Yokohama  Japanese Newspaper Museum: Wasabi of Newspaper, through April 19

 

Cultural News, March 2008

 

Shigeo Yoshida’s abusive tongue brought the dissolution of the Diet in 1953. Hidezo Kondo, 1953. (Courtesy of the Newspaper Museum) 

 

By Yuko Itatsu

 

    Political cartoons are the wasabi of newspapers. “The World of Caricature: The Art of Hidezo Kondo” is currently held at The Japanese Newspaper Museum in Yokohama until April 19.

 

    Political cartoonist Kondo (1908-1979) is known as the father of newspaper political cartoons in Japan. From 1947 to 1976 he provided caricatures to Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the three major Japanese daily papers, covering definitive moments of post-WWII Japanese politics. The exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of Kondo’s birth.

 

    Kondo was born in Nagano and started getting recognized for his art when he was 15. He moved to Tokyo when he was 20, and studied under Ippei Okamoto, father of famed artist Taro Okamoto.

 

    Kondo founded the Japan Cartoonists Association in 1940, and was awarded the Kikuchi Kan Award in 1975 for making politics accessible to the mass through his satirical interpretations. 

 

    Opened in 2000, The Newspaper Museum has everything you want to know about newspapers. A giant two-story-tall printing machine greets visitors at the entrance lobby. The exhibit includes the history of newspapers in Japan since 1850 illustrating the role newspapers played in recording and shaping history, the transformation in printing technology and circulation, and the current process of news coverage. They also have workstations where visitors can give it a try at creating their own newspaper.

 

    The museum stands on historical piece of land, where the first daily newspaper in Japan was published. It is rightly housed in a renovated historic building built in 1929, as part of the Yokohama Media and Communication Center.

 

   The Newspaper Museum is located adjacent to the Nihon-Odori Station on the Minato Mirai-line, and is a 10-minute walk from the JR Kannai station in Yokohama.  Open Tues-Sun 10-5. Adult admission 500 yen. For more, see www.pressnet.or.jp/newspark 

 

   Yuko Itatsu is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of Southern California and a part-time lecturer at Tsuda College, Tokyo.