Dekmantel Festival had its inception in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2013, marking the initial step towards the swift global acclaim of the Dekmantel name.

Dekmantel Festival 2023

The origins of Dekmantel trace back to 2007 when it began as a techno and house club party, taking place at Amsterdam’s renowned venues like Studio80. While it was initially founded by three individuals, also known as Dekmantel Sound System, the only remaining active member today is Casper Tielrooij.

They established a record label under the same name in 2009. Also, they started the Lente Kabinet Festival in 2012 and Dekmantel the following year. Furthermore, they’ve been holding the Dekmantel Selectors Festival in a resort area in Croatia since 2016 and broadened their global collaborative events. Similarly, in Tokyo, it was organized as a club event over two days at Shibuya’s Contact in 2016.

Ahead of its 10th anniversary next year, the festival featured Japanese acts such as DJ NOBU, an acclaimed artist in the world techno scene, and Osaka-based local underground hero ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U (Yousuke Yukimatsu).

Dekmantel spans five days over the first weekend of August. While it initially began as an outdoor festival in the Amsterdamse Bos Park, it has evolved with the current trend of urban festivals. The first two days now feature various venues within the central area of Amsterdam, incorporating conferences and club-related content.

Jeff Mills presents Tomorrow Comes The Harvest caught the most attention during the opening concert on the first two days.

“Tomorrow Comes The Harvest” is an entirely improvised work released by techno icon Jeff Mills in collaboration with the founder of Afrobeat, Tony Allen, and veteran keyboardist Jean-Phi Dary in 2018 under Blue Note Records.

Following Tony Allen’s passing in 2020, Jeff, working closely with Jean-Phi Dary and the acclaimed tabla player Prabhu Edouard, reimagined the concept of “Tomorrow Comes the Harvest.” Initiating a fresh project, they curated a distinctive lineup for this particular performance, introducing not only the trio but also Rasheeda “Ra Flautista” Ali, a flutist renowned in Atlanta’s jazz scene.

Jeff Mills’ drum machine assumed a prominent role as the live performance started, seamlessly blending with keyboards, flute, and tabla. The soothing tones evoked a sound reminiscent of the earth’s lament, enveloping the entire venue.

The outstanding moment was the session of Percussionist Prabhu Edouard’s tabla and Jeff amidst the performance. Despite its apparent simplicity, the exchange between the lightning-fast tabla and Jeff’s drum machine, which appeared almost superhuman, captivated the audience with its exquisite interplay and unrelenting progression.

I was blown away to see the staggering passion for music and the seamless improvisation by the maestros, who effortlessly wielded techno, world music, jazz, and classical elements on an epic scale.

The festival shifted its venue to Amsterdamse Bos Park to initiate the outdoor program from day 3. The eight stages were spread across the extensive forest, uniting artists from various parts of the world, focusing on Europe covering various musical genres, such as techno, house, and breakbeat.

The symbolic main stage of Dekmantel transformed, rebranding itself as THE LOOP. Notably, the DJ booth was downsized, and the festival has removed the once-dominating large circular roof covering the dance floor and the iconic tower. However, the characteristic visual screens encircling the dance floor have remained. As the sun went down, these screens continued to captivate the audience with mesmerizing visual effects, immersing them in a psychedelic realm. Alongside the world’s top-notch Function One speaker system, the result was the creation of a splendid dance floor experience.

Exploring the Selector’s Stage to Dive Deeper into the Festival’s Musical Taste

Some fans might be captivated by Dekmantels’ refined musical taste. While you can appreciate their sense of taste through releases and podcasts from their label, I recommend attending the Selector’s Stage at their festival to delve even deeper into their musical taste.

Many top-level music selectors (DJs) performed on the stage this year, just as in previous years: a set featuring the crew of Gop Tun DJ’s, a Brazilian artist collective and record label, along with a B2B session with Orpheu the Wizard, the founder of the now-closed Amsterdam-based online radio station Red Light Radio, and Barcelona talent John Talabot. Highlighting the critical figure Casper Tielrooij of Dekmantel and a B2B session with the acclaimed Jane Fitz, celebrated for her psychedelic dance vibes and popularity in Japan, alongside the Berlin-based Italian artist Marco Shuttle. The lineup tantalized electronic music enthusiasts, continually delivered, and left devoted fans in amazement. 

If we pay attention to the Japanese acts, DJ NOBU, who made his return after 2018, remarkably stood out. This year, he appeared on the best techno floor, the UFO I Stage, with a B2B set alongside the latest influential artist in New York, Aurora Halal. They showcased a seamless fusion, offering a mix of standard modern techno to tracks infused with acid and spacey elements, manipulating the dance floor with a sauna-like atmosphere. It seemed they were again sharing the joy of dancing to techno with the audience.

Even off the stage, he interacted with various people, from fans to staff, whether backstage or at different spots within the venue. Observing him actively participate in vibrant discussions, share light-hearted moments, and prioritize interpersonal communication over his role as an artist, his genuine demeanor was impressive.

Half an hour before DJ NOBU’s performance, ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U appeared on the UFO II Stage, where many distinctive techno artists performed. I felt a sense of respect for his natural behavior, which fascinated me immediately. 

As his performance started, he poured his heart and soul into the dance floor. Despite the anarchic song selection, his set unfolded with a profound and gentle warmth, and the heavy bass resonated through the body. Halfway through the performance, cheers erupted when he took off his T-shirt, and the masculine and charismatic play enchanted the audience.

In addition to these two, another artist with a Japanese background took part in the festival. Mika Oki is a DJ and artist born and raised in Paris to a Japanese father and a Spanish mother. She performed her DJ set at the UFO II Stage on the last day of the festival. Drawing inspiration from Autechre’s live performances, her set revealed a varied musical style, featuring Warp-style electronica and tracks influenced by dubstep, reggae, and more.

I had a chance to speak to her after her performance. She shared that she’s been to Japan three times, including a recent visit in April 2023, performing at venues such as Hatagaya’s Forestlimit and Osaka’s CIRCUS. She commended the attentive nature of Japanese audiences, expressing admiration for their dedicated listening to music and her desire to visit Japan more frequently.

Apart from the artists, Japanese elements could be seen in the catering area. FOODESCAPE, offering Japanese soul food such as Okonomiyaki, shows a consistent presence at major music festivals in the Netherlands. About half of the staff is Dutch, and while faithfully recreating the flavors of the stalls, it serves as a venue for the cultural exchange between Japan and the Netherlands.

The Berlin-based streaming studio HÖR’s stage

The Radar Stage, formerly known as the Boiler Room stage from 2013 to 2022, drew particular attention at Dekmantel this year. It has now transformed into the stage for HÖR, the Berlin-based streaming studio. Recently establishing a pop-up studio in London, HÖR stands out as one of today’s most vibrant streaming platforms. All performances on this stage were also broadcast live on their platform. This shift doesn’t only mean transforming the streaming platform but also introducing substantial changes to the stage arrangement.

The DJ booth was enveloped in a distinctive arrangement, featuring scaffoldings reminiscent of jungle gyms that might come across as construction sites. The audience can dance on the same floor as the DJs or climb to the upper levels, overlooking the booth while dancing. Such a multi-level floor structure seemed unique in outdoor festivals.

Not only Dekmantel, but many European festivals have increasingly adopted an environmentally conscious approach in recent years. The predominant source of CO2 emissions associated with festival stems from attendees’ and artists’ use of airplanes and cars. Indeed, there are limitations to reducing air travel in festivals that invite many international artists. However, Dekmantel is actively experimenting with strategies to address CO2 emissions, which involves partnering with non-profit organizations to offset greenhouse gas emissions from flights and encouraging the audience to use bicycles to go to the festival site. All to find ways to minimize CO2 emissions.

More and more events in the Netherlands, including Dekmantel, offer a ticket option for CO2 emission offsetting, which allows the audience to contribute an additional 1 euro to the ticket price, supporting initiatives aimed at emission reduction. The festival site was maintained clean throughout, with staff actively involved in litter picking, creating a positive environment. 

Also, Dekmantel has been hosting the festival exclusively with 100% renewable biofuels since 2016.

Dekmantel festival made a significant impact as a massive event, with its numerous stages, each characterized by its scale and impressive number of attendees. Although dance music is still a niche genre in the Japanese scene, it was surprising to witness an event of such scale in the Netherlands, where the population is smaller than Japan.

From promising newcomers to seasoned veterans, the lineup provides a diverse range to delve into the core and origins of dance music. This year, they showcased a prevalent presence of high-BPM rave techno, drum and bass, and breakbeat sounds.

This year, rain persisted consistently from late Saturday afternoon to Sunday, coupled with low temperatures. Despite these severe conditions, their dance moves were energetic, as if it were not raining. 

There seemed to be so much for Japanese events to learn from their proactive initiatives toward environmental issues, which came to mind when walking out of the venue after the five days at Dekmantel. 

Direction Kana Miyazawa
Photography Yannick van de Wijngaert、Pierre Zylstra、Tim Buiting、Sofia Baytocheva、Jente Waerzeggers、So Oishi、Nori
Support So Oishi
Translation Takahiro Kanazawa

The post Festival Report: Amsterdam’s Dekmantel Festival Enchanting a Worldwide Audience appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Ryunosuke Okazaki
Ryunosuke Okazaki is a designer of his own label RYUNOSUKE OKAZAKI born in Hiroshima in 1995. Okazaki finished the Graduate School of Design, Tokyo University of the Arts, in 2021 and held his first runway show, “000,” in September 2021. He was selected as a finalist for “LVMH Prize 2022” in 2022. He is currently based in Tokyo.
https://ryunosukeokazaki.com
Instagram：@ryunosuke.okazaki

Okazaki’s debut show, “000” which showcased the organic beauty of formative art created out of everyday materials, made a significant impact, and his second runway show, “001” marking the label’s second season, vividly made its unique dress style widely known. Immediately after that, he was selected as a finalist for the “LVMH Prize 2022,” which led the designer of “RYUNOSUKEOKAZAKI” to accomplish the remarkable feat of getting an opportunity to present his work in Paris less than a year after his debut. The latest presentation, “002”, his first in about a year, was delivered not in the form of a runway show but a solo exhibition held at the creative space “THE FACE DAIKANYAMA” in Daikanyama. We sat down with him and asked about his thoughts on his new collection in this art gallery-like space with its walls lined with wood sculptures.

–The exhibition’s atmosphere is very different from a fashion show and is more like an art exhibition. Is this the first time for you to exhibit your works on the wall?

Ryunosuke Okazaki (hereafter, Okazaki): Yes, it is. Up until now, I have presented three-dimensional works worn by models, so this is the first time I have exhibited my work in a static form like this. You can hang the pieces with red cloth hanging from the ceiling on the wall. I would be happy if the fans of “Ryunosuke Okazaki” could see a new aspect of my work. Also, this is the first time I used wood.

–I was surprised to see how even a wall-hanging work becomes three-dimensional when you create it.

OKAZAKI: If I had to choose between three-dimensional and two-dimensional, I would go for three-dimensional like this. I layer the parts from various angles and attach them side by side. Then, I make them while imagining symmetrical forms.

–How do you express the idea of symmetry?

OKAZAKI: My oldest source of inspiration for symmetrical forms is the torii gates for the Shinto shrine. I grew up in Miyajimaguchi, Hiroshima, where Itsukushima Shrine was located close. As an elementary school child, I fished and played every day, and I could always see the Torii gate just across the shore. Also, one of my most influential experiences was making a bright red Torii gate out of piles of cardboard when I was in kindergarten. I found torii gate really cool, and even as a child, I had a vague but special feeling about it.

–Historically speaking, some in the architectural world have considered asymmetry to be humanistic.

OKAZAKI: Certainly, if you look at architectural styles in both Japan and the West, there are a lot of asymmetrical structures. On the other hand, there is a sense of order and will in symmetric things, and I sense life in them. This sensation is instinctive. Technically, all living creatures, including humans and insects, are asymmetrical, but if you look at their overall forms, they tend to be symmetrical.

Working on artwork with wood

–The name of your new series of works using wood is “PIMT.” What does it mean? 

OKAZAKI: I coined this word by combining the first letters of “Perception,” “Intention,” “Material,” and “Time.” The “time” of “perceiving” the material, sensing the “intention” behind the form, and creating with the “material” is connected to the act of “prayer” that I cherish within myself. So I call it “PIMTO,” and I also like its sound.

–The sound of the word “JOMONJOMON” (a series of dresses inspired by Jomon earthenware) is also impressive.

OKAZAKI: Thank you. Yeah, I put importance on sound because artworks are something to be loved.

–It’s interesting that even when the textile is replaced by wood, your work is easily recognizable as “RYUNOSUKE OKAZAKI.” Is the production process the same?

OKAZAKI: It’s precisely the same. I’m working on various materials as if breathing life into my works. Each piece has its own personality, and I feel as if it is alive.

–I heard that you don’t make drawings. Is it right?

OKAZAKI: I create forms fortuitously by moving my hands. It’s probably the same as how I paint. A painting never ends, does it? My dresses never end as well. How the creation process ends changes according to the level of experience. Experiences introduced to my hands affect how they move, which is reflected in my work. Interestingly, my work is completed when people wear it.

–What made you decide to work with wood in the first place?

Okazaki: It all started when I visited Nikko Toshogu Shrine last April. The wooden structure I saw there struck me immensely. Kigumi is a traditional Japanese construction method used by temple carpenters to build shrines and temples. In my case, I did not use the original form of kigumi, but I was inspired by the process of assembling the wood, how the structure looked when they were put together, and how colorful they were.

–As you mentioned, you’ve got a lot of colorful pieces. The moment I saw them, I thought they looked like Gundam.

OKAZAKI: I get that response a lot. Actually, I have never seen any Gundam anime, but I suppose there’s some connection. I think Japanese culture is good at designing and inventing imaginary creatures, which I think has something to do with our long history of finding the existence of gods in nature. I personally feel that robot animation is also connected to the Japanese culture of prayer, so perhaps it is inevitable that my works look like Gundam.

–And you have created a lot.

OKAZAKI: Actually, there are many more works behind this exhibition venue that I haven’t exhibited yet. I have been working on them since the end of the LVMH Prize exhibition I participated in last year.

–So you’ve been working with wood for almost a year?

Okazaki: Along with the wooden pieces, I also created dress works. The time I spent working with the fabric and the time I spent working with the wood were well-balanced, and the dresses became more sculptural and delicate. This time, since no models would wear them, I could create works that are even taller than I am, with more freedom. Creating a space that allows viewers to face the pieces is an important mode of expression for me.

–Are you working in your studio? 

OKAZAKI: Yes. Ensuring adequate space is such a challenge because many of the works are huge. Among all, I am probably the one who is most pleased to be able to stand in front of my own artworks and face them in this way. I hope many people will see them.

I will keep following my path without distinguishing between fashion and art.

–Your works have been all unique pieces, right? And will they always be?

OKAZAKI: Yes. I’m sure they will continue to be so because I want to communicate with my works, and I also want to connect with the people who see them. So I will keep on creating my pieces, focusing on demonstrating what I feel at the time.

–You have been fascinated with the fashion world since you were a middle school student. So what kind of fashion style were you, a person born in 1995, looking at?

OKAZAKI: I don’t remember a specific fashion label, but I watched many collection videos and fashion magazines and liked to wear the clothes myself. I was attracted to the appearance of fashion style rather than the context of mode. What I was struck by, within collection footage, was something like people didn’t look like people at all, people who seem to be liberated and become wilder, and people in artificial forms.

–You were interested in the act of dressing itself? 

OKAZAKI: Yeah, I was. The art-piece-like outfits you see in fashion shows, in particular, express the essential part of dressing, which links to the question of what kind of things human beings living on the earth wear. People are part of nature, and the Japanese, in particular, are creatures who have been conscious of this. My interest in fashion, especially as a student, was based on my childhood experience, such as catching insects, fishing, and drawing pictures in nature. The fact that I was born in Hiroshima and that my theme is “prayer” is also all connected.

–You have become known worldwide since the debut with “000”. What kind of people have approached you? 

Okazaki: Those of the fashion industry. And their interest opened up my possibility. The experience of being selected as a finalist for the LVMH Prize and presenting my work in Paris meant a lot to me. I want to show my work in Paris again, and I would also like to present my art pieces in New York. The fashion and art markets are different, so a line is drawn between them, but I wouldn’t make any distinction between them. Creators should be freer and should pursue what they like. I have many goals, so I want to focus on intensifying the power of my work, creating and communicating in various places.

–Is there anything you are planning for this year?

OKAZAKI: I will continue to create as always. The works I will present in this process will surely connect me with the world.

–So will this sequential-numbered series go like 003, 004, and so on?

OKAZAKI: Yeah. I want to work on this at least until 100 throughout my life. At the time when I started with “000,” which became a turning point for me, I was already determined to do it up to three digits. Precisely because these simple sequential numbers are given to my works as titles, they express even more vividly the fact that I will be creating history through my life and continuous artistic practice.

Translation Shinichiro Sato
Photography Tameki Oshiro

The post Interview with Fashion Designer Ryunosuke Okazaki: On Vital Instincts Expressed through Symmetrical Forms and Solo Sculpture Exhibition “002” in Resonance with Prayer  appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

At his latest solo exhibition at NANZUKA UNDERGROUND in Jingumae, he showed a new series of “box-shaped paintings with mirrors.” A transparent acrylic plate is placed on the front side of the box, and a mirror is placed on the opposite side, so that the paint on the surface of the transparent acrylic plate and the image reflected in the mirror behind it are both visible at the same time. “When you paint a picture, what you paint and what is painted are usually identical. In other words, they are perceived as the same thing. I tried to separate the two and create a state in which they are seen at the same time but separately.” Taniguchi continued, “I was interested in why people find something more in a painting than its constituent elements themselves. That mystery was fascinating to me.” We interviewed Taniguchi at the exhibition venue to learn more about his new works, his creative process, and where his interests lie.

“Separating the material and the image and showing them at the same time”

–Your new series of work shown in this exhibition uses an acrylic plate and a mirror to simultaneously show the image of a girl and the paints applied to the plate. They are box-shaped, and the drips of paint and other details made me think that the painting was done on an acrylic plate after assembled. How were these actually produced?

Makoto Taniguchi (hereafter, Taniguchi): Sometimes I paint the acrylic panels before the box is assembled, sometimes I paint after the box is assembled; in my early work around 2006, the acrylic panels and mirrors were not combined to form a box-like structure. When I paint after constructing the box, I do it while looking back and forth between the reflected image on the mirror and the paint on the surface of the acrylic plate. However, there are no particular rules for how I paint or how I work.

–In your early works, the acrylic plate was covered with a thicker layer of paint, and the visual difference between the painting on the acrylic plate and the painting reflected in the mirror seemed to stand out more clearly. Did this change happen naturally at some point?

Taniguchi: For me personally, I am not conscious that I have changed it that much. One of the things that originally inspired this series of works was the mystery of why people try to find something more than paint in a painting, even though it is just a lump of paint. I have always been interested in the act of separating “paint” and the “something” found in the paint and presenting them simultaneously. Perhaps my style is changing naturally on that basis.

–The box-shaped form is also impressive. I can associate various things with this shape, such as a grave, a cathode-ray tube TV, or a monolith from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Have you been creating box-shaped works since your early days of your career?

Taniguchi: I created the prototype for this work in 2006, but it was not box-shaped at that time. I placed a transparent board on the legs and a mirror on the floor. Later on, I created one with a frame. And long before those two, I had begun to create such works in the process of creating a performance. When I was painting, the more I tried to get closer to what I wanted to paint by layering or shaving paint, or redrawing image itself, the more I felt that I was getting further and further away from what I wanted to paint. So I wondered if I could show this act as a performance. But I did not actually do the performance, it ended up unfinished. But triggered by the idea of “showing the first state and the last state of work at the same time” within the performance, it became what it is today. If what is visible on the surface of the acrylic plate is the “latest state” of the painting, and the bottom layer of what is on the acrylic plate (the bottom layer of the painting material), or what is reflected in the mirror behind it, is the “first state,” then I wanted to show both of them at the same time.

—I think this work stands out within the history of painting in that it is “box-shaped” and “shows the beginning and the end of the painting simultaneously.” How conscious are you of the notion of painting itself? Do you think of your works as “paintings” in the first place?

Taniguchi: I think there have been many different views on painting and what a painting is, and many different people have thought about it. Rather than focusing on the concept of painting, I have been thinking about picture. What I have been thinking about is why people try to find something in a picture, or why the creator tries to put something in it, as I mentioned earlier, rather than whether a painting is good or bad from artistic point of view.

“There are moments when I feel a sense of presence, as if what I have drawn suddenly begins to come alive.”

–Please tell us about the motif. This girl seems to be unfinished work, compared to the characters in the cartoon. I think this imperfection is another point that attracts the viewer’s attention. What does this girl mean to you?

Taniguchi: For example, when I am doodling casually, there are moments when I feel a sense of presence, as if what I have drawn suddenly begins to come alive. It may be closer to “a picture of such a moment” than to a picture in progress or is incomplete. I also believe that humans, in many cases, do not necessarily perceive or remember everything in front of them clearly. It’s like there are clear parts and blurry parts. I myself don’t really think of them as girls. They are more like symbolic forms, with eyes and a human-like shape.

–This exhibition shows your newest body of work. Is there anything you have
tried for the first time, including the method of display?

Taniguchi: For this exhibition, there are two large works in which the depicted
images are approximately the same size as viewers. I placed them away from
the wall, thinking of making the paintings look as if they existed in the middle of
space, or as if they were standing there.

“I am interested in the imagination that changes and the imagination that does not change.”

— This is a different topic from this exhibition, but since COVID pandemic, things like video communication, Vocaloid, and Vtuber have attracted a lot of attention. How do you see the current situation in which images that are separate from matter have come to be accepted in a physical senses?

Taniguchi: I don’t know what these technologies will actually become in the future, but I am interested in how they may or may not change the human imagination. I think that the spread of various technologies has changed the way human imagine in the past. People today, for example, use a different imagination than people did hundreds of years ago, and conversely, there are some form of imagination we no longer have. I am interested in such changing or unchanging imagination.

The title of this exhibition uses ♡. That does not mean that the works are directly about the heart or mind, but rather about something much broader. I wondered what would happen if I used the heart as an entry point at this time of the age, so I titled the exhibition “Where is your ♡?” The word “♡” does not only mean “heart” or “mind,” but also includes many other significations. A sentence, “Where is your ♡?” evokes a variety of meanings.

I believe that the way “heart” exists has changed through the ages, and humans must have lived in times when there was no concept of the heart. I have heard many theories about the shape ♡, like “it is derived from the shape of the heart” etc., but nowadays, for example, it is used as a symbol to represent a cute image or a “like” on a social networking service. on social networking sites. Perhaps people’s hearts are changing little by little, even by repeatedly adding a heart to someone’s post on the Internet, though this may be an exaggeration.

I once saw an old portrait of a man and thought he looked different from the way people look today. I thought that it might have been painted that way, not because of the way it was drawn or the technique, but because they really have that kind of face and expression. Perhaps people’s faces have changed as the state of what we call the mind has changed, or as the shape of our imagination has changed.

Or maybe things like avatars, Vtubers, or image filters could be seen in later years as the faces of our time. That would be interesting to see.

Where is your ♡?
Dates: July 23 ~September 4, 2022
Venue: NANZUKA UNDERGROUND 2F
Address: 3-30-10 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Hours: 11:00-19:00
Closed: Mondays and national holidays
Admission: Free
Official website: https://nanzuka.com/ja/exhibitions/makoto-taniguchi-where-is-your-heart/press-release

Makoto Taniguchi
Born in Tokyo in 1982, Taniguchi graduated from Tokyo University of Arts, Intermedia Art Course. He has participated in 美少女の美術史(Art History of Beautiful Girls) (Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori / Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka / Iwami Art Museum, Shimane / National Taipei University of Education Beishi Art Museum, Taipei, 2014-2015, 2019), Takahashi Murakami’s Superflat Collection – From Shōhaku and Rosanjin to Anselm Kiefer- (Yokohama Museum of Art, Kanagawa, 2016), TOKYO POP UNDERGROUND (Jeffrey Deitch, NY / LA, 2019) and other exhibitions in Japan and abroad.

Official website: http://makototaniguchi.com
Twitter: @makototaniguchi
Instagram: @makototaniguchi

Photography Kousuke Matsuki

The post Separating Image and Matter: Artist Makoto Taniguchi Talks About the Meaning behind His “Girl Paintings” appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

TENGAone
TENGAone is a Tokyo-based street artist born in 1977. The artist’s name is derived from his realization that painting (GA:画) is his vocation or a gift from heaven(TEN:天). At the age of 14, he began working on graffiti using spray paint. After working as a graphic designer for an apparel brand and for a web design company, he officially started his career as an artist in 2007. His work includes street graffiti, giant murals for commercial and public buildings, sculpture, and graphic design. In May 2018, he participated in Beyond The Streets (Los Angeles), one of the most major street art exhibitions and showed a collaborative piece with Takashi Murakami, MADSAKI, Snipe 1, and ONEZKER. In September 2018, he held a solo exhibition, Blind Spot -blind spot-.
Instagram：@tengaone

TENGAone, an artist who started graffiti at the age of 14 and has recently been attracting attention for his series of cardboard-like sculptural  paintings works using MDF wooden boards, held his first solo exhibition in four years, More Than Meets The Eye, at Kaikai Kiki Gallery from September 30 to October 22. 

The title of the exhibition, “More Than Meets The Eye,” means “there is something deeper/more hidden than one can see.” Regarding the intention and context of the phrase, the artist says that his own experience of immersing himself in street culture, such as graffiti, made him realize how people’s consciousness is only focused on the surface  level and how they miss various aspects of reality of everyday life due to their assumptions, which inspired the idea for “carved imitation-cardboard” works. 

TENGAone, who says he wants to “entertain the viewers” and “change the ways the view of the world,” looks back on his past artistic practices and talks about the intention behind his works.

— I would like to start by asking you about your background. Can you tell us where your name comes from?

TENGAone: At first, I started calling myself TENGA(天画) from the realization that painting is my vocation (Kanji “天” literally refers to “heaven” and “画” means “painting”). That was about 20 years ago. I’ve been working as TENGA ever since, but at some point “that” TENGA showed up and became popular (laughs). As long as I was working in the context of street culture, it was okay, but I wanted to differentiate myself as an artist, so I started using the name TENGA-one about five years ago, as a way of saying, “I was the first to name myself TENGA.”

–When did you start your artistic activities?

TENGAone: I don’t know if I can call it creative activities, but I started drawing graffiti on the street in 1992, when I was 14 years old. Originally, when I was in elementary school, I used to pass by the Yokota Air Base area when I went from my house to visit my grandfather’s house, and there was an unmanned station called Higashi Fussa Station near the Yokota Air Base. The station building at that time was covered with graffiti. And every time I passed by it on the train, I was excited because it was so cool and there was no other place like it. That was my first encounter with graffiti culture. At the time, I didn’t think I would do graffiti myself, but then I started seeing graffiti in movies and fashion magazines, and I decided to try my hand at it as a natural consequence. 

–Were you drawing pictures before doing graffiti?

TENGAone: I did not learn to paint, but I always liked to draw. I grew up in a strict household, so if my family caught me painting, they would look at me disapprovingly and tell me to study instead. So I was painting secretly.

I was also not allowed to read manga, so I would pick up discarded manga such as the comics of Dragon Ball and the manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump and copy them entirely. I would post them on the bulletin board at school, and my friends would be happy to see them. I did that kind of thing when I was in elementary school.

— Did people often tell you that you were good at drawing?

TENGAone: I tried to draw well because I wanted to be praised (laughs). I wanted to be popular, so I drew hard.

— From there, you began drawing graffiti at the age of 14, and you expanded your activities to include creating model figures and presenting your works in the context of contemporary art. Was there any particular impetus for that?

TENGAone: I think it was a combination of many things. Originally, I was wondering if I could somehow make a living from graffiti. I wasn’t thinking about whether it could be done as an art form or not. But there was an occasion when I started to think that I could maybe do what I had been doing in the context of art. About 10 years ago, I went to Aomori on a graffiti trip with friends and we went to see Ron Mueck’s exhibition Standing Woman at the Towada Museum of Contemporary Art. But when I got there, I found more interesting pieces of contemporary art than the ones from that exhibition. I was shocked to learn that there was a kind of art that was “so easy to understand and so pleasing to people”. Even before that, I had been to Art Fair Tokyo, but it didn’t stimulate me much, and I wasn’t attracted to contemporary art that much. But when I went to the Towada Museum of Contemporary Art, the way I look at contemporary art changed, and I began to think, “I wanted to work in this field.”

Purposely lowering expectations toward the works

–When did you start to develop your cardboard-like pieces that you are currently working on?

TENGAone: Five or six years ago. Cardboard has been a traumatic experience for me since I was a child. My father worked in the meat industry, so when he would bring home processed in cardboard boxes that were stained with oil and tattered. I hated my father, so I hated the dirty cardboard boxes he brought home. There were piles of them at home. So, in a way, I hated cardboard boxes.

–Why did you use cardboard boxes, which you hated so much, as a motif?

TENGAone: For me personally, it was something that I hated, yet I couldn’t avoid, or at least I had no choice but to look at. So I decided to use it as a motif. Also, I thought it would be a good idea because cardboard boxes can be found anywhere in the world, and they are familiar to everyone.

–You purposely use MDF woodboard (abbreviation of “Medium Density Fibreboard,” a board made of powdery wood fibres combined with wax and resin binder) to replicate cardboard. Did you ever consider just using cardboard itself?

TENGAone：I am good at not only carving, but also creating or drawing something that looks almost identical tosomething else, so I could rely on that ability. Besides, drawing illustrations on cardboard is too ordinary for surprise.

In terms of my works, people would think, at first sight, that illustration is drawn on cardboard. However, when I tell people that they are actually not made of cardboard, but of MDF wooden boards, the way the work looks completely changes. This kind of thing also happens with graffiti. People are not really care about the graffiti on the street they pass by everyday, but if I tell them that I drew that graffiti, the usual landscape looks in a different way. I wanted to do something similar with art.

–Your illustrations on the boards resemble robot anime from the 1980s and 1990s. Were these influences from your childhood experience?

TENGAone：I wasn’t allowed to watch much anime as a child, so it wasn’t until I became an adult that I watched robot anime. However, I originally didn’t think that what was drawn on cardboard was that important from the beginning. I didn’t need my personality to stand out  from there; rather, I wanted to draw characters that everyone knew and was familiar with. If I do that, the works would look like just “famous characters drawn on cardboard,” and people would not be interested in it. But in reality, the characters are drawn on something that is not cardboard. I wanted to create that kind of impact. So the bigger the gap between what it looks like and what it actually is, the better.

With that in mind, one of the most typical examples of Japanese animation is robot anime. Even if one robot anime ends, a new series begins right after that, which I feel is very ambitious, and revered around the world. I respect that, and I draw my illustrations to reimagine that. I change the design each time and try not to use the same imagery over and over again.

–Do you feel that imitation or some kind of fake is the underlying theme of your work?

TENGAone: No, the most important thing for me is to change the view of the world, and imitating something is just a means to that end. It is just an approach to make it easier for the viewers to set foot in.

I want to go beyond the assumption of “there’s no way you’re doing it” 

–It is a solo exhibition in four years this time, When did you start preparing ?

TENGAone：I started preparing specifically for this exhibition in January of this year. I had been working on it little by little until then, but most of the works were made this year. I wanted to put a lot of energy into it this time. Takashi Murakami told me to “do all I can”. I’m the kind of person who has to be serious about everything. Although I didn’t know if I would make it in time, I decided to do it anyway. Almost all of the works in the exhibition are newly created works.

–Looking at the exhibited works, it seems that the production process was quite hard. 

TENGAone: It was quite hard (laughs). I would like to pat myself on the back for being able to exhibit that amount of works. As you can see, I carved out all of them.

–I saw the video titled POST FAKE you uploaded earlier, and it looked like a continuous process of delicate carving.

TENGAone: Since the beginning of this year, I have been working almost 12 hours a day. I spent most of the time in my studio everyday, and only about 2 hours at home.

–What made you choose the title “More Than Meets the Eye” for this exhibition?

TENGAone: In Japanese, it means “there is something deeper/more hidden than what we can see,” but I was originally looking for a word to express what I do in English. So I discussed it with the staff of Kaikai Kiki and came up with this title.

–Was there anything new you have tried?

TENGAone: The materials I use have been upgraded, but the work itself has not changed much.

— Do you draw a rough sketch at the beginning of the production process?

TENGAone：Yes. I use Photoshop to create something close to the finished work. I use it as a starting point, and develop it in the process.

— It is difficult to fathom the size of your works (i.e. on Instagram), but in reality they’re quite big. Are you particular about the size?

TENGAone: I wanted to make something that would exceed people’s expectations, something that would make them think, “There’s no way you did it.” With that size, people would not believe me if I said, “I carved all this by hand.” I wanted to make a piece that was unexpected. Ordinary people wouldn’t make something that big, would they?

For me, I want to do something that goes against the flow of this smartphone era. I wanted to continue to do something analog, even more so because the times are getting smarter and smarter. I want to value elements such as the largeness and rough texture that come from hand-carving and hand-painting. I want people to feel some kind of futile struggle of human beings, which cannot be expressed digitally.

— If you look closely at the work, you can see the reproductions of elements found  on real cardboards such as oil stains, the torn parts, the fictitious of a manufacturer, and the invoices. You were very particular about the details and thought about the setting associated with them.

TENGAone: I meticulously forge to amuse the people who see them. If you look closely, you will see that there are many hidden meanings and detailed settings. I would like people to stand in front of the works and directly see my works to find out more.

— You also make model figures. Can you talk a little bit about it?

TENGAone：As for figures, I just like creepy things, so I wanted to create something creepy (laughs). Even Murakami says to me, “that’s creepy,” and I enjoy that. I have loved horror movies since I was a child, and since elementary school I would go with my family to watch horror movies that would scare even adults. I was always watching them, thinking, “how could people have created these zombies?” So I wanted to be a makeup artist for that kind of special effect makeup when I was in elementary school.

–Are there any horror movies that shocked you?

TENGAone: When I was in the second grade of elementary school, I saw a movie called Demons at the Koma Theater in Shinjuku. The woman’s face in the movie was so scary that it was a huge shock to me. I still remember it vividly.

— To change the subject a little, people are saying that we are in the midst of “art bubble.” Do you ever feel it?

TENGAone: I guess so, since I am able to make a living from art. But I think the art bubble will burst someday. I want to have the ability to make a living even when it bursts. Rather than capitalizing the bubble, I want to think about how to survive. In order for that, I do think I need to be prepared for it.

–Lastly, this might be a fairly ordinary question, but what are some of the highlights of this exhibition?

TENGAone: I guess the quantity and size of the works. I want people to see everything to be seen. They are two dimensional, but also three dimensional. I want people to experience the work, including the atmosphere around them. 

■TENGAone solo exhibition MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
Dates: September 30 – October 22, 2022
Venue: Kaikai Kiki Gallery 
Address: B1F Motoazabu Crest Building, 2-3-30 Motoazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Hours: 11:00-19:00
Closed: Sunday, Monday, National holiday 
Admission: Free
https://gallery-kaikaikiki.com

Translation Shinichiro Sato
Photography Kohei Omachi

The post Interview with Artist TENGAone; On “Imitation-Cardboard Paintings” Created with Analog Techniques appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Further, Documenta removed an artwork because of its antisemitic nature. This has been stirring up discussions within the art world. While fully acknowledging the importance of discussions surrounding the aforementioned event, Hiroyoshi Tomite reports on the artworks displayed at Mitte, the center. 

The world of an art collective from outside of Europe

Fridericianum

Fridericianum is a large museum that explores the possibilities of education in the city center. Aside from a space for artists to show their work, the museum has a living and working space for them. It also has a kitchen, a library, a workshop space for children, a nursery, and more. Visitors and artists alike can use the museum as a place to learn. Visitors can see the artworks of 17 artist collectives from Asia and Africa from the first to the third floor. One characteristic is that most of the video art can be viewed sitting down and lying on the floor, not only standing up. Another is that the space provides time to ponder on the artworks.

Gudskul

The first exhibition you see on the first floor is by Gudskul, a knowledge-sharing platform made of three Jakarta-based collectives. Anyone interested in creating art in a group with a focus on collaboration is invited to join the exhibition. Visitors can gather around a table or sit on seats to have conversations around sustainable art. 

WAJUKUU ART PROJECT

One exhibition caught my eye: an exhibition by the Wajukuu Art Project. Founded in 2004, the collective is from a community space in Lunga-Lunga, the most densely populated slum in Nairobi. Made with scraps from the area, the collective’s exhibition is a recreation of architecture inspired by the Maasai Manyatta (a traditional homestead of the Maasai people in East Africa) and the everyday aesthetics of the slums. It’s worth seeing, as the collective successfully recreated the ambiance through materials from the area.

Cinema Caravan, the only participating Japanese collective 

On the night of my stay, I attended the Caravan Hive Party. The location was a hideout-like building used for resident artists. With Kuribayashi-san at the center, the Cinema Caravan crew from Zushi and other resident artists danced at the event. “Genki-ro” had been moved, and I witnessed the integral role it played, as people talked to each other about where they came from and which artworks caught their attention inside of “Genki-ro.”

 A permanent exhibition that matches the present

GRIMM WELT

Grimm Welt is ‌on a small hill. The exhibition makes you feel lost in a forest of dictionaries or words. The design made me realize how being too immersed in the world of meaning could make you feel dizzy in a whirlpool of words. That’s why it’s important to leave some space behind the definition of words. Once you think you know the truth, you’ll see another side from another angle. The definition crumbles down, and you’re back to being in the whirlpool of questions. You observe once again and regard the meaning you perceived from a distance as the truth. That was how the exhibition was built. I want you, the reader, to experience what awaits you beyond the letter z. 

The things I saw and felt at Grimm Welt, the permanent exhibition encouraging its visitors to go back and forth between objectivity and subjectivity and macro and micro thinking, and Documenta 15 over two days expanded my mind. My visit came to a close after I finished going around the museum.

One tangible reaction of the world can be seen in the controversy surrounding freedom of expression, the censorship of antisemitic artwork, and the resignation of the director general of Documenta 15. For a second, I felt like the fact that it’s being discussed worldwide is a testament to Documenta documenting the times. Humankind’s extraordinary history and contemporary artists’ art can’t be truly understood unless you visit and experience the exhibition yourself. I’m left bewildered by how I still can’t verbalize what I experienced there.

Documenta 15 uses all its energy to show works from various countries that are outside of the influence of European art society. I enjoyed engaging in thought-provoking conversations with like-minded people through the artworks while maintaining a playful spirit. 

I might sound like an elementary school student, but I felt that people trying to speak their minds was an imperative factor. The words, “Make friends, not art” cross my mind again. Perhaps this is Ruangrupa’s aim. 

In contrast to the pertinent authorities and controversy, the atmosphere at Documenta 15 was buoyant thanks to the visitors observing the art. If any of the artworks in which the artists share the wisdom of lumbung piqued your interest, I encourage you to visit the exhibition. I hope we all can engage in the once-in-every-five-years exhibition without being too serious about it. 

■Documenta 15
Exhibition Period: Until September 25th
Official Website：https://documenta-fifteen.de/
Offisial Instagram：@documentafifteen

Translation Lena Grace Suda

The post Documenta 15 in Kassel, Germany: My Experience and the City’s Response appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Artist SHUN SUDO divides his time between Tokyo and New York.
He is a self-taught artist whose “pop-styled motifs depicted over classic ink brush paintings” has gained popularity. He has done a lot of collaborations with enterprises as well as people from the art industry. SUDO’s fifth solo exhibition in Japan, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” was held at elephant studio in Tokyo. In addition to nine new original paintings, SUDO exhibited and sold three lithograph works and six lithograph + painting works for the first time.

On the occasion of this exhibition, SUDO released a statement saying that, “my heart has slowly been eroded by the news that comes in from the world every day. I painted a picture to fill the wounded part of my heart. In my paintings, I bury weapons, turn bullets into flowers, think about life while painting, and pray for peace. That is all I can do. But if people who see my paintings think that they want to protect a world where everyone can smile, talk, and laugh with each other, that is enough for me”.

We interviewed SUDO at the venue of his solo exhibition to learn more about how he has reflected his thoughts on peace in his works, which at first glance appear to be pop art.

——Did you take the title of this exhibition, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” from a Bob Dylan song?

SHUN SUDO (SUDO): Yes, I did. I created the works shown in this exhibition with “anti-war” as the underlying theme, considering what kind of pictures I, as an artist, could create in the current situation where Russia is invading Ukraine.

I named the title of the exhibition “Blowin’ in the Wind” at the end after I had finished all the paintings. I thought that the philosophy contained in the line “The answer is blowin’ in the wind” in the song linked to my idea about painting in that it does not offer a clear answer. So I took it from the song.

——The works depict motifs associated with war such as grenades, bazookas, and helmets, but at first glance, viewers may not notice them unless they are told, because they are drawn with a pop touch.

SUDO: I don’t like to emphasize the theme within my piece; I like it to be “understandable if you look carefully enough.” For me, the best thing would be if people first enjoy looking at the pop pictures and get energized or inspired. I would be even happier if they understand the underlying themes in the paintings. Some people may think art is difficult to understand, but I hope that people will enjoy my works as they see them.

——I see flowers are strikingly depicted in your works.

SUDO: This is a “button flower,” a combination of a flower and a button, which I draw as an icon of peace in my work. It combines the healing image that flowers have with a button, a metaphor of something that connects the world.

When you look at a jacket as a map of the world, buttons exist as a way of attaching fabric to fabric, so this “button flower” represents my wish that Japan will be able to connect the world.

——Their bright colors like red and orange are very impressive.

SUDO: Since the underlying theme of this project is anti-war, I tried to avoid using cold colors that might give a cold impression, and instead used warm colors that can convey energy. Red is my favorite color, especially because it is the color of the Japanese rising sun flag and passion. So when I see it, I feel energized.

——When you create a work like this, do you put your thoughts on current events or situation in the world into it?

SUDO: Not every time, but depending on the timing. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic occurred in 2020, I wanted to record what I felt at that time as an artist in my work, so I held a solo exhibition called “2020” at the end of 2020. This time, triggered by the war as a significant event, as an artist, I thought it was important to record in my work what was happening, so I decided to hold a solo exhibition under this theme.

“I felt confident about the results of my first lithographs.”

—— What prompted you to try lithography (The printing of an image from a smooth surface of a stone) for the first time?

SUDO: It all started when Masashi Ozaki, a printmaker who has been my friend for a long time, suggested that I try lithography this time. Since artists of the past, such as Picasso, also did lithographs, I wondered what would happen if I tried that old technique myself, so I took up the challenge this time.

——Did you feel confident when you actually tried it?

SUDO: It was interesting. I felt the power of the stones, or rather, I felt as if the stones were making me to draw.

——Did using a new technique expand your possibilities as an artist?

SUDO: Yes, it did. I use a technique called “paint-over,” which is based on the concept of “a contemporary artist doing pop graffiti over a classic painting”. I feel that printing the base of the painting with lithography, which has a longer history, makes the concept even more compelling.

——Do you plan to continue making lithographic works in the future?

SUDO: After doing this exhibition, I was satisfied with the quality of the black-and-white works, so I would like to have an exhibition only composed of black-and-white works, including paintings.

——Do you have any plans to make NFT works?

SUDO: I have received quite a few suggestions about it, and I am interested in it. But I am still not proactive in doing it myself. I would like to try it when the time is right. For the time being, I am making my art pieces just by myself, so I would like people to see artworks that exist in physical reality. 

——In a previous interview, you mentioned that you are planning to establish your base in New York as well. Are you already working on it?

SUDO: I was thinking of doing it after the pandemic, but I am not sure how the situation will develop yet, so I would like to go there once this year, and next year I would like to develop a real plan for establishing a base there as well. New York is a difficult place to live, in a good sense, and I feel a sense of being alive and constantly stimulated. I would like to create works in such an environment.

——Is there anything you would like to try in the future?

SUDO: I would like to try my hand at sculpture and three-dimensional works.

SHUN SUDO
Born in Tokyo in 1977, SHUN SUDO learned art through the sensibility he gained while traveling the world. His works are characterized by a delicate touch reminiscent of ink painting, street-styled pop colors comparable with those of graffiti, and fantastical images of creatures and flowers inspired by movies, music, sports, nature and animations. His works of art, which are not confined to a single genre, have been attracting international attention in recent years. In 2015, he held his first solo exhibition “PAINT OVER” in New York. He has collaborated with many global enterprises, and his creative practices continue to inspire the domestic and international art scenes.
https://www.shunsudo.com
Instagram：@shun_sudo

■SHUN SUDO solo exhibition “Blowin’ in the Wind” produced by WATOWA GALLERY
Dates: July 9-24, 2022
Venue: elephant studio 1-2F
Address: 2-7-4 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Hours: 12:00~19:00
Holiday: Wednesday
Admission: Free
http://www.watowa.jp/news/

Photography Yohei Kichiraku
Translation Shinichiro Sato

The post Artist SHUN SUDO Puts His Thoughts for Peace into His Exhibition “Blowin’ in the Wind” appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Still unable to let go of my Japanese patience, I continued to live a life of self-restraint until this spring, but this summer I couldn’t stand still and began to fly out of Amsterdam.

Dutch photographer once recognised by Mapplethorpe but now forgotten

The first stop was to visit Den Haag, the administrative center of the Netherlands, for a photo exhibition by Dutch photographer Paul Blanca (1958-2021), currently on show at the Fotomuseum Den Haag. The exhibition is a substantial memorial to his death last year and consists of his most intense early work.

Blanca’s life has been a bizarre and spectacular one: in the 1980s, he made a name for himself as an art world hope with the audacity and subtlety that made Robert Mapplethorpe say ‘Paul Blanca is my only competitor’, but he gradually became addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Then, in 1995, a decisive event occurred. At the time, he was accused of being responsible for a bomb attack in Amsterdam. Despite the fact that there was no evidence and Blanca had an alibi, this incident led to his expulsion from the art world. His efforts were unsuccessful and he died at the age of 62.

Photograph extreme action

On display in the exhibition’s second room are a series of Blanca’s self-portraits from the 1980s, which can be regarded as his masterpieces. He performed uncompromisingly extreme actions in front of the camera, such as holding a live rat or several eels in his mouth, or piercing his cheek with an arrow.

Photography is the best way to document the momentary display of restraint and concentration that comes from pushing the body to the brink. One of his most famous portraits is a shot of his own back, carved with a razor blade in the shape of ‘Mickey Mouse crying with his thumb up’.

Blanca’s violent and painful self-portraits are reminiscent of the body art of performance artists Marina Abramovic and Chris Burden, who in the early years of their careers attempted to push the limits of the body by making themselves into objects. At the same time, the fact that the painful scene succeeds in being aesthetically pleasing indicates that it is an expression in the context of Dutch portrait, which has continued since the time of Rembrandt and Vermeer. In Part 5 of my essays, I mentioned the Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf’s hybrid perspective of tradition and modernity, and the same can be said of Blanca.

Olaf and Blanca are from the same generation, but that is not the only thing they shared. Both had the Dutch master Hans van Manen as a mentor, and both had long careers as photographers who made portraits of their times. However, in contrast to the former’s rise to become one of the Netherlands’ leading photographers, the latter is now fading into obscurity after his death, which has been regarded as a taboo subject.

The strange life of Blanca

Here, let’s have a quick look back at his life. Blanca was born as Paul Vlaswinkel in 1958. Whenever he made a mistake, his stepfather would correct it with violence. To overcome this environment, he began kickboxing, which gave him a strong body, and he was discovered by the world-renowned choreographer and photographer Hans van Manen. As well as performing in ballets directed by Manen, Blanca also learnt photographic techniques and how to work with models from Manen, which led him to get into serious staged photography.

In 1979, Blanca had a chance encounter with Robert Mapplethorpe, who came to the Netherlands for a solo exhibition at a gallery in Amsterdam. Blanca then followed Mapplethorpe to the USA. In the 1980s, Blanca made a name for himself with a self-portrait series, but didn’t bring him the perfect breakthrough. Gradually, he began to turn to heroin and cocaine.

At the end of 1994, an attempted murder took place in Amsterdam. The car in which Dutch contemporary artist Rob Scholte and his then-wife were riding exploded. Scholte lost both his legs and his wife lost her foetus. Someone had planted a bomb under their car. Immediately after the incident, the Netherlands was in an uproar as a mysterious case with no known perpetrator or motive, but the following year Scholte announced three artists close to him as potential perpetrators. One of them was Blanca.

What the unsolved case has brought him

In the end, the police did not conclude that the three were the perpetrators and finally closed the case file without catching the real culprits. In an interview in 2010, Blanca said that Scholte at the time had links with criminal organisations and that he may have been victimised as a fallout from the trouble he had caused with them. In order to hide the truth, Scholte made Blanca the scapegoat because Blanca spent the most miserable life around Scholte. Despite this, Blanca’s galleries he belonged to expelled him and museums and collectors stopped buying his work. This was because, at the time, Blanca was in a situation where he could be suspected.

Although Blanca had consistently denied involvement since the time of the incident, he was in police trouble just four weeks after the attempted assassination of the Scholte couple. He was arrested for practising how easy it was to obtain illegal gas guns and hand grenades for a weekly magazine to which he was contributing at the time. Needless to say, people easily connected the hand grenade he was carrying with the bomb that attacked Scholte. Everyone in the city was convinced that Blanca was the culprit. Branded unilaterally as a ‘dangerous man with a weapon’, he was forced to live under siege. Blanca became increasingly dependent on drugs and fell into a negative spiral.

A quarter of a century after the incident, the prevailing theory is that they were not targeted in the first place, but a neighbourhood lawyer who owned a car very similar to the one the pair were driving on the day of the incident. However, the truth remains in the dark. It is unfortunate that, since this incident made Blanca’s life as an artist a misery, he is often mentioned only in connection with this bizarre incident, rather than his work.

Only in darkness does light shine

Despite his talent for producing sometimes brilliant masterpieces, Paul Branca has been shrouded in taboo for more than a quarter of a century.

The means of finding out about him are surprisingly limited, given that he has been treated as an invisible entity for more than a quarter of a century. The only published collection of his work to date is the catalogue of an exhibition held in Germany in 1993. The only other means by which we can learn about his activities and career is by following the Dutch-language articles that have been reported in the local media.

Nevertheless, I was drawn to Blanca, perhaps because of the deep darkness I saw in his life, overlaid with a Japanese photographer. Masahisa Fukase had an accident in the early 1990s when he was at the height of his powers as an artist, and spent the next two decades battling illness. His works lay dormant for a long time like a sleeping dragon and were rarely shown to the public until his death.

Only in darkness does light shines. The deeper the darkness, the brighter the photographer and his photographs. The two men died without saying much, but their works have not lost their appeal and will probably continue their wordless dialogue with the public.Now is the time to remove the ‘mask’ that has covered Blanca’s photographs for a quarter of a century and listen to his stories.

This autumn, a documentary recording Blanca in his later years, “Paul Blanca, This Film Will Save Your Life” directed by Ramón Gieling will be released. Although Blanca sadly did not get to see it completed, one can only hope that, as the title suggests, it will be the catalyst for a reappraisal and further study of his work.

■Paul Blanca, HOMMAGE AAN PAUL BLANCA
Exhibition Period: April 30th to August 14th, 2022
Location: Fotomuseum Den Haag (the Netherlands)

The post Retrospective exhibition report ― The Strange Life of the Unknown Photographer Paul Blanca appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Along with his musical practices, Eno has been incorporating “generative music” techniques into his visual creations. He has continued to expand the realm of art by advocating the notion of “generative art,” a spatial art form in which sound and light are synchronized and continuously change without interruption. He has shown his installations and held exhibitions in a variety of locations around the world, including at the Venice Biennale. This exhibition is Eno’s first large-scale exhibition in the world to be held after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

The entire building of 92-year-old former welfare center of the Kyoto Chuo Shinkin Bank is used for the exhibition, with works displayed on the first through third floors. In addition to three of Eno’s representative works, 77 Million Paintings, The Ship, and Light Boxes, the exhibition includes his new work, Face to Face, which is shown for the first time in the world, and The Lighthouse which can be experienced through the sounds from Sonos speakers placed throughout the venue including hallways, stairways, and restrooms.

On the first floor is the ENOSHOP where visitors can purchase Eno’s artworks and merchandises, and in the corridors and staircases are bonsai trees and stones cultivated and selected by Hitomi Kawasaki, a Kyoto-based bonsai researcher.

“By allowing ourselves to let go of the world of which we have to be a part every day, and to surrender to another kind of world, we’re freeing We’re freeing ourselves to allow our imaginations to be inspired.”

This message is what the concept of the exhibition is all about. The following is a brief introduction to each of the exhibits.

1.77 Million Paintings

77 Million Paintings, the largest of the exhibits, is an installation that synchronizes continually generated and changing lights and sounds. The number “77 Million” in the title refers to the number of visual combinations this system can produce Since its world premiere at Laforet Museum Harajuku in 2006, the work has been repeatedly updated and exhibited 47 times around the world before being shown in Japan for the first time in 16 years.

The room is set up with several wooden pillars and a conical pile of sand, and four different images projected on the central screen slowly and continuously change with the passage of time, in response to the trembling, echoing music. Viewers can experience the vast number of automatically generated visuals and sounds with their entire bodies as they lean back on sofas.

2.The Ship

The Ship is the culmination of Eno’s music and installation efforts. The music that played in the space is “The Ship,” released in 2016, and “The Sinking Of The Titanic” by Gavin Bryars, produced by Eno in 1975 and released on his own label, Obscure Records.

The Ship does not deal squarely with the sinking of the Titanic. Rather, it connects the sinking of the Titanic with World War I and takes human arrogance and paranoia as its conceptual starting point.

A dimly lit audio set is placed in a dark space which is dotted with various speakers surrounded by sofas. Various sounds intermingle, including the sounds of the ocean, human voices, and church bells, and viewers can either listen to the sounds or walk around and feel the changes in the texture of the sounds. Walking toward the objects placed at the back of the room, there are moments of silence, allowing viewers to enjoy a variety of acoustic experiences depending on how they move and where they are positioned. The curated playlist, which climaxes with the Velvet Underground cover “I’m Set Free,” is also exceptional.

3. Face to Face

On the same third floor as The Ship, visitors can view Face to Face shown for the first time in the world. The starting point for this work was a single photographic image that is made up of 21 portraits of real-life figures. With special software, it changes and syntheses the portraits constantly. As the face of one person slowly changes pixel by pixel into the face of another, a chain of nonexistent people with a robotic texture appear. The work is capable of creating 30 new faces per a second, resulting in more than 36,000 new faces in total. Interestingly, it includes Eno’s own youthful and recent faces.

4. Light Boxes

Light Boxes is a fantastical work in which three light-emitting boxes change color at an exquisite speed. Three translucent boxes emit light using LED technology, and the light emitted from them continues to change slowly in parts over time.

The changing colors, synchronized with music, shine brightly yet gently. The changing combination of lights allows viewers to see the work in different ways, even if they are viewing it from the same place, and to discover its individual meanings.

5. The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse, an audio work that is shown for the first time in Japan, seamlessly connects the entrance of the venue, the exhibition spaces of Light Boxes and Face to Face, and even the restrooms.

The Lighthouse is about an archive channel that can only be heard on Sonos Radio HD, a streaming radio service that Eno has started in 2021. The music from that radio service functions as a musical work that is played in the hallways and restrooms of the venue through Sonos speakers.

The philosophy of Brian Eno glimpsed through his spatial art

This exhibition, which brings together his masterpieces and new works on view for the first time in Japan, is a highly receptive space that did not limit the viewer’s involvement with Eno’s works. The exhibition spaces, where sound and light are constantly changing and synchronized, were filled with the sound experiences that can only be felt at that moment, and of ingenuities that resonate with the thoughts and feelings of each viewer. If you read Eno’s message at the entrance after viewing the exhibition, you may feel that you have understood a part of it. In the lounge, there is a notebook where you can write your message to Eno, so why don’t you write your thoughts about this special viewing experience?

■BRIAN ENO AMBIENT KYOTO
Dates: Open until August 21
Venue: Former Welfare Center, Kyoto Chuo Shinkin Bank
Address: 113 Karasuma Nishiiru, Shichijo-dori, Nakai-cho, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto City
Hours: 11:00 – 21:00 (Admission until 30 minutes before closing)
Admission: Weekdays: ¥2,000 for adults, ¥1,500 for college and university students, ¥1,000 for junior high and high school students
Weekends and holidays: ¥2,200 for adults, ¥1,700 for college/university students, ¥1,200 for junior high and high school students
Ticket purchase site: https://www.e-tix.jp/ambientkyoto/
*Pre-ordered tickets are recommended, as same-day tickets may be sold out on the day of your visit.
*Up-to-date information on congestion will be posted on the official SNS.
Official website：https://ambientkyoto.com
Twitter：@ambientkyoto
Instagram：@ambientkyoto
Facebook：@ambientkyoto

Photography Mayumi Hosokura

The post Report on BRIAN ENO AMBIENT KYOTO, an Exhibition of Sound and Light by Brian Eno appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Known as the world’s largest Japanese film festival, this year’s festival highlights include sections dedicated to genre and animation films. The festival also has a thematic focus on “Stories of the Youth,” which introduces films on the lives of young people in Japan confronting different types of challenges from bullying, death in the family, and gender identity. The 6th Nippon Honor Award will be awarded to the actor Masatoshi Nagase. This award is given to people who made special contributions to Japanese cinema. There will be German premieres of several films that Nagase stars in and the award ceremony will take place on May 29 at one of the venues. He will attend Q&As after the screenings as well as a special talk session to look back his career as an actor.

Nippon Connection started as a small festival by people, who were passionate about Asian cinema. Over the years it has built a solid reputation and expanded its scope while remaining committed to keeping its core values in practice by organizing the festival mainly by volunteers, who love Japanese cinema. This year, the festival’s trademark color pink will liven up the various venues in the city again. We asked Florian Höhr, one of the curators of the festival, about this year’s festival and the appeal of Japanese films in Germany. 

The unique diverse characters in Japanese cinema set it apart from foreign productions

–What type of people attend this festival? Do many of the same people continue to attend the festival each year?

Höhr: The audience demographic changed over time because the festival started as almost like a student festival as it used to take place on a university campus in Frankfurt. In those days, many film enthusiasts came to the festival along with students from the university. In 2013, the festival moved to its current location. Then, the audience changed as the current venue is a multi-purpose cultural space, which offers theater and concerts. We ended up attracting the audience who come to the space for other events and they tend to be slightly older. The students, who used to come to the festival are getting older and started having kids. That’s why we have a kid’s section, which shows children’s films and organizes workshops for them. We see more families coming to the festival. I also see people who hit all the local film festivals. Along with the cinephiles, we have the Japanese community as our audience. As you might know, Frankfurt has quite a big Japanese community.

—What are the appeal and the uniqueness of Japanese film to the audience?

Höhr: I get this question a lot and it’s not always easy to answer that. I think the first reason why Japanese cinema is appealing to our audience or the western audience could be that the films are different from what we usually see. The way stories are told is quite different. The films are much less predictable, especially when it comes to non-mainstream films. They don’t have a typical Hollywood narrative, and the characters are more multi-dimensional than in many popular productions from the U.S. The audience learns a lot about Japanese culture when they watch the films. The things they see on the screen including the locations and the topics are different from what they usually see in western cinema. I have the hope that the success of Drive my car, might spark some new interest in Japanese cinema from people who were not so keen on it in the past. Drive My Car was quite successful in Germany, which may lead to people wanting to check out other Japanese films.

—What did you think about Drive my car?

Höhr: I enjoyed it a lot. I was hesitant because of the running time, which is about three hours, and I was a little bit skeptical. When I saw the film at a local theater here, I liked it. I didn’t find it too long and I found the characters interesting. I liked Toko Miura’s acting in the film. I thought she had an interesting character. It was just a joy to see what was going on in the film.

—Are there certain unique genres that are more popular than others with a mainstream audience in the festival? 

Höhr: Some films are more popular. I think some of our audience started to like Japanese cinema in the late 90s or early 2000s when there were many crime and genre films by filmmakers such as Takeshi Kitano or Takashi Miike. Those films were violent but quite fun to watch. They still attract a sizeable audience, but I have the feeling that they are not so many films with good quality that are following this direction lately. Another kind of film that is popular with our audience is tear-jerkers. Especially older audience members like to see them. I remember Her Love Boils Bathwater. I don’t know if you know this film. It was popular with our audience a couple of years ago. Anime is popular. I think some people have the cliché in their head that Japanese cinema is always crazy and filled with strange ideas. I remember Fly Me To The Saitama was popular with our audience. The tickets sold out a week or two weeks in advance. I think that was because the manga, on which the film is based, has a lot of fans in Germany. The film had such a crazy concept and people probably already heard about it from the screenings in Japan. I’d say one of the films that had a clever idea was Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes, which became quite a hit at festivals. We also screened it and it was popular.

—In 2018, you created a section dedicated to documentaries, and, the following year, you started to give out the Nippon Docs Award voted by the audience. Last year, many films incorporated the topic of human rights and immigration. The queer film his by Rikiya Imaizumi received the Nippon Cinema Award, and Along The Sea by Akio Fujimoto received the Nippon Visions Jury Award. The Nippon Docs Award went to Ushiku by Thomas Ash. 

Höhr: In the beginning, documentaries were part of the Nippon Visions section. Nippon Visions is the section for non-mainstream cinema and films by young filmmakers, and experimental films, which also included short documentaries. After a while, we realized that there were so many good documentaries in Japan that they deserved their section. It was unfair to the fiction films in the Nippon Visions section as many documentaries get better audience ratings and the fiction films didn’t have a chance in the competition. I think one of the reasons Japanese documentaries are so strong is because there are many interesting topics in Japan that you could make a film about, especially human rights issues, and political topics. You don’t need too much to make a documentary. You just need a camera and can do it all by yourself. As we see in a film like Ushiku and before, you don’t need a big budget. You just need talent and a good idea. That’s why we thought it is better to have a stand-alone section for documentaries. We always try to find as many good documentaries as possible. We show around eight or nine documentaries each year and try to make them diverse, including not only serious topics but popular phenomena. I remember a documentary about Shinjuku Tiger. Do you know about a guy who walks around in Shinjuku always wearing a Tiger Mask and goes to the cinema? We showed a documentary about him. As for this year, we are going to show more documentaries about immigration.

Meeting and connecting with people on a one-to-one level is what we value most at the film festival

–Do you see any changes in terms of the number of woman directors submitted to the festival?

Höhr: I would say there are more films by female directors. We had a program focus two years ago called ” Female Futures? –New Visions Of Women In Japan” as we wanted to shed the spotlight on female directors in Japan. I still think that there could be more female filmmakers compared to other countries. I have the impression that especially in studio films, it’s still not easy for female filmmakers. Most films by female directors are more on the independent side. I think that is slowly changing now. One female director that I follow is Akiko Ohku. We showed several of her films recently at the festival. And for me, she is a good example of a female filmmaker making mainstream films.

–I believe for some Japanese filmmakers, especially the young artists participating in the Nippon connection, it could be their first visit to Europe. It probably means a lot to them. Do you have any memorable moments with any of the Japanese filmmakers?  

Höhr: First of all, some of the filmmakers never traveled outside of Japan and their first trip abroad was coming to Nippon Connection. When I hear that, it makes me happy as we feel that we became known as the festival among Japanese filmmakers to have their films shown and see how the audience reacts to their films. I heard many times from the directors that the reaction in the theater is so different compared to Japan and people are laughing at scenes where the Japanese audience wouldn’t laugh or the other way around. I have a fond memory of 2019. This is our last festival before the pandemic. We showed a film called Sea by a young filmmaker named Kensei Takahashi. I don’t know how old he is, but I think he’s quite young and just finished film school. He came with two producers of the film. I could tell that they were having such a great time interacting with other visitors and guests of the festival. In the end, they won the Jury Award. It was their first film and they won the award. They got emotional and the director started crying on stage and that was one of my favorite memories from Nippon Connection to see this overwhelming reaction from him. 

–Out of countless film festivals organized all over the world, Nippon Connection became known as one of the biggest Japanese film festivals in the world. I heard that the festival is managed by a nonprofit organization with about 70 people, mostly made up of volunteers. It is a great achievement that is it has been able to develop and grow for more than 20 years since then. What is the secret to success? 

Höhr: I think what’s great about the festival is that if you want to do something, and have a good idea, and you join the team, you have a good chance to make your good idea true. If you have a great suggestion on how the program could change or if you have an idea for an event and you want to test it, you have the chance to do it. That’s because the structure of the festival team was open. Even a new person can do many things right from the start. The team changes a lot every year and there are always people coming and going. It means that we always have fresh new ideas and approaches to the work at the festival. As for the team members, it’s great because you can learn many things by working at the festival. For example, most of our technical staff are not experts in event management. If you are assigned to do the technical stuff on the festival day, you start learning about it immediately. If you are in the culture team, you learn how to organize an event, plan everything out, find artists and arrange the whole event. It was like that for me when I joined the team. I didn’t have much experience in managing cultural events, but year by year I learned new things and since the team trusted me to try something new, they gave me the opportunity.

–Like any other film festival, Nippon Connection has faced a new challenge during the pandemic. We are living in a different time now. What is your hope for the future? 

Höhr: The success of Drive My Car is one thing that gave me hope because I saw that many people still like to go to the cinema. In the last two years, streaming was getting increasingly popular and important for the film industry. But I still believe that it’s important for people to see a film in the cinema on the big screen and it’s something that can’t be replaced by online streaming. With streaming, you can’t meet people at the festival. I don’t mean just meeting the filmmakers but also meeting some random strangers and getting into a conversation about the film that you saw. What I like most about the festival are the connections you build. Nippon Connection is quite fitting as a name for the festival because so many friendships start developing out of the festival by people who would have never met if they didn’t go to the festival. As for the filmmakers, it’s important to go to the festival and see how the audience reacts to their film. Because if we show a film online, all they see is the number of clicks on the film. They don’t get a reaction from the audience. We are not only a film festival but also a cultural event with food and workshops and lectures, performances and so on. People come for other reasons than only for the films. That’s something you can’t replace with online events.

We are going to offer a few films as video-on-demand after the festival for those who cannot travel to Frankfurt. People, who never had the time to go to the festival, watched many of our films online during the pandemic. The good thing about the pandemic was that we gained a new audience. 

Nippon Connection
The Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection is organized by the 70-member, largely voluntary, team of the non-profit association Nippon Connection e.V. It is under the patronage of Angela Dorn (Hessian Minister for Science and Art), Peter Feldmann (Lord Mayor of Frankfurt am Main) and the Consulate General of Japan in Frankfurt am Main. Since its founding in 2000, Nippon Connection has become the world’s largest platform for Japanese cinema and the most popular film festival in Hesse.

Translation Fumiko M

The post Enjoyed Drive My Car? Then Nippon Connection Is Your Answer, the Japanese Film Festival Featuring the Most Exciting and Latest Lineup From Japan appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

In the last decade, local art festivals have become very popular in Japan. Often held in open spaces, the real appeal of such festival lies in the gathering and interaction of people. For this reason, in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, some were cancelled or postponed; in 2021, some were finally held after infection control measures were put in place.

In this piece of writing, the author, who covers art festivals quite frequently, presents a chronological list of the 11 art festivals that left a particularly strong impression in FY2021, from August 2021 to March 2022, with overviews of events and notes on a few works. Overall, in addition to their regional characteristics, many of the works bear social relevance to the world facing the COVID-19 pandemic and the issues arising from it. In addition, the audiences seemed more sensitive to the artworks, which reminded us of the importance of such art experiences in times of crisis. In the final part of this article, I will pick up major art festivals in 2022.

Reborn-Art Festival 2021-22 (first term)

A comprehensive arts festival of “art,” “music,” and “food” that began in 2017 in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, one of the areas most severely affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, and is now in its third edition. This time, 10 years after the earthquake, the festival is divided into first and second term in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the first semester running from August 11 to September 26, 2021. In addition to the downtown Ishinomaki area and the Oshika Peninsula, artworks were exhibited for the first time in the vicinity of Onagawa Station in the neighboring town.

The theme set by Takeshi Kobayashi, chairman of the executive committee, was “altruism and fluidity.” With Kenji Kubota as a curator, the festival aimed to create a space in which people could share their imagination for others and the world to come. Twenty-three artists, including MES, HouxoQue, Makoto Aida, Yoko Ono, Tsubasa Kato, Lieko Shiga + Yusuke Kurihara + Takahiro Sato + Sotaro Kikuchi, developed works reflecting regional characteristics and the movement of the age. Since I was rocked by the first edition of the festival in 2017, I myself have been involved in this festival, but even without my preconception, this was the best art festival of 2021.

MES refers to the process of “reconstruction” that Ishinomaki has gone through and of the development of Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, which were billed as the “Olympic Games of Recovery.” In the public bathhouses that have been a source of comfort for people since the earthquake, scaffolding was put up over the partition walls, and various kind of sighs echoed.

HouxoQue’s work was installed at the former Senninburo, a popular community space constructed after the earthquake. The water, which is said to be non-polluting, flowed down from the glowing monitor, reflected the viewer’s image, slipped through the debris of the forgotten abandoned building, and circulated like hydrogic cycle of the earth.

Rieko Shiga, who has been interacting with hunter Nozomu Onodera since 2019, developed an installation that could be considered land art with Yusuke Kurihara, Takahiro Sato, and Sotaro Kikuchi. They dug trenches to aerate the marshy land and used the excavated soil for fields. The work also reminded me of the presence of the Onagawa nuclear power plant.

NorthernAlps Art Festival 2020-2021

The second edition of Northern Alps Art Festival was held in in Omachi City, Nagano Prefecture, respectively setting the period for visual art from October 2 to November 21, 2021. The first edition of the festival was held in 2017, and the second, scheduled for 2020, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the concept of “Water, Tree, Earth, Sky: The land as atmosphere, transparency, and mass” presented by General director Fram Kitagawa, 36 artists participated in it.

In this work by Nagano-based artist Atsuko Mochida, two former teacher’s residences are cut off and overlapped each other. This land is located on the western edge of the Fossa Magna, which divides the Japanese archipelago into east and west. Artist moved and transformed these supposedly immovable houses built on the land that had been formed through repeated crustal movements.

Saudi Arabian artist Manal AlDowayan represents the path of light for deity on the stage of Sunuma Shinmeisha Shrine, where Amaterasu is enshrined. The overwhelming amount of shimenawa (sacred ropes) installed on the stage, which were made to look like trees surrounding the shrine, is reminiscent of the shimenawa spoken of in the myth of Ama-no-Iwato, and evokes resistance against darkness.

Okunoto International Art Festival 2020+

Following the first edition in 2017, the second edition, originally scheduled for the fall of 2020, was postponed to the fall of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 53 artists expressed the history and characteristics of the region and unearthed the potential of the land of “saihate”. The executive director was Fram Kitagawa, and of the 53 artists, 47 presented new works.

Kayoko Nakashima’s “Akarui Ie” (Bright House), which was created through countless holes in a vacant house that used to be an office for a diatomaceous earth factory, lets in sunlight during the day and leaks light from the lamps at night. In a place on the edge of the sea that has gone through growths and decays, the work makes us think about hope, abundance, and human desire, which are symbolized by light.

The Suzu Theater Museum, housed in a renovated gymnasium of a former elementary school, is a theater-style folk museum that collects and exhibits housewares from local homes, and presents a performance with music and video every once in a while. Artists such as Yoshiki Nanjo, Saori Miyake, and Ayako Kuno have breathed new life into housewares in their respective works.

Rokko Meets Art 2021

Rokko overlooks the port of Kobe, which was opened to foreign trade after the Meiji Restoration, and has abundant nature. It was developed as a recreational mountain by foreign residents and was a place where new and old cultures met. As usual, Rokko was the stage for the 12th edition of this annual autumn event, which was held from September 11 to November 23, 2021, with a total of 34 works installed at 12 venues in the Rokko area and a satellite venue in the Arima Onsen area. The director/curator was Kiyotaka Takamizawa (Senior Director, Rokkosan Tourism).

At the Church of the Wind, designed by Tadao Ando, Tabaimo’s animation depicting the church as a physical body was projected on the ceiling. On the concrete ceiling, images like brains, plants, and clouds appear. This animation, exactly like the ceiling paintings in the church, produced the effect of spatial expansion.

In the former Parnassus Resting Hut, which was built 80 years ago as a golf course clubhouse, consisting of Yusuke Asai, Natsuki Takayama, Erina Matsui, and Goro Murayama, exhibited paintings and drawings worked on by them under the theme of the former Maya Kanko Hotel on Maya Mountain, also known as the “queen of abandoned buildings”. Through the paintings smeared with water dropped from leaking roof and drawings on found photographs I revolved the growth and decays of the tourist resort.

ALTERNATIVE KYOTO: imagination as a Form of “Capital”

The festival was held from September 24 to November 7, 2021 in Kyotango, Miyazu/Amanohashidate, Yosano, Fukuchiyama, Nantan, and Yawata, Kyoto Prefecture. The director is Shinya Yamaki, Culture and Arts Division, Culture and Sports Department, Kyoto Prefectural Government. The theme of the event was “The Possibility of Imaginative Art as New Form of Capital to Change the Coming Society.”

The 25 participating artists included SIDE CORE, Kenta Ishige, BIEN, Kenji Yanobe, Ryoji Ikeda, ANOTHER FARM, suplex Yamanaka, Yu Araki, Ryuichi Ishikawa, and Michihiro Shimabuku. Individual artists treated the history, climate, cultural assets, scenic spots, and nature of each area as their subject matter. Some combined local culture with cutting-edge technology to create a piece of digital art that can alter the meaning of a certain space, and others exhibited works based on their practice during artists-in-residence program.

SIDE CORE, which has been in residence program since 2018 in Kyotango, exhibited “cyclops at cape 2021” at a former textile factory. This work is the final piece in a series focusing on the lighthouse, which is now dwindling in numbers throughout Japan. Photographs of andesite rocks seen along the coastline of the Tango Peninsula were pasted on benchs placed at the venue, with drifted objects placed on it.

In Fukuchiyama, Yamanaka suplex held the exhibition “Light of My World” using the New Testament phrase “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world” as a starting point.

Curated by Takuya Tsutsumi and others, young artists such as Asako Fujikura and Takuro Goto displayed  mainly paintings and other kinds of works that face audiences squarely at a former pachinko parlor.

The theme of Yawata area, which is located adjacent to the south of Kyoto City and has some auto scrappers and waste recyclers, is based on the words “hosho” (releasing captured fish, birds, and other living creatures for the purpose of accumulating virtues) and “oukan” (to come and go). Michihiro Shimabuku created a stone garden made of rubble at Ishinomizu Hachiman Shrine.

An art fair, “Art Collaboration Kyoto,” was held at the Kyoto International Conference Center from November 5 to 7, the end of the period of this festival. Twenty-two Japanese galleries hosted the fair, and galleries based overseas were invited as guests to share booths and exhibit their works. For example, Tokyo-based gallery ANOMALY and Los Angeles-based Blum & Poe co-exhibited works by Chim↑Pom, Ishu Han, and others that raise social issues, while TARO NASU from Tokyo and Berlin-based Esther Schipper exhibit conceptual works by Ryan Gander, Simon Fujiwara, and others.

OKUYAMATO MIND TRAIL: Museum in your mind

The event was held from October 9 to November 28, 2021, in Yoshino Town, Tenkawa Village, and Soni Village, Nara Prefecture. The first edition was organized during the pandemic in 2020, this second edition again had a theme for each of the three areas: forest (Yoshino), water (Tenkawa), and earth (Soni). Visitors walked around each area for 3 to 5 hours to view works by a total of 26 artists.

The producer is Seiichi Saito (President of Abstract Engine Co., Ltd.). The Yoshino area was curated by Yoshinari Nishio (artist/associate professor at Nara Prefectural University), the Tenkawa area by Hiroko Kikuchi (artist), and the Soni area by Kiyoshi Nishioka (photographer/artist), with Kazumasa Sashide (chief editor of the magazine “Sotokoto”) serving as cross-area curator for the event.

A man was taken by a giant eagle and left on a precipice because of his prideful behavior. A high priest took pity on him, transformed him into a frog to save him, and then returned him to human form by reciting sutras. He portrayed the legend warning against the arrogant vividly in his lightbox.

Tenkawa is considered the birthplace of Shugendo(way of trial and practice) , and there are still areas where women are forbidden. The video artist Senzo Ueno developed an installation using water as a screen in this place where the clear stream “Amanogawa” flows. When a viewer drops a drop of water into a bowl placed in the center of the room, the surface of the water reflects the landscape beautifully.

Streaming Heritage｜Between the Plateau and the Sea (Fall Term)

The event was held on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from November 12 to 28, 2021, in the Nagoya Castle area (Nagoya Noh Theater and Shikemichi), Nayabashi area, and Atsuta/Miyanowatashi area. The project was an attempt to shed light on the flow of the Horikawa River from Nagoya Castle to the Port of Nagoya, streaming the history and cultural heritage of Nagoya in real time. The directors were Fuminori Akiba, Eriko Esaka, Yosuke Kawamura, Kei Fushiki, and Wataru Yamada. Following the spring term, which was held from March 12 to 28, the fall term was also attended by six participants: Etsuko Ichihara, Chiharu Shinoda, softpad, Akiko Nakayama, the Formant brothers, and Kanta Horio.

Kanta Horio created a viewer-participation installation at the Niwa Family Residence, which was originally an inn from Edo period. As visitors walk along a long, narrow passageway by grabbing a hanging strap, they find a table rotating in a nearby room, and a plastic bottle rising and falling in the courtyard. The outside of the entrance retains the appearance of a fine inn, but the back side of the building looks like a Showa-era apartment building. By setting ingenious contrivances, the artist amplified the strangeness of a building that has been preserved through repeated renovations.

At the Ito Family Residence, Etsuko Ichihara exhibited a work that combines technology with the motif of invisible beings. In this work, she installed a certain program on the household robot “Pepper” to allow it to be possessed by a deceased person and to automatically extinguish it after 49 days. This time, she “possessed” the robot herself, becoming a “modern Kannon” to explore the nature of prayer in an age of pandemic.

Nakanojo Biennale 2021

The festival was held from October 15 to November 14, 2021, with its main venue in a vast satoyama area dotted with hot springs in Nakanojo Town, Gunma Prefecture. First starting in 2007, the theme of its 8th edition was “PARAPERCEPTION- From Beyond Perception”. It intended to provide an opportunity to communicate and reflect on the sensations of everyday life that have been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The general director was Tetsuo Yamashige, and 125 artists participated in the biennale to show the artworks and performances created through residency programs.

Inspired by a dammed lake located deep in the Rokugo area that supplies electricity to the city, Takashi Hokoi installed swaying sculptures like a balancing toy inside and outside the 200-year-old former Yumoto House, respectively. The outside objects were made to move with natural wind and the inside ones with electricity, but by connecting them with threads, the artist made us feel that natural energy and man-made energy are interrelated and that human beings are kept alive in the ambiguous space between the two.

After visiting the former Hirozakari Sake Brewery, which is no longer in business, and the words “absence,” “forgetting,” and “sleep” came to his mind, Soshi Nakamura created a video installation. The image of the Greek myth of Lethe, a symbol of oblivion, was superimposed on the act of drinking sake and fused with the local ninja traditions. In doing so, he traced the taste of sake which exists only in the memories of a very few people.

ICHIHARA ART x MIX 2020+.

The third edition of the this art festival, which began in 2014, was scheduled for spring 2020, but was postponed for about 18 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fram Kitagawa and Ryo Toyofuku served as general director and art director, respectively. Sixty-eight artists participated under the theme of “Peeking into the World from the Satoyama of Boso.”

Tatsu Nishino opened a hotel at Kamiasokubo Station, which is unmanned but still functions as an active station. The waiting room on the platform was made to look like a terrace, and guest rooms were installed in the back of the station building. The public restrooms have been converted into modern Western-style toilets and hot shower rooms. When the situation is changed, the scenery of rice fields in front of the station looks different.

At a mansion in the small village of Tsukisaki, where an influential man once lived, Ayse Erkmen displayed a large number of items from inside the house along the garden pathway. Paintings, stuffed animals, and a plaque with the “Five Articles of Oath”were displayed in the garden, where various stone statues originally stood, to evoke the character of the former owner of the house.

Tamae Hirokawa in BEPPU

The festival “in BEPPU,” an art festival in the form of a solo exhibition, invites one artist each year to Beppu City, Oita Prefecture, one of Japan’s leading hot spring resorts, to develop an art project that makes use of the local characteristics of the area. 6th edition of the festival invited fashion designer Tamae Hirokawa. A series of events were held from December 18, 2021 to February 13, 2022, at various locations in Beppu City, Oita Prefecture, and online. The general producer was Junya Yamade.

Hirokawa set the theme of “Matsuri (festival)” since she saw it as something needed in this era of drastic changes in daily life and unpredictable future. Particularly impressed by gushing steam and hot springs “Jigoku(hell)” in Beppu, she created a new festival mainly in Kannawa Onsen, the area with a lot of Jigokus, by holding three rituals that trace the water veins of the hot springs from the mountains though the town to the sea.

On December 18, the first day of the exhibition, she held “Jigokumatsuri Shinji Honou”. Starting from Honou-Honome Shrine, dancers Ema Yuasa, Daisuke Omiya, the locals of Beppu, and others paraded as “marebito” in costumes designed by Hirokawa. At the final stop, the square in front of Kannawa Mushiyu, they danced in a circle with audiences and performed an earth-stomping dance. The building of the Kannawa Mushi-yu was decorated with lanterns and short split curtain made of Hirokawa’s signature “Skin Series” to ward off evil spirits, creating a different atmosphere from the usual.

A video work was shown at the sentakuba-ato, which was once used as a community laundry. Costumes were also displayed in the park. Although many Japanese traditional festivals across Japan had to be canceled or postponed due to the pandemic, the festival in Beppu, where I could directly feel the energy of the earth, and the energy of the people who gather there, provided an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of festivals.

Sense Island  –Sarushima Dark Museum 2021–

The event was held in Sarushima, an uninhabited island in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, during night on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from January 22 to March 6, 2022 (and February 10). It was started in 2019 under the concept of sensing Sarushima and its nature in the dark through the art works as a lens. The second edition, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held under the theme of “sound,” with 13 groups exhibiting their works. Seiichi Saito served as a producer.

Sarushima is a place where there are caves that show how people lived in the Yayoi period, where fortress was constructed in the late Edo period and in the Meiji period to defend the capital, and where it was used as an air defense battery in the early Showa period, and the ruins of this fortress remain on the island. Today, it is popular as an island for leisure activities, but the tour took visitors to Sarushima at night, when access to the island is usually restricted, with their cell phones sealed off.

In the 100-meter long tunnel, Yuko Mohri presented a sound installation. Sspeakers placed at both ends of the tunnel emit disparate sounds, and as one moves forward, the indistinct sound becomes clear and at some point one hears “I canʼt hear you very well.” The words of the title are taken from a phrase repeated by Buddhist scholar D.T. Suzuki when he was on a TV program and tried to do international phone call, which was unsuccessful. D.T.Suzuki was a person who was at times pacifist and at other times approving of war, and whose attitude towards peace wavered. The artwork made me thought about that wavering on an island created for national defense.

At the site of a former circular turret, Miyu Hosoi has created a theater that brings out the viewer’s inner self. Bending down to enter an ammunition box with sound-absorbing panels, what my hearing was restricted and my field of vision was cut into squares. After a while, I was reminded of the solitary, stay-home life during the COVID-19 pandemic, and when I got out  from it, I was relieved to hear human voices and the sounds of trees.

Major Art Festivals in 2022

The Setouchi Triennale and the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, two of Japan’s major regional art festivals, have never been held in the same year, but due to the pandemic, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale was postponed and both will be held in the same year. Aichi 2022, the predecessor of the relatively urban-type art festival Aichi Triennale, is also expected to be worth seeing in terms of both quality and quantity. Special events may be held at art-related facilities in the areas where the festival is held, so be sure to check the timing of events and plan your visit accordingly.

■Setouchi International Art Festival 2022
Dates: April 14 – May 18, August 5 – September 4, September 29 – November 6
Venues: Kagawa and Okayama Prefectures｜12 islands and 2 ports including Naoshima, Teshima, Megijima, Ogijima, Shodoshima
Official website: https://setouchi-artfest.jp
This year marks the 5th edition of one of Japan’s largest art festivals held under the slogan “Reinstatement of the Sea”. More than 100 artists are scheduled to participate, including Manal Ardoyan and Kinoshita Kabuki. The general director is Fram Kitagawa.

■Dogo Onsenart 2022
Dates: April 28 – February 26, 2023
Venue: Dogo Onsen area, Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture
Official website: https://dogoonsenart.com/
In addition to Shinro Ohtake and Mika Ninagawa, whose works were shown in 2021, a total of 30 artists, including Etsuko Ichihara and Kyota Takahashi, will participate in the third edition of the exhibition. The general director is Tomoharu Matsuda (Spiral / Wacoal Art Center).

■Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2022
Dates: April 29 – November 13
Venue：Niigata Prefecture｜Echigo-Tsumari area(Tokamachi city, Tsunami cho)
Official website: https://www.echigo-tsumari.jp
One of the largest art festivals in Japan, which was scheduled to be held in 2021 but postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 90 groups are scheduled to participate, including Fujiko Nakaya and [mé]. More than 300 works can be seen, including permanent works. General director is Fram Kitagawa.

■Aichi 2022
Dates: July 30 – October 10
Venue: Aichi Arts Center, Ichinomiya City, Tokoname City, Arimatsu District (Nagoya City)
Official website: https://aichitriennale.jp
Aichi 22 is the successor of the Aichi Triennale, an international art festival that will be held for the first time this year. Director of the Mori Art Museum, Mami Kataoka, will serve as Artistic Director. More than 77 artists, including Gabriel Orozco and Chiharu Shiota, are scheduled to participate.

■Reborn-Art Festival 2021-22 (second term)
Dates: August 20 – October 2
Venue：Ishinomaki area, Miyagi Prefecture
Official website: https://www.reborn-art-fes.jp
The curators for the second half of the festival, which follows the first half mentioned above, are Etsuko Watari and Koichi Watari of the Watari-um Museum of Contemporary Art, who have been involved with the festival since its inception. Twenty-one artists, including Tadashi Kawamata and Izumi Kato, are scheduled to participate.

■Rokko meets art 2022
Dates：August 27 – November 23
Venue：Kobe city Rokkosan
Official website: https://www.rokkosan.com/art2022/
From September 23, “Hikari no Mori” will be held on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays only, where visitors can enjoy nighttime-only artworks.

■Okayama Art Exchange 2022
Dates: September 30 – November 27
Venue: Former Uchisange Elementary School, Okayama Tenjinyama Cultural Plaza, Okayama Orient Museum of Art, Hayashibara Museum of Art, etc.
Rirkrit Tiravanija will serve the artistic director, and 24 groups, including Lee Bul and Ei Arakawa are scheduled to participate. The general producer is Yasuharu Ishikawa and the general director is Taro Nasu.

■Streaming Heritage（2022）
Dates: October 1, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from November 3 – 20 (tentative)
Venue:Nagoya City, Aichi prefecture

■BIWAKO Biennale 2022
Dates: October 8 – November 27
Venue: Shiga Prefecture｜Omi Hachiman Old Town, Hikone City, etc.
Official website: https://energyfield.org/biwakobiennale
The theme of the 10th edition of the biennale is “ORIGIN.” The venues include Okishima Island on Lake Biwa and Toriihon, a former post town on the Nakasendo Highway. More than 60 artists, including Ken + Julia Yonetani and Makoto Egashira, participated. The general director is Yoko Nakata.

■OKUYAMATO MIND TRAIL Museum in your mind
Dates: Fall 2022( tentative)
Venue: Yoshino Town, Tenkawa Village, Soni Village, Nara Prefecture

■Sense Island 2022
Dates: Fall 2022 (tentative)
Venue: Sarushima, Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture

The post From 2021 to 2022, the Year of the Arts Festival: Japan’s Regional Arts Festivals to Visit This Year appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.