"Japonica Eclectica" on Macquarie Street

[Mulboyne]

The Age: Delectable tastes of Japan
An exhibition that opens today at the Miwa Cybele Gallery in Prahran is a bit like an assorted platter of sushi, according to the gallery's owner, Miwa Stynes. "Originally I was going to call it Sushi Moriawase, which means assorted sushi," says Stynes, who opened the gallery for contemporary Japanese art in December last year. Stynes says the only thing the four artists featured in the exhibition have in common is that they're Japanese. Three of them live in Melbourne. In April, the gallery will host an exhibition by Japanese photographer Yoko Yamamoto, who spent almost 20 years behind the scenes in the geisha community....more...

[Mulboyne]

The Age: Japanese art, unexpected

So magnified are Tomoaki Ishihara's photographs of his semen, pubic hair and scab that they seem more universal than personal. And alongside these swollen abstractions, the Osaka artist has suspended a glass vessel housing nothing but air...more...

Rapt! Exhibition Site

[Mulboyne]

The Age: The long road to inspiration

MANY UNEXPECTED things happen when travelling in the bush. But when accompanied by a Japanese artist who wears a pink nightgown more suited to a 70-year-old grandmother, you can be sure things will be somewhat unusual. Tadasu Takamine has just travelled by road from Darwin to Melbourne to create work as part of the visual arts event Rapt!, which has brought 20 contemporary Japanese artists to the city...His work has garnered international attention and is at times confrontational. In one video work he masturbates a friend, who is paralysed, to give him relief. In another he placed a camera up his shorts to film his penis as he danced...more...