Fair enough?

ART OSAKA 2012 has launched a new website. Great job, Arakawa-kun, designer at Gallery Nomart in Osaka !

Did you spot the photographic contribution of the most talented, one-and-only, The Other Martin Tenbones , in the Access section?

Or our text in the Information section?

More to come here and there.

So freakin' proud !

Simi Lab - Anatomy of Insane

So you were born in Japan.

You look different.

You think different.

You are "mixed".

What then?

You could do modelling.

Teach your father tongue on TV.

Stick to Hello, how are you? level.

Entertain the crowds. Be a circus bear.

Stop thinking for yourself. Someone else will do it for you.

OR

Tell what you see.

Simi Lab Walk Man

uploaded by similablatoly here

Simi Lab is a Japanese group of young rappers, quite mixed and quite cool. Check out their official website.

Interview with Simi Lab here

Their first album Anatomy of Insane was released in 2011 by Independent Label Council Japan.

Listen to their music. We know it is all Japanese to you, but here is a tip: jazz musician and former University of Tokyo lecturer Naruyoshi Kikuchi is working with them on their US album release. We hope you will hear more of them.

Earth No Mad From SIMI LAB "Don't Touch Me feat. QN" 

uploaded by SUMMITube here

Yayoi Kusama Tate Exhibition Opening In Pictures

Deja vu? Most known print and broadcast media in the UK featuring the Yayoi Kusama exhibition opening story with identical shots: a way of publicity which is probably having the desired impact on the viewers. You can go see her works in London starting from Thursday, 9 February 2012.

Yayoi Kusama Tate Opening on BBC here

Yayoi Kusama Tate Opening in The Guardian here

Yayoi Kusama Tate Opening in The Independent here

Yayoi Kusama Tate Opening in The Telegraph here

Crowding at the Press Conference on 7 February 2012:

Yayoi Kusama and curator Frances Morris, in pictures here

Check out a new video about Yayoi Kusama

on the Tate Youtube Channel here

Allegedly, Yayoi Kusama has not been out of Japan for twelve years, and remember she will turn 83 in March. It must have been a long flight, so let us give her a round of applause !

See also the Japan exhibition in pictures in a previous post.

YayOi Ku$ama and the dOt$ Ob$e$$iOn - O$aka 2012

Yayoi Kusama and the dots obsession - Osaka 2012

The National Museum of Art Osaka is now hosting the works of Yayoi Kusama, avant-garde "artist and novelist", born in 1929 in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. View her works on her official website, on NMAO museum's site and on Asahi Shinbun Daily Newspaper's site (main sponsor).

After curating Renoir, tradition and innovation (2010) and The Complete Posters of Tadanori Yokoo (2010) exhibitions, Masahiro Yasugi, a museum-profit record-breaker at NMAO, has taken charge once again.

Taking photographs is permitted in most exhibition rooms.

With all my love for the tulips, I pray forever by Yayoi Kusama, 2011

草間彌生　《チューリップに愛をこめて、永遠に祈る》

Courtesy of The National Museum of Art, Osaka (current exhibition)

Whether polka dots make you think of Dexter's blood spatter, or are reminding you of Brigitte Bardot's femininity, it is fair to say that they have become Kusama's signature.

Dots: Brigitte Bardot vs Dexter

In terms of style, one cannot fail to notice the resemblance to Takashi Murakami's works. Murakami has displayed his works at the Versailles Palace in 2010, stirring controversy among critics but not so much among young fans. You can see more images in the Guardian.

Takashi Murakami @ Versailles (2010)

Both of them also enjoy a business collaboration with Louis Vuitton.

Many of Kusama's monochromatic works using manga-brush for silkscreen printing on canvas or acrylics on canvas, display women's broken features, which, even though lacking the emotional heaviness of the subject, make us think of Picasso, and his work Weeping Woman (1937) from the Tate Collection.

Women in a Dream [TWZSA] & First Love [SWTUE] by Yayoi Kusama (2005)

草間彌生　《夢の中の女たち[TWZSA] 》＆《初恋 [SWTUE]》

Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman (1937)

© Tate Collection

Patterns like the one below remind of Gustav Klimt's style from the mural painting The Tree of Life at the Secession in Vienna.

I Who Was Looking Hard at God, by Yayoi Kusama, 2011

草間彌生　《神をみつめていたわたし》

The Tree of Life, Gustav Klimt, 1909

The explosion of stickers on white surfaces at Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art (Australia) reveal even more Yayoi Kusama's playfulness, she makes differences vanish and dreams unify all edges.

Installation views of The obliteration room 2011

as part of ‘Yayoi Kusama: Look Now, See Forever’,

Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art, 2011

© Yayoi Kusama, Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc.

Photographs: Mark Sherwood

YayOi Ku$ama and the dOt$ Ob$e$$iOn - O$aka

Welcome to the Osaka exhibition !

Yayoi Kusama Eternity of Eternal Eternity at NMAO 2012

catalogue, flyer, list of exhibited works, museum events

Exhibition banner stand

Polka-dotted space

more dots

dots are a medium, an equalizer, a standardizer

everything becomes absorbed in this obsessional dotscape

dots reach the upper floors

shapes resembling Miyazaki's Kodama-s show up

they get round & take flight

dotscape trying to escape

The exhibition space ends with a dazzling experience inside Gleaming Lights of the Souls, a Steppenwolf - like gigantic mirror-space of a Magic Theatre (mixed media, 2008).

Related links:

Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Serpentine Gallery, London, 2000

Yayoi Kusama: Flowers that bloom at midnight, by Evelyne Politanoff, Huffington Post, 12 December 2011

Interview Yayoi Kusama, by Helen Sumpter, in TimeOut London, 2012

Love Forever, Yayoi Kusama 1958-1968, MoMA exhibition web page, 1998

There has been a boom in Yayoi KUSAMA major exhibitions in 2011-2012:

Japan:

Eternity of Eternal Eternity, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan, 7 January- 8 April 2012 (curated by Masahiro Yasugi, supported by Asahi Shinbun Daily Newspaper)

Overseas:

Tate Modern, London, 9 February- 5 June 2012 (curated by Frances Morris and Rachel Taylor, supported by Louis Vuitton, see press release here)

Centre Pompidou, Paris, 10 October 2011-9 January 2012 (supported by KENZO Parfums, see press release here) - see an one-hour video created by the Centre Pompidou here.

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 12 July- 30 September 2012


Gagosian Gallery, Rome, 25 March - 7 May 2011

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 11 May - 12 September 2011

Tadao Ando - Losing Battle After Battle

On 2 June 2011, at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the Tadao Ando lecture tickets were sold out. Eighteen days later, the Osaka University Convention Center was full and cheerful. Everywhere he goes, young people crowd round him (check out the video with Bono in Dublin, below).

This is Tadao Ando, an Osaka-born genius. We are most honoured to have met him. Tadao has signed for us his Losing Battle After Battle, a book about architectural competitions which Tadao Ando has not won. About ideas, concepts, courage, failure, and the strength to keep going.

Tadao's proposed design for Museum aan de Stroom (1999)

The museum was finally designed by

Neutelings Riedijk Architecten (The Netherlands)

It opened in 2011. View it on the museum's website.

This was Tadao's vision of what Tate Modern should look like (1995)

The building was designed by

Herzog & De Meuron (Switzerland).

It opened in 2000. Check it out on the Tate official website.

You can get more information on this book in English and Japanese here.

We have written in the past about Tadao events here and also published a short post on his fundraising efforts in the aftermath of the 11 March 2011 Tohoku catastrophe.

Related links:

Watch Tadao Ando on CNN:

Tadao Ando © 2006 CNN Talk Asia Program part 1/3

 see also parts 2/3 and 3/3

thank you danone19 for the videos

Watch a short video many Tadao fans love, with Bono from U2 introducing Tadao Ando in Dublin, 2007, here.

Then watch a skillfully-composed video on Tadao Ando's works, Conceptos, which is available on youtube here.

You can buy books on Tadao Ando on amazon.com, here.

Buy Du beton et d'autres secrets de l'architecture by Tadao Ando on amazon.com here.

Enjoy !

New Purchase - Creatives in Japan

Recently, a publication caught my eye: Creatives in Japan – keywords to know the front line of creatives in Japan. Let me tell you why.

Creatives in Japan © BNN, Inc  2010,  © Gradation Blue

Purchased at Junkudo on Shijodoori, Kyoto in October 2011

There is no such thing as a shortage of publications in Japan. On the contrary, upon entering most bookshops, one feels that all possible subjects have already found a publisher and a buyer. Books, magazines, magazines, books, all colours, all sizes, all textures. The million-copies best-seller how to clean the house effectively competing against the whole technology section, the Fukushima nuclear disaster special corner, the hard-to-find German literature shelf, the dazzling leadership books or the indispensable companions to anger management, the girls and ribbons glitter multi-section at all exits. Plus hundreds of good publications dedicated to art, photography, design, new media. Just close your eyes and take your pick.

Yet, how much is it globally known about creativity today in Japan? Without reading Japanese, without being in Japan, the access to Japan’s creative contemporariness is rather restricted, for in truth, bilingual editions and foreign translations are excessively rare. Finally, this problem has been given proper consideration. In 2010, the creative journal Quotation’s editor-in-chief Toru Hachiga launched the special edition Creatives in Japan – keywords to know the front line of creatives in Japan.

With 186 pages of information on people, places, media/products, comprising images of creative works and concise profiles, Creatives in Japan is an enjoyable Japanese-English bilingual publication on young artists and serious ideas, and a promising undertaking in the right direction.

We have been expecting such a publication for quite a while. Thank you, Toru, Quotation, BNN and Gradation Blue.

BNN international also has a cool English-language blog on various topics about design in Japan. You can visit the blog here.

For those interested to purchase Creatives in Japan see more on:

Waterstones.com here
amazon.com here
amazon.co.uk here .

Enjoy !