The Offending Article
The “War and Postwar: The Prism of the Times” exhibition outside Tokyo shows the way WWII-era photographers collaborated with Japan’s propagandist wartime regime to sculpt the visual perception of Japan. With Japan’s current militant, pro-nuclear government, the exhibit offers an important reminder of artists’ obligations to make work that challenges, rather than perpetuates, the status quo.
No Enemies
For a generation of Chinese intellectuals, the events of 1989 were a chance to erase the ghosts of the past. But what happens when your side loses? When the entire country moves backward, not forward? Jacob Dreyer tells the story of modern China through the lives of four men: visual artists Xu Bing and Ai Weiwei, novelist Mo Yan, and activist Liu Xiaobo, who died this year in captivity.