The sun had barely dawned on March 12 before a number of organizations, corporations and individuals within Japan began to mobilize efforts to provide aid and comfort to those in the afflicted regions. But for those left in Tokyo, tensions remained high. In the days following the earthquake and tsunami, news of numerous event cancellations due to complications caused by rolling blackouts and the nuclear crisis in Fukushima came as a heavy blow to those wracked with feelings of helplessness and looking for some much needed distraction.

Enter Cyndi Lauper. Known for her vivid hair color and catchy synth beats, the 80s pop icon was among the first to organize various charity events in Tokyo. Just four days after the earthquake, Ms. Lauper had already set up radio and TV charity events as well as cash donation boxes at each performance. Lauper also teamed up with Japanese web streaming service Nico Nico Douga to air her final Japanese concert for fans free of charge.

Numerous local artists and musicians followed suit to provide much needed stress relief while simultaneously finding ways to help disaster relief efforts up north. Johnny & Associates, one of Japan’s largest talent agencies, launched its “Marching J” charity project. Over 100 of Johnny’s artists, including legendary pop group SMAP, came together to raise money and raise spirits by performing for and participating in talk sessions with fans. From April 1-3, over 389,000 people attended the event held at Yoyogi National Gymnasium. The firm has already reported that it will continue to plan and hold more charity events, starting with a charity baseball tournament at Tokyo Dome on May 29.

Despite difficulties caused by rolling blackouts, small businesses in Tokyo also found ways to get involved. In April, local restaurant Kimono Wine Bar and Grill launched an “Action Brunch” where Tokyoites could come together to eat, relax and prepare disaster hygiene kits to send to victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Furthermore, the restaurant announced that it would donate 10 percent of its proceeds from any events held in April to Second Harvest Japan. A-list nightlife hotspot Womb also organized a fundraiser featuring popular DJs, donating all proceeds from admissions fees and drinks to the Japanese Red Cross.

Perhaps the most high profile effort came from the man who brought the iPhone to Japan, Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. On April 3, the telecom mogul pledged $119 million (10 billion yen) to the Tohoku relief effort via the Japan Red Cross Society, the Red Feather Community Chest Movement, and other organizations. Son further upped the charity stakes by announcing that from 2011 until retirement he plans to donate all of his compensation as representative of the Softbank Group to provide support to children orphaned by the disaster.
Outside of Japan, innumerable charity events and relief funds were launched in the months of March and April. Within eleven days of the Tohoku earthquake, action hero Jackie Chan organized a charity concert fundraiser, Artiste 311 Love Across Borders at Victoria Park in Hong Kong on April 1. The event grabbed headlines as 300 performers from all across Asia, including popular Japanese pop group AKB 48, Lionel Richie and even Mr. Chan himself, came together to raise money for Japan. Attendees, who were asked to donate a suggested amount of 20 Hong Kong dollars ($3), numbered in the thousands and managed to raise over $3.3 million in just three hours. Organizers of the event, which consisted of over 19 art and film groups, also set up a phone bank for the televised event. The proceeds from the concert were donated to the Salvation Army, for the specific purpose of providing over 80,000 disaster victims with emergency relief packs complete with a 15-day supply of food, water, blankets and personal care items.

In New York City, numerous Japan-related organizations banded together to raise awareness and extend a helping hand. In addition to setting up an earthquake relief fund, the Japan Society announced that it would also donate 50 percent of all ticket prices for its upcoming events towards the relief fund. On April 9, the Japan Society also hosted “Concert for Japan,” a 12-hour concert and open house charity event featuring performers such as Philip Glass, Lou Reed, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. For $5, attendees were also treated to free classes in Japanese language, origami, calligraphy and other cultural activities. According to Daniel Rosenblum, Japan Society VP of External Affairs, as of March 28, the organization had raised $3 million from over 9,000 donors.

Across the U.S., JET alumni also banded together to raise money for their former host country. Over 19 alumni chapters put together fundraising activities using their various connections both inside and outside of Japan. In New York, the JET Alumni Association in partnership with NY de Volunteer held a charity event on April 5, which raised over $10,700 via raffle tickets for prizes donated by over 40 sponsors.

The aforementioned events are just a small piece of a bigger, truly international picture. Every organization the Journal spoke with has shared a wealth of stories of individuals from all walks of life either organizing or contributing to events in their local communities to help Japan as it faces one of its greatest challenges. While the streets of Tokyo are noticeably dimmer, it is clear that the events of March 11 have yet to put a damper on the spirits and creativity of all who live here.

While awaiting the arrival of spring and the symphony of color and blossoms it brings, one can seek reprieve from the bare branches of Tokyo’s concrete jungle at “Garden and Interior,” the ongoing exhibition at the Pola Museum of Art in Hakone, Kanagawa prefecture.

Nestled amidst the lush hills of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, one could that say the exhibit begins when you set foot on the carefully cultivated garden grounds of the Pola Museum.

In the natural light-filled interior of the museum, navigating the exhibit comes as easily as a walk in the park or, rather, impressionist garden.

Themed “Visions of an intimate world by Bonnard and Matisse,” the exhibit explores two spaces—the garden and the interior—which were commonplace subjects for paintings in 19th century bourgeois France, and is a visual treat of color and visual vibrancy.

The exhibit leads with the Garden theme, and in the first section entitled “Urban Gardens and Natural Gardens,” these two types of gardens that arose with the advance of bourgeois society in nineteenth century France are expounded via the paintings of Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Theodore Rousseau.

Monet, who recreated a Japanese garden on his Giverny estate, was said to often proclaim, “Besides gardening and painting, I don’t know a thing.”

This exhibit showcases pieces by Monet of the gardens around his house at Giverny during his later years.

Both Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse are known as the two greatest colorists of the 20th century, and have sections dedicated to their interior depictions.

They were close friends who shared a common passion for the color, light and life of the Mediterranean, in the literal sense as well – they spent their later years living less than an hour’s drive apart, Bonnard near Cannes and Matisse in Nice.

Matisse, whose spontaneous brushwork and riots of color became known as Fauvism, had a passionate interest in the interior, usually animated by female figures—reading, dreaming, or sitting as models in a studio that was assimilated into the artist’s home.

Bonnard is known for his intense use of color; his often complex compositions—typically of sunlit interiors of rooms and gardens populated with friends and family members—are both narrative and autobiographical.

His wife, Marthe, was an ever-present subject over the course of several decades—seated at the kitchen table, with the remnants of a meal; or nude, as in a series of paintings where she reclines in the bathtub.

The exhibit captures how artists in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries perceived their surroundings, both exterior and interior, and their place in it, marking an important stage for the revolutionary developments of painting.

Matisse once wrote to Bonnard “Viva la peinture!” or “Long live painting!”

By the end of the exhibit, one would find it hard to disagree.

And by the end of the two-hour, at minimum, visual romp, one would say “Viva la museum café!” too for the in-house establishment which offers a sweet ending, topped with a full-on view of the natural beauty of the woods of Hakone, from the comfort of a heated interior.

“Garden and Interior – Visions of an intimate world by Bonnard and Matisse” runs till March 7, 2010 at the Pola Museum of Art, 1285 Kozukayama, Sengokuhara, Hakone-machi, Ashigarashimo-gun, Kanagawa, 250-0631 Japan, tel: 04-6084-2111, web: www.polamuseum.or.jp.

German multimedia artist Rebecca Horn is currently being treated to her first large-scale, career-tracing exhibition in Japan, courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

Horn herself was present at the opening, cutting a formidable presence with long pumpkin-colored hair and sporting steel-toed leopard print shoes that can only be described as awesome. Speaking before the black-clad, digicam-wielding media, the artist extended an invitation to journey to her world, one in which she has been working in artistically for over thirty years.

The retrospective, which Horn played a part in orchestrating, is entitled, “Rebellion in Silence: Dialogue between Raven and Whale.” In addition to being rather obtuse, this title struck me as a bit misleading. In fact, a number of Horn’s pieces have an inherent soundtrack: the faint whirring of the many mechanical pieces, the music composed by Hayden Chisholm for the installation “Light imprisoned in the belly of the whale,” and the resplendent clunk of the upturned, suspended piano that is ‘Concert for Anarchy’.

This discordant symphony, along with Horn’s signature part-natural, part-mechanical kinetic sculptures (like “The Raven’s Twin”) give the exhibition a vaguely gothic feel.

In particular, the title seems to point to two adjacent works, ‘The Raven Tree’ —created just this year—and “Light imprisoned in the belly of the whale,” made somewhat earlier, in 2002.

One is a tangle of slender stems sprouting curved beaks, looking outwards, seemingly searching, grasping for air, a better vantage point, to break free and become distinct.

The other, encompassing and inward-looking, has at its center a single, quill-like object suspended over a reflecting pool, animated in the act of writing; words are reflected on the walls of the darkened room.

When I nervously asked the artist if she could expound the title and juxtaposition of these two works, she explained that the raven and the whale represented, to her, two extremes. Then, apparently tiring of my need for answers, she told me to look around and find my own meaning.

It has been written that Horn’s work builds upon itself and this would suggest that, several decades into her career, the artist is working in a highly refined symbolic language.

A number of the pieces on display at the MOT, such as the paintings and kinetic sculptures on the entrance floor, are in fact rather new. Striking in their own right, with a curious beauty both natural and unnatural, they taunt the viewer with their alien-ness.

In contrast, the chronology of videos that come later in the exhibition, featuring some early performance footage and other videos produced by the artist, offer an open and a more studied approach towards the visual tropes of Horn’s work.

While it would seem to make more sense to enter from the beginning, to learn the language of her world before journeying further, I believe that the structure of the exhibition was likely intended to encourage the viewer, as Horn said, to first discover one’s own meaning.

The following eight career-spanning videos show the artist telling her own stories—her world as she sees it. Given that a number of these clock nearly an hour, a thorough voyage to the world of Horn should be considered a day-trip rather than an afternoon excursion.

REBECCA MILNER is a contributor to Tokyo Art Beat, where her review originally appeared.

“Rebellion in Silence: Dialogue between Raven and Whale” will run until February 14, 2010 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku, Tokyo, tel: 03-3433-5381, web: www.mot-art-museum.jp/eng/