News

Toyo Ito has been awarded the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize, it was announced Mar 17. Ito is the sixth Japanese architect to win the prize, after Kenzo Tange, Fumihiko Maki, Tadao Ando and Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA.View More >

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013, designed by Sou Fujimoto / Indicative CGI. © Sou Fujimoto Architects, courtesy Serpentine Gallery, London. Architect Sou Fujimoto will design this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens, it was announced Feb 14. At 41,View More >

The Tokyo-based Singaporean photographer Leslie Kee has been arrested in Tokyo on obscenity charges, it was reported Feb 4. Internationally known for his celebrity portraits of music icons like Yumi Matsutoya, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, as well as for sexuallyView More >

A co-founder of the post-war avant-garde group, the Gutai Art Association, the artist Shozo Shimamoto died Jan 25 of sudden heart failure at hospital in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, it has been reported. He was 85. Shimamoto was born in OsakaView More >

One of the leading voices of Japanese post-war avant-garde cinema, the film director Nagisa Oshima, died Dec 15 at hospital in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, due to complications arising from pneumonia. He was 80 years old. Oshima was born in KyotoView More >

One of Japan’s most distinguished photographers, Shomei Tomatsu, died of complications from pneumonia at a hospital in Naha, Okinawa, on Dec 14, 2012, it has been revealed. He was 82 years old. Known for investigating the landscape of postwar Japan,View More >

Artist Yasumasa Morimura has been appointed artistic director of the 5th Yokohama Triennale, it was announced Dec 18. The exhibition will be held in 2014, giving Morimura more than a year to prepare. Although Morimura is not widely known forView More >

The Japanese architects SANAA, Shigeru Ban and Toyo Ito are among a star-studded list of candidates to design the M+ museum in Hong Kong, it was announced Dec 10 by the West Kowloon Cultural Cultural District Authority (WKCDA). Scheduled forView More >

The founder and director of the private Watari-um, Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Shizuko Watari died Dec 1 of heart failure at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 80 years old. From 1972 to 1989, Watari was the director ofView More >

The independent curator Takashi Azumaya died Oct 16 at the age of 44, it has been announced. After completing his MFA in 1994 at Tokyo University of the Arts, Azumaya worked as a curator at the Setagaya Art Museum andView More >