Times
18-05-2025
- General
- Japan Times
Lake Biwa canal facilities recommended for national treasure designation
A government panel has proposed that some Lake Biwa canal facilities in western Japan be collectively designated as a national treasure. Five of the canal facilities, which were built to help carry water from Japan's largest freshwater lake located in Shiga Prefecture to the city of Kyoto, were recommended Friday by the Council for Cultural Affairs to become a new addition to Japan's list of national treasures. The five include the Suirokaku Aqueduct built within the grounds of Nanzenji Temple in the city of Kyoto. The panel also recommended that the former main building of the Keage hydroelectric power plant and 18 other Lake Biwa canal-related sites be collectively added to Japan's list of important cultural properties. Incorporating the most advanced civil engineering technology during the mid-Meiji period in Japan, the Lake Biwa canal facilities not only played key roles in water infrastructure and power generation, but also in irrigation and waterway transportation. The council also proposed designating the Tower of the Sun in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, which was the symbol of the 1970 World Exposition in Osaka, and six other sites as important cultural properties. The tower, designed by the late artist Taro Okamoto, was part of a pavilion on the event's theme of "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." Featuring state-of-the-art technologies of the time to bring Okamoto's design to life, the tower is now considered a key legacy of the 1970 Expo that symbolized Japan during a period of high economic growth. The designations are expected to be approved soon, taking the total number of sites on the important cultural property list to 2,597, including 233 national treasures.
Yomiuri Shimbun
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Tower of the Sun Named Important Cultural Property; Icon of Osaka Expo 1970 Symbolizes Japanese Postwar Economic Boom
The Yomiuri Shimbun The Tower of the Sun is seen in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, on Friday. The Council for Cultural Affairs on Friday recommended to the education, culture, sports, science and technology minister that the Tower of the Sun, a symbol of the 1970 World Exposition designed by artist Taro Okamoto and located in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, be designated an Important Cultural Property in the building category. With Osaka now hosting another World Expo, 55 years after the one for which the Tower was constructed, the structure has been recognized as a valuable legacy representing Japan's era of rapid economic growth. Under the leadership of Okamoto, the Tower of the Sun was erected as the centerpiece of the Expo's Theme Pavilion. In response to the Expo's slogan, 'Progress and Harmony for Mankind,' producer Okamoto deliberately conceived the tower as an anti-modern symbol reminiscent of an ancient Jomon clay figurine. The Tower left a powerful impression on visitors and became a public favorite. The construction of the Tower's enormous and distinctive form, 70 meters tall, brought together some of the most advanced techniques of the time. Mathematical analysis was applied to shape the trunk's complex three-dimensional curves, and the 25-meter-long arms, whose interiors have spaces visitors can enter, were engineered to a strength that would be challenging to achieve even with today's technology. Although the tower was slated for demolition once the Expo closed, petition drives and other opposition efforts secured its preservation. After seismic retrofitting, the interior was opened to the public in 2018 for the first time since the Expo. It will become Japan's second-newest Important Cultural Property in the building category, after the Seto Inland Sea Folk History Museum in Takamatsu, which was completed in 1973. Prof. Osamu Goto of Kogakuin University, a specialist in Japanese architectural history, said: 'Few cultural properties allow so many people to look back on history with a shared awareness. This is an unusual structure with multifaceted value, and it could one day be designated an Important Cultural Property in the fine arts category as well.'
