Controversial art exhibit opens in Osaka amid repeated threats

Good, leave it open.

Good to see that the organisers and police are standing up to terrorism.

Please change the headline. Just because some extremists don't like it doesn't make it "controversial."

"...anti-Japan messages, including a statue symbolizing "comfort women"

The photos that I've seen show a young woman sitting down placidly with an empty chair beside her. Is there also some sort of "anti-Japan message" attached to it, like "Down with japan," etc.?

Art by it's very definition is supposed to be controversial and provoke a discussion.

Good. Quit canceling this exhibit. Maybe if the nationalists try to do something during the Olympics, the whole world will see the ugly xenophobia that permeates under the hood here in Japan.

Buried this story again, this time, tucked away in the less-frequented bowels of Japanese media categories for readers from abroad.

Ironically, the protests are giving the art exhibit more attention. Very tired-looking cops, standing in the heat, watching the uyoku trucks go round and round.

I want to see this exhibition of Art.

for as long as the IJA Nationalists spaz out about this art like this remains necessary

On Wednesday, the venue received a package containing liquid and a letter claiming the liquid was sarin, a deadly nerve agent, along with statements of protest against the exhibition. Police said the liquid appeared to be water. The venue also received on Tuesday a letter threatening to block the exhibition by force.

No. It is not correctly reported. This package containing liquid and the letter sent on 14th Wednesday was from

the one(s) FOR the exhibition threatening the venue managers to hold the exhibition, confirmed by the Osaka Mayer Yoshimura.

The photos that I've seen show a young woman sitting down placidly with an empty chair beside her. Is there also some sort of "anti-Japan message" attached to it, like "Down with japan," etc.?

The statue always come together with a black epitaph which inscribes Fake Korean Narrative, and yes, This

statue at L-Osaka has the same epitaph embedded in the floor close by

It's obvious that very many of us have no understanding of art. Blame it on education (the lack thereof) or emotion (mankind has always feared what it can't understand). Let's hope there is no violence from ignorance.

As far as I can tell looking around various Japanese sites, there is no suggestion that this is art. The display was indeed part of a larger international art exhibition a couple of years ago, but not this time. Can anyone clarify this?

It’s an exhibition of objects expressing freedom (or not) of expression.

Well done. This should send a message to those sad cowardly “men” who drive around in their black trucks.

The authorities in Japan really do need to clamp down more on these right wing extremists. They are nothing new. I remember around about 1986 / 1987 a newspaper reporter was shot dead in his office for speaking out on a subject that the right wing would find an uncomfortable truth.. I also remember in the 1990's the Mayor of Hiroshima was shot and injured by right wing extremists.

Incidently, I find their sound trucks, and uniforms laughable, although their racket can be a little irritating sometimes.

Laughable.

Korean activists here and there including ex, and Mr.& Mrs. Kim named the statue " Girl for the peace" created with full of lies and propaganda ( of course not many posters here would not know how much money as royalty has been exchanged just for this statue on these exhibitions) and now hide themselves under what looks like the Exhibition of Art to nail into the donjon. (good job ! to realize what a fake victim, Lee Yong soo declared to do as a starter)

Just because it takes the form of an exhibition, it doesn't mean it is art, nor can excuse itself through freedom of expression.

And yet, Korean activists have been hysterically and endlessly complaining all over the world, about artistic works looking like Rising- Sun design on walls, shirts, uniforms, helmets, plates, .... everything.

How many posters here know there's no freedom to enter the venue and see freely what you define art?

Pretty rich seeing liberal posters here claim 'free speech' when they've spent the past 5 years justifying all types of censorship by all sorts of means up to and including physical violence. The ugly truth is that might does make right, and all claims of free speech vs hate speech are just post hoc rationalization.