Mixtape Legacy

"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced." 

-- Leo Tolstoy

Utamaro woodblock print fetches world-record €745,000 in Paris

23 JUNE 2016       JAPAN TIMES       

PARIS, FRANCE (AFP, Jijji) – A Japanese woodblock print from the Edo Period fetched €745,000 ($841,000) at auction in Paris on Wednesday, setting a world record for both the genre and the artist, Kitagawa Utamaro, the auctioneer said.

The work by the 18th-century artist, titled “Deeply Hidden Love” (“Fukaku Shinobu Koi”), was auctioned jointly by the Beaussant Lefevre auction house in association with Christie’s. 

The print, from his “Anthology of Love” series, was the star lot in a collection worth an estimated €1.5 million that had been held by the Portier family for four generations. 

The work had been expected to fetch around €100,000. 

Utamaro, born in 1753 in Tokyo — then named Edo and the heart of Japan’s last feudal military government — was a leading producer of the ukiyo-e genre of painting and printing. 

He was renowned for his works depicting beautiful women but also nature, including insects. Read More

Japan’s revised law kicks in to let dance clubs run all night

23 JUNE 2016       JAPAN TIMES       

TOKYO, JAPAN (Jiji) -- Japan’s revised law regulating adult entertainment businesses, enacted in June last year, took effect on Thursday, conditionally allowing dance clubs to stay open all night.

Prefectural police accepted advance applications from business operators to enable their clubs to run all night immediately after enforcement of the law. By the end of May, 70 applications from 14 prefectures were submitted, according to the National Police Agency. 

The revised law will allow dance clubs serving alcohol to stay open until the early hours if they keep interior light levels above 10 lux, as bright as movie theaters between shows. 

Under the law, prefectural governments are able to designate areas available for opening such clubs. All 47 prefectures, excluding Tochigi, Shiga and Wakayama, already have revised ordinances and specified entertainment areas and other districts as permitted areas. Read More