Most people want to get through airports as quickly as humanly possible, even as earlier check-in requirements and longer security lines mean we're spending more time in terminals than ever before. But at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, there is good reason to linger: a small but impressive museum -- with no admission charge -- that exhibits Japanese art of exceptional quality. more...

After over six decades of obscurity in Japan, the Gutai Art Association has finally captured the public imagination. But it is not the art that is attracting attention, it is the prices that the group's works are now commanding, most notably those of Kazuo Shiraga (1924-2008). The real story, however, is that the spirit of Gutai did not die with the group's leader, Jiro Yoshihara, in 1972. It lives on in the work of former members like Sadaharu Horio (b. 1939), who remains incessantly active, staging dozens of events and exhibitions around the world every year, and Takesada Matsutani (b. 1937), who has been based in Paris since 1966, and now more than ever is creating vibrant, wholly original art. more...