Almost Over.

The things you find at 11:00 PM at night:

Looks like there is a photo exhibition running until July 9th: Through Wider Windows:

The history of photography seems short when compared to other art forms, but actually, it has already been 170 years since the camera was invented. Over the years, photography has been the vehicle for countless technological breakthroughs and developments, but more importantly, it has helped clarify the meaning of “seeing” in the everyday world as well as the art world where it has brought about fundamental changes with respect to technique and the aesthetic concepts of representation. Throughout the course of these changes, we can sense the immense spirit of inquiry and enthusiasm that artists brought to their work in their ongoing struggle to expand their capabilities and broaden their worldview.

If this is your “bag”, then you only have a few days left to catch this exhibition. GET A MOVE ON!

Technorati Tags: art, photography, exhibit

Art Gone Mad.

I am not sure of the details, but it seems that someone’s mom got a bit carried away with sprucing up her child’s bento. It is scary. You have been warned. [ link ]

Interested in Media Arts ? Anime fan ? Manga freak ?
Visit here :)

2005 [9th] Japan Media Arts Festival | Festival Information | JAPAN MEDIA ARTS PLAZA

After the relationship success of last week’s trip to an art exhibit (”Aces, you’re so multi-dimensional!”) in Ginza, I decided to follow it up with an excursion to Nishi-Shinjuku to take in James Welling’s “New Photographs.” You already know my penchant for shiny and colorful things, so it’s not surprising I chose to see the bright primary colors-heavy artwork.

The interesting thing about the photos on display was that they were made without the use of a camera. Welling places flowers on negatives and exposes them to light, giving a gray-scale imprint of the flowers on film. Then he prints it and applies a single color or two to the image. The results are pretty amazing and quite stunning, at least to this art-viewing newbie.

You can catch his work until February 25th at the Wako Works of Art building in Nishi-Shinjuku. The easiest way to get there I found was to exit Hatsudai station from the East Exit, which gets you directly into the Opera City Building. From the building’s main entrance, it’s about a 500m walk. The receptionist should be able to help you find your way, and if not you can call the number at the TAB page.

A bonus of making that trip was that right next door at the Kenji Taki Gallery was an exhibit of some very fine paintings. Now, I have to be honest – I’m not sure if they were paintings or photos converted to look like paintings and printed as such. They were photorealistic drawings from Yutaka Koyanagi, all done at night of various places in and around Tokyo it seems. The day I went was the last day, and I didn’t see it advertised on TAB, so it was a welcome surprise. If you stood next to the paintings you could clearly see the extensive use of gradients to imitate shades and details, but when you stepped away it looked just like a photo. Lighting and water effects were great too. I’m amazed at how he was able to paint so close to the canvas, but somehow know what it would look like 5 feet away.

I didn’t take any photos out of respect for the artist, who I believe was 10 feet away from me (someone was getting their photo taken when I walked in). The exhibit that’s there now seems really fun – I didn’t see the artwork, but there was a postcard for it when I arrived that shows a painting of a desert with Ultraman characters floating or playing on a playground.

This past weekend I headed out to Ginza to see the “Form of Light” exhibit by Takahashi Nobuyuki and Tamura Satomi. It’s located in the Pola building right next to the Ginza 1-chome station, but it’s an easy 8 minute walk from Yurakucho on Yamanote as well. It opens at 10:00am and closes at 7:00pm every day except the last day (closing time is 5:00pm).

There were maybe 40 vibrantly colored photos in all covering various seasons and themes. I was especially fond of the night-time photographs, but that’s because I’m easily amused by shiny objects and moons that take up half the sky. I’d maybe talk about a few of the photos in particular, but the artists saw fit to use kanji that hasn’t seen the light of day in 600 years to describe their work, and I don’t have a Japanese Rosetta Stone handy.

This particular exhibit caught my eye for another reason – it’s one of the few photography exhibits dealing with nature that are open on Sundays, when I chose to go. And with a price tag of 0 yen, it’s the perfect start to a date. My girlfriend, whose enthusiasm for bright colors and sunsets somehow dwarfs my own, thought it was a great idea. I scored “cultured guy” and “mysterious artsy guy” points simultaneously.

The exhibit ends on 2/26, so I recommend you head down there now if you’re looking for a change of pace, or if you just happen to like photography. You can also check out Tokyo Art Beat for more information on current and upcoming art events in Tokyo.

Wednesday of this week marked the beginning of the twelve-day long
Canadian
Style (TAB
page and 日本語)
event that design maven Jean Snow

is producing at Cafe Pause in
Ikebukuro. There’s an opening party this Saturday night, February
4, starting at 7pm. I plan to be there for it to find out just
what the hell this thing is all about – so hope to meet some other
curious and interesting people there too.

To get to Cafe Pause for the event, just make your way to the
Ikebukuro JR station, take the Seibu East exit and follow the
directions in the map below. (It’s only a 5-minute walk.) Or see the
Tokyo Art Beat page for Cafe
Pause, where you’ll find other maps and a QR code you can use to
access and store directions on your mobile phone.

And since Cafe Pause is after all a cafe, in addition to the normal items on its menu — light meals, snacks, sweets, and a full drink menu ranging from lemonade, “lemon cola”, “triple berry soda” and a variety of tea and coffee drinks, to beer, wine, and cocktails (including some of their own original cocktails, with names like “May”, “Lily”, “Jun”, “Teany”, and “Florent”) — a few special Canadian-themed specialities will be available, including a special meat pie and a bunch of maple stuff, even a maple-flavored cocktail.

As far as what else to expect, here are a handful of details from Jean:

… various installations (the main participants include
designer Sonia Chow
and photographer/DJ Marc Xavier LeBlanc)… video projections,
compiled themed mixes of Canadian (most independent) artists, and an
interactive installation, “Red + White/Read + Write,”

But to find out more, well, you’ll just have to head
there on Saturday night and/or before the event concludes on February
12 and see it for yourself.

Note that Jean has also created a Flickr
photo set for the event and is posting
up-to-date details at his site as it proceeds.

Some time back, Tokyo Art Beat asked five internationally known
artists and designers – Jonathan Barnbrook, Paul Cox, Power Graphixx
(Masahito Hanzawa), Noboru Tsubaki, and the Buro Destruct crew from
Berne Switzerland – to each create an original T-shirt design in
celebration of Tokyo Art Beat’s one-year anniversary.

The result is a set of
limited-edition T-shirts, each with a unique design not available
anywhere else, in any other form. Only a very small number of the
shirts was printed, and Tokyo Art Beat is making them available
only through the end of this month (February 2006). Given the
small quantity produced, owning one is a bit like having a print
directly from the artist, restricted to a extremely small number of
copies. So the phrase “collectors item” is a
more-than-appropriate term to describe them.

And given Tokyo Art Beat’s rapid rise to success and ambitious
plans for the future, you definitely won’t have any better chance to
acquire an artifact that’ll mark you as a someone who’s been hip to
Tokyo Art Beat since “back in the day”.

So head on over to the Tokyo Art Beat site now and place an
order (日本語版). 5000
yen gets you your choice of any two shirts in any sizes you’d like
(XS, M, L). Note also that they take international orders and can
ship internationally.

The ordering page also has details about each of the artists who
created the shirt designs, as well as links to detailed images of each
design. Or follow the links below to get directly to those detailed
images.

	Jonathan Barnbrook			Power Graphixx
	Buro Destruct			Paul Cox
	Noboru Tsubaki

Note that all proceeds from sale of the shirts goes to Gadago (the non-profit organization behind Tokyo Art Beat) and so will fund feature improvements at the site, and help them to cover more events at more galleries and museums and other art venues.

Headed out with my daughter Satori today to Yotsuya and stopped by 247 Photography Roonee and Gallery Niepce (next door) for a couple of photography exhibits that were ending today. Both were nice and I’ll try to post details when I get back to my PC.

Also attempted to find a new place nearby called Lotus Root Gallery — somewhere in the midst of a mostly residential area. But once we got to the general area where it’s supposed to be, could not spot any sign for it even though we probably spent 10 or 15 looking and had to have been just a few meters away from it, wherever it is. At one point Satori pointed out a young hipster-type guy to me and said he must be looking for the same place because she had seen him already, circling around just like us.

Anyway, that little side trip wasted at least 30 minutes altogether — on a day when we had already gotten a late start — so Lotus Root Gallery is now officially on my shitlist.

But we did manage to get back to Le Deco and I did have time to see more of the Tokyo College of Photography “apartment” show, and to talk with one of the photographers, Priyash Karmacharya — who was kind enough to bring us some tea. Also, Funiku Ookami of the “7″ show there (also ended today) gave Satori a couple of shoe creams, and another photographer from the “apartments” show gave her some cookies, so she went away pretty happy for the day and fairly successful as far as scoring of sweets swag goes.

Yesterday from my mobile I posted some info about the “7″ photography exhibit at Gallery Le Deco. Today I’m just posting to remind you to get out there if you’re interested, because it ends today at 5pm.

For maps and directions, including a QR code you can use to grab details to carry/view on your mobile phone, see the TAB page for Gallery Le Deco. You can also find some info at the Le Deco site.

The seven photographers who have works on display as part of the show are listed below. Follow the links to see some online samples of their work, including images of some of the photos on display at the exhibit.

• inaoka taeko
• かしわやたかし
• カマウチヒデキ
• fumiaki seino
• O光夏/tommy (Tommy Oshima)
• 腐肉狼 (Funiku Ookami)
• Mario Takahashi

You can also find profiles of all the them online, with links to their own individual sites.

Note that there are also two other visual arts events ending today at Le Deco. The first event, a group photo exhibit titled “apartment”, is on the 2nd floor and has works from eleven students in Haruo Kobayashi’s current class at The Tokyo College of Photography. Some of the photos are excellent. I didn’t have enough time to see them all yesterday, so I’m headed back today to look at more. The second event, a group exhibit titled OUR LIFE, has computer-generated photo and video work from 17 students in the Department of Information Design at Tama Art University. What little bit of the video work that I managed to see yesterday was very interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing more if it today.

Lots of stuff. Get out there today before 5pm to see it all.

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