Tag: japan

Cat Netsuke

Carved Ivory Cat Netsuke

Traditional Japanese garments—robes called kosode and kimono—had no pockets; however, men who wore them needed a place to store their personal belongings, such as pipes, tobacco, money, seals, or medicines.

The solution was to place such objects in containers (called sagemono) hung by cords from the robes’ sashes (obi). The containers may have been pouches or small woven baskets, but the most popular were beautifully crafted boxes (inrō), which were held shut by ojime, which were sliding beads on cords. Whatever the form of the container, the fastener that secured the cord at the top of the sash was a carved, button-like toggle called a netsuke.

Netsuke, like the inrō and ojime, evolved over time from being strictly utilitarian into objects of great artistic merit and an expression of extraordinary craftsmanship. Such objects have a long history reflecting the important aspects of Japanese folklore and life. Netsuke production was most popular during the Edo period in Japan, around 1615–1868. Today, the art lives on, and some modern works can command high prices in the UK, Europe, the USA, Japan and elsewhere.

Yoshitoshi Kanemaki

Skeletal Sculptures by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki

Based out of Chiba Prefecture, Japanese sculptor Yoshitoshi Kanemaki carves life-size sculptures from camphor wood, but with a twist of mortality and transience. The disturbing pieces hinge often hinge on grotesque as the combination of the bulging weight and density of wood heightens the certainty of death that looms over all his creations.

Ichiro Kojima

Ichiro Kojima, “Near Inagaki, Tsugaru”, 1960, Gelatin Silver Print

Born and raised in the northern city of Aomori, Kojima was the eldest son in a family that ran a toy and photographic supply store. He learned photography under the influence of his father, and began to publish his work in photography magazines. His subjects were everyday landscapes on the Tsugaru and Shimokita peninsulas, but his work stood apart from the mainstream realism of that era and soon gained notice for its compositional and poetic sensibilities.

With strong encouragement from the pioneer photojournalist Yonosuke Natori, Kojima mounted his first exhibition, ‘Tsugaru’, in Tokyo in 1958. Following this strong start, he moved to Tokyo in 1961 to pursue a career as a professional photographer. There he held his second exhibition, ‘Freezing’. However, having emerged on the scene with photographs of his home country, he now faced great difficulty making photographs in a new environment.

After the death of Natori, his main supporter in Tokyo, Kojima returned to Aomori. He embarked on a new project in Hokkaido, but he feel ill after repeated exposure to severe conditions and died at the early age of thirty-nine.

Studio Ghibli

Images from “The Red Turtle”, 2016, Written and Directed by animator Michaël Dudok de Wit, Co-produced by Wild Bunch and Studio Ghibli in association with Why Not Productions

Studio Ghibli: A Retrospective

A massive retrospective of legendary Studio Ghibli’s most recognizable creations, including a massive model of the airship from 1986 classic, “Castle in the Sky”, opened on July 8, 2016, on the observation deck of the Roppongi Hills Tokyo City View. Stationed 52 stories above the Tokyo skyline, the Studio Ghibli Expo is a must-visit for any fan fascinated by the depth of these animated worlds.

While the centerpiece is a massive display of flying machines—a career-long obssession for the master animator, Miyazaki—there are also three decades of posters, advertisements, movie stills, t-shirts, toys, lunchboxes, and puzzling creations, including a massive Ghibli-themed vase, all crammed onto the walls. Stills from classic Miyazaki films are displayed along Ghibli’s modern endeavors, like Cannes darling “The Red Turtle”. The show offers Ghibli-themed treats for all the senses. There’s a bar manned by a life-sized Totoro mannequin, and decorated with massive acorns worthy of Totoro’s home in the camphor tree. A café called The Sun offers 11 Ghibli-themed food items, like a soot sprite-inspired burger colored charcoal black, and an egg and toast dish reminiscent of Pazu’s specialty in Castle in the Sky.

Kinuko Y. Craft

Kinuko Y. Craft: Illustrations

Kinuko Y Craft is a graduate, BFA 1962, of The Kanazawa Municipal College of Fine and Industrial Art (known in Japan as The Kanazawa Bidai). She was born in Japan and came to the United States in the early sixties where she studied design and illustration at the Art Institute of Chicago. Subsequently, she worked for a number of years in well known Chicago art studios.

By the end of the decade Craft’s work was in wide demand and she began her long and successful career as a free-lance illustrator. For most of this time she worked in editorial and advertising markets where her work regularly appeared in national magazines and newspapers. Since the mid 1990’s, Kinuko Y Craft has concentrated on fantasy book jackets, poster designs and children’s picture books.

Chiharu Shiota

Installation Sculpture by Chiharu Shiota

Born in 1972 in Osaka, Japan, Chiharu Shiota lives and works in Berlin where she was a student of Marina Abramović and Rebecca Horn. She will represent Japan at the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale. His artistic creation combines both contemporary inspirations and Japanese heritage. . His drawings to installations and performances, the artist deals with many apprehensions, by a confusing effusion.

The objects she uses are mainly of old suitcases, letters, old pianos, ghostly robes, and all call a flashback. But the peculiarity of his work lies in the recurrent use of woven son, cables, metal rods, which transform the space into a gigantic spider web. Many place the body as the main subject of his work, but indirectly we distinguish being in this web of messages. The shapes become shadows, envelopes are empty and the majority of its installations, objects are searched by this son of entanglement, which we do not distinguish the borders.

Ikebana

Ikebana: The Art of Japanese Arrangement

Ikebana is a disciplined art form in which nature and humanity are brought together. Contrary to the idea of floral arrangement as a collection of particolored or multicolored arrangement of blooms, ikebana often emphasizes other areas of the plant, such as its stems and leaves, and draws emphasis toward shape, line, form. Though ikebana is a creative expression, it has certain rules governing its form. The artist’s intention behind each arrangement is shown through a piece’s color combinations, natural shapes, graceful lines, and the usually implied meaning of the arrangement.

Another aspect present in ikebana is its employment of minimalism. That is, an arrangement may consist of only a minimal number of blooms interspersed among stalks and leaves. The structure of a Japanese flower arrangement is based on a scalene triangle delineated by three main points, usually twigs, considered in some schools to symbolize heaven, earth, and man and in others sun, moon, and earth. The container is a key element of the composition, and various styles of pottery may be used in their construction.

Xhxix

Digital Paintings by Xhxix

Mysterious Japanese artist 非 creates digital paintings that look like translucent and intricate watercolours.  His/her identity is a closely guarded secret and the artist confesses to not liking him/herself enough to associate his/her personality with the work.  A major feature in 非’s imagery is that it pulsates and flickers with pastel and psychedelic colours that articulate variation in skin tone, bruising, geometric patterns in confetti and strangely surreal fireworks, dripped paint marks or ornaments.  They seem to vibrate and osculate and this injects and peculiar sense of life into the static images.

Although 非 admits to being an under-confident draftsman on paper, he instead opts for digital techniques that erase mistakes without trace and result in a clean finish.  His subjects are young men, battered and mottled, sickly and altered.  Often their features are obscured or contorted and when their faces are explained in detail, their features are bloodshot and wounded as they gaze out of their picture plains, staring directly almost appealing to the viewer. 非’s figures seem lost in contemplation and introspection.  Meditations on self harm, sickness or societal wounds that shape a person in time, they seem like studies of hurt and records of isolation.

Despite this, they are beautiful-lean, fit and similar to male models. They represent the loneliness of a particular stage in a man’s life, namely his teens which 非 sees as being the most difficult time to reach out and communicate anything to the rest of the world.  Women, in 非’s eyes, lead a happy existence and it is only by using the male form that he is able to express feelings of isolation, detachment and exclusion.

Thanks to https://guliverlooks.wordpress.com

Odani Motohiko

Sculptures by Odani Motohiko

Motohiko Odani was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1972 and received an MFA from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1997. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. In his sculpture, photography, and video works, Odani mingles human, animal, and futuristic anatomy, exploring the boundaries of reality and myth, the physical and the spiritual.

Odani’s has exhibited widely throughout Europe and Asia; in 2003, he was selected by curator Yuko Hasegawa to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale.  He has also participated in the Lyon Biennale (2000), Istanbul Biennale (2001), and Gwanju Biennale (2002).  Major solo exhibitions include Phantom Limb (P-House), a 2010 traveling exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Kawaga and the Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Kumamoto, and Motohiko Odani: Hollow at Maison Hermes, Tokyo.

His works can be found in the public collections of Asia Society Museum, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan; The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, among others.

Kabuki Theater

Kabuki Theater

In the years 1629–1673 Kabuki theater began its transition to yarō-kabuki. The modern all-male kabuki, known as yarō-kabuki (young man kabuki), was established during these decades. After women were banned from performing, cross-dressed male actors, known as onnagata (“female-role”) or oyama, took over. Young (adolescent) men were preferred for women’s roles due to their less masculine appearance and the higher pitch of their voices compared to adult men. In addition, wakashū (adolescent male) roles, played by young men often selected for attractiveness, became common, and were often presented in an erotic context.

Along with the change in the performer’s gender came a change in the emphasis of the performance: increased stress was placed on drama rather than dance. Performances were equally ribald, and the male actors too were available for prostitution (to both female and male customers). Audiences frequently became rowdy, and brawls occasionally broke out, sometimes over the favors of a particularly handsome young actor, leading the shogunate to ban first onnagata and then wakashū roles. Both bans were rescinded by 1652.

Kosho Busshi

Kosho Busshi, “Portrait Statue of Priest Kuya”, Painted Wood, 13th Century’ Rokuhara Mitsuji Temple, Kyoto, Japan

Around 1198, Kōshō worked together with his father Unkei and his two brothers Tankei and Kōben on restoring the Niō-Niten statues at Tōji Temple in Kyoto. In 1208 he worked on the restoration of the Kōmokuten statue at Kōfukuji Temple in Nara.

Kūya Shūnin  was a famous 10th-century Japanese monk who gained the monikers “Sage of the People” and “Sage of Amida, for he walked among the common folk preaching simple faith in Amida Buddha while praying constantly to Amida for their salvation. During his many years of traveling around the countryside, he practiced a form of chanting that employed song and dance (odorinenbutsu). In this realistic portrait sculpture, there are six miniature Amida images flowing out of his mouth – they represent his prayers, specifically the chanting of the six-character devotional nenbutsu to Amida (Namu Amidabutsu). Kuta is shown with simple facial features, dressed in peasant’s garb with wrinkled clothing, wearing straw sandals, and holding a stick to beat his gong for the odorinenbutsu, with bodily veins even visable. The six characters of Amida’s nenbutsu symbolize the six states of karmic rebirth.

Jun Kaneko

Ceramics by Jun Kaneko

In 1942 Jun Kaneko was born in Nagoya, Japan, where he studied painting during his high school years. He came to the United States in 1963 to continue those studies at Chouinard Institute of Art when his focus was drawn to sculptural ceramics through his introduction to Fred Marer. He studied with Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, and Jerry Rothman in California during the time now defined as the contemporary ceramics movement.

Kaneko established his third studio in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1990 where he primarily works. He has also created work in several experimental studios including European Ceramic Work Center, Otsuka Omi Ceramic Company, Fabric Workshop, Bullseye Glass and A.S.A.P. He created series of large-scale sculptures from 1982-1983 at his Omaha Project, from 1992-1994 at his Fremont Project in California and currently at his Mission Clay Project in Kansas. He produced a large Dango series of ceramic pieces resembling vases without openings. (Dango means “dumpling” or “closed form” in Japanese.) His prolific roster of diverse work appears in numerous international solo and group exhibitions annually.

Kaneko’s technique involves the use of masking tape and colored slips, which he uses to covers free-standing ceramic forms and wall-hung pieces with graphic motifs and markings. He frequently favors the large oval plate as one his sculptural formats, which serves as a canvas for arrangements of straight, curving, and spiraling lines, creating an interplay of abstract imagery on a three-dimensional surface.

My thanks to http://laoguang.tumblr.com for sharing this artist. Visit his blog for more images.