{"id":36508,"date":"2014-10-10T13:30:33","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T17:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=36508"},"modified":"2014-10-13T14:27:25","modified_gmt":"2014-10-13T18:27:25","slug":"wit-life-277-garden-of-unearthly-delights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/10\/wit-life-277-garden-of-unearthly-delights\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #277: Garden of Unearthly Delights"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIT Life <\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/a>is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/span><\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamo<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/em>to-ken<\/span><\/a> CIR, 2000-<\/strong><\/em>03). <\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em>She starts<\/strong><\/em> her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she sha<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>es some of the interesting tidbits and <\/strong><\/em>t<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>ends along with h<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em>er own observations.<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As a member of Japan Society, last night I had the chance to preview the new gallery exhibition Garden of Unearthly Delights<\/a>.\u00a0 It featured works from two artists and the collaboration teamLab that were largely fantastical with a strong dose of social commentary.\u00a0 As a result, it felt like a very dense exhibit that seemed to occupy more space than the gallery’s actual square footage. \u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

Garden begins with works from Manabu Ikeda, an artist originally from Saga Prefecture who now resides in Madison, Wisconsin after previously living in Vancouver.\u00a0 The focus of his paintings in this show are on disaster art and 311, an event he witnessed from outside the country.\u00a0 You can see many manga and anime-like aspects in them as well.\u00a0 I particularly liked his work Foretoken<\/em>, which is often compared to Hokusai\u2019s The Great Wave off Kanagawa<\/em>, displayed nearby in the gallery.\u00a0 Upon close inspection you can see the intricate detail of his infinite brushstrokes, but when you look at it from a distance you get a whole other perspective.\u00a0 Underneath the huge wave that is cresting you can find things like a chair lift at a ski slope and a skateboarding scene, so he intermixes the immensity of nature and its destructive power with everyday elements.<\/p>\n

The second sectio\"20141009_193949_resized\"n shows the works of teamLab, an “ultra technologist group\u201d formed in 2001 that serves as an experimental incubation laboratory for new ideas and expressions.\u00a0 Their works in the exhibition with the themes of flowers combined with abstract elements are ones that visitors can interact with while viewing.\u00a0 I liked how in their installation that occupied a whole room they used a gold byobu-like screen as the background, as it served as a traditional canvas for this innovative technology.\u00a0 Pictures were allowed throughout the exhibition, so you could see people snapping away as the images changed via interaction with visitors. \u00a0\"20141009_194855_resized\"<\/p>\n

The last artist is Hisashi Tenmyouya, who also has really interesting takes on traditional Japanese art.\u00a0 In particular, he arms his Bodhisattva with weapons and creates a version of Ryoanji (the famous Kyoto rock garden) with skull faces in the rocks and blood-red sand.\u00a0 All of these artists provide plenty of food for thought, and I heard spirited discussions among the viewers around me on how to interpret various pieces.\u00a0 Garden of Unearthly Delights will be on display through January 11 of next year, so make sure to check out before then and prepare to have your mind blown!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations. As a member of Japan Society, last night I had the chance to preview […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[75,18,1,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-translatinginterpreting","category-uncategorized","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-9uQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36508"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36535,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36508\/revisions\/36535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}