TOKYO: A Japanese television station has canceled a performance by the wildly popular Korean boyband BTS, after controversy erupted over a shirt worn by a member appearing to show the mushroom cloud created by an atomic bomb.
The international superstars were due to perform on TV Asahi on Friday, but the station abruptly canceled the show after a photo of member Jimin wearing the shirt went viral.
“BTS’s appearance scheduled for the 9th has been canceled,” TV Asahi said in a statement.
“The T-shirt that one of the members wore made headlines and became controversial,” the station added, saying it had discussed the “intention” behind the shirt with the band’s record label and ultimately decided to “cancel their appearance.”
BTS issued their own statement on the row, but gave no details on why the show had been postponed.
“We apologize for disappointing fans who were looking forward to this. BTS will continue their efforts to connect with fans on stage and also through music,” the group said on their website.
The offending shirt featured the phrase “PATRIOTISM OURHISTORY LIBERATION KOREA” repeated multiple times alongside an image of an atomic bomb explosion and another of Koreans celebrating liberation.
BTS member Jimin reportedly wore the shirt last year, on August 15, when Koreans celebrate the end of Japanese occupation in 1945.
Ties between Japan and South Korea continue to be soured by bitter disputes over history and territory stemming from Japan’s brutal 1910-45 colonial rule over the peninsula.
Last month, Tokyo reacted furiously after South Korea’s top court ordered a Japanese steel giant to compensate victims of wartime forced labor programs.
BTS are the leading lights of the K-Pop phenomenon and made history earlier this year by becoming the first K-Pop band to top the US album charts, a sign of the genre’s growing global appeal.
Known for their boyish good looks, floppy haircuts and meticulously choreographed dance moves, the septet has become one of South Korea’s best-known and most lucrative musical exports.
Japan TV station cancels K-Pop stars BTS over nuclear bomb shirt
Japan TV station cancels K-Pop stars BTS over nuclear bomb shirt
- ‘The T-shirt that one of the members wore made headlines and became controversial’
- BTS has become one of South Korea’s best-known and most lucrative musical exports
Hafez Galley’s exhibition pays tribute to two Egyptian artists who shaped a visual era
- Artworks by Attyat Sayed and El Dessouki Fahmi will be on display until Feb. 28
JEDDAH: Hafez Gallery in Jeddah has opened an exhibition showcasing the works of influential Egyptian artists Attyat Sayed and El Dessouki Fahmi. The exhibition runs until Feb. 28.
Kenza Zouari, international art fairs manager at the gallery, said the exhibition offers important context for Saudi audiences who are becoming increasingly engaged with Arab art histories.
“Attyat Sayed and El Dessouki Fahmi’s decades-long practice in Cairo established foundational models for how artists across the region approach archives, press, and ultimately collective memory,” Zouari told Arab News.
Both artists emerged in an era when newspapers and magazines played a central role in shaping Egypt’s visual culture. Their early work in press illustration “demanded speed, clarity, the ability to distill complex realities into a single, charged image,” the gallery’s website states.
Seeing the works of both artists side-by-side is breathtaking. It’s fascinating to witness how press illustration shaped such profound and lasting artistic voices.
Lina Al-Mutairi, Local art enthusias
Heba El-Moaz, director of artist liaison at Hafez Gallery, said that this is the second time that the exhibition — a posthumous tribute to the artists —has been shown, following its debut in Cairo.
“By placing their works side by side, it highlights how press illustration, often considered ephemeral, became a formative ground for artistic depth, narrative power, and lasting influence, while revealing two distinct yet deeply interconnected artistic paths within modern Egyptian visual culture,” she told Arab News.
Sayed’s work evolved from black-and-white illustration into “layered, dynamic compositions that translate lived emotion into physical gesture, echoing an ongoing negotiation between the inner world and its outward form,” the website states. Viewed together, the works of Sayed and Fahmi “reveal two distinct yet deeply interconnected artistic paths that contributed significantly to modern Egyptian visual culture.”
The exhibition “invites visitors into a compelling dialogue between instinct and intellect, emotion and structure, spontaneity and reflection; highlighting how artistic rigor, cultural memory, and sustained creative exploration were transformed into enduring visual languages that continue to resonate beyond their time,” the gallery states.
Lina Al-Mutairi, a Jeddah-based art enthusiast, said: “Seeing the works of both artists side-by-side is breathtaking. It’s fascinating to witness how press illustration shaped such profound and lasting artistic voices. The exhibition really brings their vision and influence to life.”
