Keizo Kitajima Captures the After-Hours Denizens of 1970s Tokyo

Nowness:

Busking musicians, streetwalkers and shop window mannequins bustle in Keizo Kitajima’s monochrome vision of Tokyo nightlife and its inhabitants. Greatly influenced by the teachings of Daido Moriyama at the legendary Japanese photographer’s Workshop school, Kitajima combined his raw approach with an aesthetic imperfection and Moriyama’s stylistic ‘misuse’ of the camera. “I tried to become a mechanical eye,” he explains. “Whether it’s to understand the systems of perception at work inside us, or to discover the components that dictate our sensitiveness, I’m convinced it’s better to reproduce our systems of sight than to observe the outside world.” Initially exhibited in 1979 at the Shinjuku based Camp Gallery, Kitajima’s unfiltered and graphic pictures challenged perceptions of what photography could be, and his unconventional attitude was amplified by an incredibly forward-thinking installation for the time. Calling on New York’s Pop Art movement, Kitajima pasted his work across the gallery walls, ceiling and floor. Celebrated with the Kimura Ihei Award in 1982, Kitajima has achieved cult status for his visceral imagery and has exhibited internationally at the likes of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. A monograph collating a series of 12 individual punk-inspired zines published once a week for the duration of the 1979 exhibition is released by Steidl later this month.

(via elvira)

“A message from Kusama:

Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at Moma
(Otherwise known as the Museum of Modern Art)
Featuring their usual display of nudes

At the museum you can take off your clothes in good company:

RENOIR
MAILLOL
GIACOMETTI
PICASSO

I positively guarantee that these characters will all be present and that all will be in the nude.*

*Sociological note: The nude has become socially acceptable among the more permanent residents of the garden of the museum. Phalli are also a la mode, particularly the harder varieties in granite, basalt and bronze.

This being the case, we will make this celebration traditional in keeping with the tome of the Museum of Modern Art.

 

“THOUGHTS ON THE MAUSOLEUM OF MODERN ART
By Kusama

What’s Modern here? I don’t see it.

Van Gogh, Cezanne, these are other ghosts, all are dead and dying.

While the dead show dead art, living artists die.

Fame and reputations are sold across the counter.

Here art, hard as diamond, prevails over love;

Diamonds for grand dames attending their funeral.

MOMA is political, a show place for vanity.

Politics has no place in love and in art.

No life stirs in empty rooms where DON’T TOUCH is the rule.

Exhibitions should be free and not a dollar fifty.

Art should be priced for all to own – at the supermarket.

Soft sculpture is alive, always preferrable to hard sculpture.

My love is like mixed media, mixing you and me.

Cast includes Lunar Eclipse, Crystal Violence, Lasar Beam, Dill Dough, Infra Red, Looney Tunes.”

 

Yayoi Kusama @ Tate Modern, London, 2&4 March 2012

She’s about 200 years old and has put out some rather fun and eclectic art over the past 300 years, ranging from phallus-incrusted boats, macaroni-incrusted furniture, avant-gardiste tits-exposing fashion, orgiac happenings, polka-dot binges and other various patterns repeated ad vitam æternam such as dots, mail stickers, cutouts of heads, etc. Paintings, videos, room installations, happenings, furniture, clothes, body art, poetry, fiction writing… she’s all over the place… Judging by her art alone, Kusama seems to be as fun as she is compulsive and obsessive. And totally insane of course (and I’m not saying that just because she voluntarily checked herself in a mental hospital and has been living there since the mid-to-late 70s).

Highlight: her infinity mirror room; the unquestionable climax of the show. 

[pix blatantly taken by me: I was in a total fuck-you mode that day, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Kusama would have cheered me on.]

(via branduponthebrain)

(via branduponthebrain)

Yoyogi Village is a pocket of zen and tranquility not easy to find among the surrounding urban chaos, even with your phone’s GPS on and a Tokoyite to lead the way.

The center piece of the complex is a phenomenal vertical garden inside the restaurant “Code Kurkku”.

The Coolist:

Tokyo is a city electric and a jungle concrete, a massive metropolis on the forefront of modern technology. The words “retreat”, “sanctuary” and “natural” aren’t often used to describe Tokyo, but they aptly define the new Yoyogi Village in the Shibuya ward. Yoyogi Village is a small commercial development that is designed as a natural escape from the neon bustle of Tokyo. It features bars, restaurants, art galleries, spas and retail split between the “village section” and the “container section”, the latter of which comprises a series of upcycled shipping containers.The design of the village is the work of the Wonderwall architecture group, landscape designer Seijun Nishihata and others. Nishihata installed a massive, living green wall in the lounge of Code Kurkku, a restaurant and bar in the village. Code Kurkku’s white walls, natural wood floors and ceilings recall the vintage, rural architecture of Japan, and Nishihata’s green wall presents a lush forest backdrop. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the lightning-speed world around it, one that those in the Shibuya ward will surely cherish. Since we’re a thousands of miles away, a stroll through the pictures will have to suffice for us… [via inhabitat and KNSTRCT]

N.B: contrary to what you might thing, Tokyo has lots of “urban retreats” so you never never feel overwhelmed and clostrophobic.

(Photographs: Wonderwall Studio)

Dan Deacon @ Shibuya O-Nest, Tokyo, 25 Jan 2012

Deacon is a crazy multi-tasker: he can simultaneously produce great sound out of his shambolic tech-gear, sing (kinda), work his own light effects and direct the crowd into fun choreographed games. Wild and entertaining. Great crowd too. 

Highlights: the sing-along on “Silence like the wind overtakes me” + the audience performing an interpretive tribal dance led by Deacon’s merch girl on “Of the mountains”. 

More pix from Dan’s set => HERE

Room 504
Claska hotel
東京都目黒区中央町 1-3-18

Claska is every bit as cool as I anticipated. Oh and for the record, that’s not water, that’s hot sake.

Slow Shutter Fireflies by Tsuneaki Hiramatsu

The Coolist:

During a quiet night in rural Japan, photographer Tsuneaki Hiramatsu discovered a field and a forest aglow in a strange green light.  Upon closer inspection, Hiramatsu saw thousands of fireflies illuminating the brush and the trees beyond.  Fortunately for us, Hiramatsu had his Nikon handy, and captured a series of stills that expose the fireflies in all their natural glory.  This collection of slow shutter and multi-exposure composites shows the tiny Lampyridae (also known as lighting bug or firefly) as it dances throughout the countryside.  Truly magical work, Mr. Hiramatsu.  [via digital-photo-blog]

Claska, Tokyo.

That’s where I’ve chosen to stay in January. Room 504. I have high expectations. 

House NA designed by Sou Fujimoto Architects

Retaliation (1968) by Yasuharu Hasebe

Gangster Yakusa spaghetti kitch — the sort that Tarantino must worship. Some unintentionally hilarious scenes + a couple of stunning sequences (one particular horribly messy fight scene shot at night with a flash light is pure cinematic gold).

New York Film Festival 2011:

Hasebe’s hardboiled New Action take on underworld turf wars pits tough guy Akira Kobayashi as an ex-con gang leader against Joe Shishido. Steering clear of romanticizing the underworld, the story plots out the cutthroat tactics and amoral diplomacy required to remain on top. Nikkatsu stalwart Yasuharu Hasebe, who went on to direct the Stray Cat Rock series, had worked with Joe Shishido onMassacre Gun. With Hideaki Nitani and Meiko Kaji.

[seen at a press screening during the New York Film Festival 2011, courtesy of The Once And Future Blonde]

murakamistuf (via jordinebot)

(via murakamistuff)