Art: Isamu-san & Shirley Too

In Japan, where tradition is nine-tenths of art, Western-style abstractions are often greeted with polite blank stares. But last week in the seaside city of Kamakura, 25 miles from Tokyo, art lovers were treated to some modernism that no one wanted to ignore. On view were more than 130 aggressively new objects, everything from paper lanterns and delicate ceramics to wildly abstract sculpture: a 10-ft.-high Centipede, something that looked like Humpty Dumpty with horns and a tail but was called Mister One Man, and something labeled Myself, which showed an almost featureless face...

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