The Bosa Bosa Review: creatives in japan

Showing posts with label creatives in japan. Show all posts

Monday, 16 January 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)

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

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).

Tuesday, 3 January 2012

Japanese ARTS and BUSINESS - New Year's Cards or nengajo

Have you ever seen New Year’s Cards made in Japan? Now here is an idea for business, if you are thinking of starting one from the scratch. Like we are.

New Year's Cards Promotion 2012

Check this out: New Year's Cards, as many as 4.1 billion are printed and mailed by the Japan Post every year, according to wasabipress blog. For a population of about 130 million people, we get to an average of 31 cards purchased by each person. Individuals buy packages of 50 or 100 cards, corporations get much more for their partners and employees. Photo and Printing businesses are in charge of personal information, databases of names and mailing addresses. They do the digital input, the editing and the printing. The Japan Post delivers.

We can think of a few reasons why this system would not work as nicely someplace else. But maybe you can bring a change. Think about it. Get your numbers right. Multiply 4.1 billion cards by 90 yen per card, and you get a nice amount of 369 billion yen, a rough 306 million GBP, 369 million EUR, or 480 million US dollars turnover, or revenue. Dare say that profits are not bad. Interested?

We got a bunch of leaflets in the mail these past few weeks and we did not pay much attention to any of them. They were actually all headed for the rubbish bin this morning when we discovered the promotion for New Year’s Cards, a belated discovery. Why does any of these matter? Well, it is all related to practicality, inventiveness as opposed to a humanities degree. Or better: how to use your knowledge on arts and poetry to make business.

The launch of 2012 is for some of us just the right time to get practical: we decided to show you something quite Japanese: practicality. For a little while we are going to set aside How to find a career with your Humanities degree in 126 days, a relevant, smart, straightforward book written by James from selloutyoursoul.com , and start storytelling about New Year’s Cards, also known in Japan as the nengajo 年賀状. We scanned some stuff for you and searched some important arts databases.

First, is there a need for improvement in the greeting cards industry? We started getting a bit tired of getting e-cards that will not open, and when they do, they can be rather impersonal. We searched google for Western rivals to the Japanese cards. We could not find any. Instead we found these Jingle Bells greeting cards and we thought of them as boring:

Google Images search for

"greeting cards" (today)

The home-made cards are obviously a step forward, yet something is still missing:

Google Images search for

"homemade greeting cards" (today)

In order to engage into a comparative, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, multimodal Intermedialitaet approach to Greeting Cards Studies, we are showing you first a sample of Japanese envelopes, as a sign of exquisite taste. We reckon that previous research in Envelope Studies has ignored many important aspects of a field that should receive proper attention in the analytic tradition. Have a look.

Japanese envelopes with financial gifts

for the bride and groom

The Japanese Greeting Cards do not need envelopes, because unlike the Royal Mail, the Japan Post can be trusted. But you have got to understand the taste first, since without it, there is no 369 billion yen result. This is the promotion from Fujifilm for this year:

What you can see here are various examples of cards, calligraphic, photographic. And a form to fill in should you be interested in any offer (the image on the right side). We have got more samples from ShashinBako Printing:

Ink-splashed writing is still very common. Sweets, too. Noticed the Japanese cookies? Those pink little flowers in the middle. You can promote a cookie business with these cards. Children can choose their own cards to send to friends, see image No.4. Do children send cards anymore these days? There is plenty of room for improvement in children's lives and adult lives as well. Call it tangibility.

Naturally, Japanese calligraphy cannot simply be replaced with alphabet. Is there anything that can be done to make English text look beautiful?

Is seems complicated, but perhaps it is easier than you imagine. Japanese Calligraphy is a form of art, and like any form of art, it could have stayed behind locked doors in archives, museums and temples. But no, Japanese Art escaped from Archives and National Treasures and moved forward, to why not, BUSINESS. This is a National Treasure from Kyoto, see the poems transcribed on paper, these handscrolls look beautiful, but they do not bring money to businesses. Nevertheless, these handscrolls made the New Year's cards 369 billion yen business possible. Bloody brilliant !

Poems from Wakan Roeishu

Thursday, 24 November 2011

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.

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 !

Friday, 20 May 2011

TABAIMO goes international: from Osaka 2010 to Venice 2011

La Biennale di Venezia 2011 will take place between 4 June and 27 November.

TABAIMO (36) is representing Japan at the 54th International Art Exhibition, and her preparations at the Japanese Pavilion have already started. She is accompanied by her regular team (family and friends), plus the staff members of The National Museum of Art, Osaka, who have organised her there a personal exhibition in summer 2010. Her commissioner is the NMAO curator Yuka Uematsu.

TABAIMO has not become famous overnight. She had to fail first, not getting a job in Japan, she got to know discouragement while studying abroad, she had ultimately reached the point of curbed-enthusiasm and artistic surrender. Nothingness. Self-abandonment. Self-analysis. Self-actualisation. TABAIMO found the strength to rise again. Just as we write this, she is toiling in Venice.

TABAIMO has dignity and style, with an acute sense of respect and hard-work. She does not give haughty orders, she rolls up her sleeves and starts lifting things in no time. She does not expect to be treated differently, she goes out and buys the cake for her staff to enjoy at the end of the day.

The Bosa Bosa Review would like to wish the TABAIMO team an enjoyable time in Venice and a most successful exhibition.

For updates, see the Official Website of the Japanese Pavilion, designed by the organiser, the Japan Foundation:

http://www.jpf.go.jp/venezia-biennale/

and more on Tabaimo's teleco-soup:
http://www.jpf.go.jp/venezia-biennale/art/e/54/index.html

Later edit

A couple of more recent pictures have been uploaded here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ufer_/

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