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 “Japan likes to take in new things and improve upon them,” says Yoshiko Kakuda, a Bay Area Japanese art expert. During the reign of Emperor Taisho (1912-1926), western goods such as luxury cars, celluloid, and steel, and western cultural attitudes, especially the emergence of the modern girl (or moga), were soaked up by this trading island nation, particularly by the urban elite and, perhaps not surprisingly, particularly by women. The resulting conflict and integration of western and traditional Japanese cultural values are explored in the exhibition Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia, and Deco, at the Berkeley Art Museum from September 14 through December 23. Artists and designers made traditional block prints depicting sexually alluring women, folding screens of stainless steel and glass, and kimonos with contemporary reinterpre-tations of motifs such as the dragonfly and chrysanthemum. Combining two aesthetics in beautiful if sometimes forced ways, this period presaged the sophisticated Japanese modernism to come. Public programs at BAM associated with the exhibition include: Modern Girls (Unless They’re French) Don’t Wear Kimono, a lecture by anthropologist Liza Dalby on the period when the kimono was fading in Japan but taken up by fashion designers in Paris, London, and New York, September 25, 3:00 p.m. Kimono Demonstration, with a focus on bold Taisho designs, by Japanese clothing collector Joanna Mest, October 16, 3:00 p.m. Modern Girl in East Asia, a panel discussion with several scholars examining the moga, and related developments during the Taisho period in China and Korea, November 13, 2:00 p.m.
 Three Sisters, Yamakawa Shühö, four-panel screen, 1936. These three models, who were students of the artist, posed in luxurious kimonos, suggesting traditional Japanese femininity, next to a luxury car built in the West. The title refers to Chekhov’s famous play, first performed in Japan in 1932.
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