marxism at its best

Grapus was a collective of graphic artists working together between 1970 and 1991, founded by Pierre Bernard (studied under Henryk Tomasewski). All members of the Communist party, the group maintained political, social and cultural engagement. They rejected commercial/government clients and only worked with theatre groups, progressive town councils, art institutions and the communist party itself.

Grapus remained devoted to the immediacy of posters and leaflets and the use of handwritten text.  Using very low tech methods of collage and grainy photography for a raw and unpolished look. One of the reasons I love what I love today.

uniqlo: secrets to success

1) Uniqlo employees don't have desks.

2) Uniqlo meeting rooms don't have chairs.

3) The lights go out at 7pm. in all Uniqlo offices.

www.uniqlo.com/jp/

W+K Tokyo at the GGG

Not the best time for art clubbing-disappointed to find a few galleries closed or without any thing impressive showing. Maybe it has to do with the end of the year being just around the corner. Also impossible to get around any shopping areas due to all the cute couples having a very romanti christmas>@%&#@#!!

After a few let-downs (Beams), an exhibition of reels and works by the advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy at the Ginza Graphic Gallery came to my rescue. The GGG has been a favorite since my designer years (i have a GGG poster collection), exhibitions range from the Tokyo Art Directors Club Awards to shows on international design groups such as Grapus.  Images.

You are greeted in the entrance with an i-Mac to take your photo and add to the "Guest Book Wall". The images will be used to compose a moving collage of morphing faces against digital noise. Wieden Kennedy seems to be on the right track, an advertising agency going the extra mile. Looks like a fun place to work. Ad reels for Kumon （私はなにを勉強すれば良いのですか？）are goose bump-worthy, beautiful, nostalgic but fresh. Beautiful innocent imagery combined with music. Uniqlo and Nike ads bring forward a certain frank Japanese-ness we've never seen before. Definitely like what they are doing. "You cannot hammer down a nail that sticks out."

www.wktokyo.jp/blog/ww

color hunting in brazil

Derived from Dai Fujiwara's color reseach for his Issey Miyake Spring Summer 2009 collection, the exhibition shows how Fujiwara travelled to the amazon to collect authentic colors in the natural environment. Dai brought back close to 3,000 color samples he discovered in leaves, trees, soils and rivers as well as the vibrant city streets and beaches. 

Exhibition felt a little thin on content (it got me to the MOT afterall) but loved the Guru Guru Wheels where Dai's photos from Brazil were spun at high speed to reveal beautiful, distinctive color palettes (top photo taken before museum police got to me).  throw away those pantone swatches and start spinning everybody!

100 years ago after the end of feudalism, the Japanese and Brazilian governments signed a treaty which allowed the first Japanese immigrants to land in Brazil. Today, Brazil has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. Works of several Brazilian artists were also on show and I came across Rivane Neuenschwander's work for the first time. In the exhibited piece, she builds famous Brazilian modernist buildings out of very delicate materials such as herbs and pasta. gorgeous...and in the same color palette as Dai's designs for Issey. will have to find out more.

pens are not allowed in museums anymore, was there a  crazy pen lashing incident i was not told of? museum police gave me a pencil instead.

timeline for art movements (useful)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exit B2 Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station

Hanzomon Line

the good & the horrible

rules for a good (decent) logo

1) represents an organization's best elements through the creative use of graphics and type

2) made up of elements which can be reproduced easily and be legible when reduced in size

3) is simple, thoughtful & visually elegant

which logo fails in all 3) categories?

flying solo

Mika Ninagawa

Nadiff a/p/a/r/t/

Ebisu, very close to Octopus park

JR & Hibiya Lines

Christmas in Tokyo-a strange phenomenon when the only thing that reminds you it's Christmas are the Christmas lights /the cute couples/the hundreds of girls/obasans in reindeer gear selling christmas cakes on the street...You'll also hear John & Yoko (and Mariah) at least 20 times. Apologies if I sound harsh-no wooly socks, no crisp smell of a wintery morning, no humprey, no drowning yourself in sleep...Either way, I'm on my own in Tokyo this year so taking time out. 3 days for art clubbing!! (with no hang over)

From what i can see, although spaces are smaller (Nadiff), Tokyo's art scene seems to be thrivig. With slick new facilities and art spaces in  Midtown, 21_21, /Roppongi Hills, there is also a lot of money going into it. Ginza and Omotesando are the obvious art spots with Ebisu, Nakameguro and Nihonbashi being the places to watch.

Tokyo Art Site is a great art guide & maps out art spaces in different areas in central Tokyo. It's been my trusty art club companion but I am definitely missing my girls! Available at most book stores here and on Amazon. Better get dressed and on my way. MOT and the Scala Bath house today and Koyanagi Gallery if I have time. xxx

beaming arts

Christmas arrived early this year. Walked into Beams Shinjuku Lumine/Est yesterday and hanging from wall was Pixel Deer! Yes! That very piece which was on the top of our Rich Bitch Collector's List from Art Basel.

Turns out Beams has asked our fabulous Kohei Nawa to design their holiday visuals this year and what could be more suitable than a reindeer head made out of wintery crystals? Gorgeous & simple. I'm sure Tyler Brule would agree. oh, i also found a used Porter bag in Koenji that day. Definitely feeling lucky. 

check out: monocle shop, george st.

expo nippon

Spotted some amazing images along the walkway in Shinjuku station today...scantly clothed models submerged in murky blue water titled "Converse Expo Nippon".

...lets see what we can find here....

Japanese culture was officially introduced to the West by collectors of Japanese art at the Paris Wold Fair in 1867. The art which resulted from this influence is described as japonesque. Hokusai and Hiroshige prints becomes a new source of inspiration for the European impressionist painters and cubists such as  Van Gough & Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec etc. Convere's Japan-exclusive 2009 collection celebrates the introduction of Japanese culture to the western art public.

And,  it all might have happened by accident. One of the first most valuable commodities exported from Japan to Europe were fragile Japanese porcelains. These had to be packed very carefully to survive the sea journey. The precious art objects were wrapped in another form of artwork, discared Japanese prints. As they say....one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Japanese collections enter the Louvre in 1892 and it is said that the Meiji Emperor even donated some pieces of his private collection to further encourage the Japonesque movement in Europe. 

The 2009 Spring & Summer collection from Converse revisits the original motifs and materials seen in these early Japanese works. Bekko(turtoise shell, the Wajima one star, bright crimson red paint....

also...

Meiji Jingu is a Shino shrine. Shinto values harmony with nature and virtures "magokoro(sincere heart) and believes in an unlimited number of kami (gods).  Meiji Jingu shrines the divine souls of Emperor Meiji and his consort Empress Shoken. They passed away in 1914 but to commemorate their virtues and venerate them forever the people donated 100,000 trees from all over Japan and worked voluntarily to create a forest in the middle of Tokyo. if you have been there you will agree that there is a special, clean & overwhelmingly peaceful feeling about the place despite it being in the middle of chaos. must be all the "magokoro". 

my white leather low-tops are looking rather ratty and i really like the look of the bekko tortoise shell design. i think i will be taking a bit of japonesque back to london....

tim walker

"Fashion allows fantasy, and i am a fantasist. I love beautiful clothes-but I couldn't give a monkeys whats on the catwalks."

revival of the still life

The still-life is back. 8,600 diamonds, a few kilos of high-grade platinum and a set of real human teeth. Damien Hirst's "For the Love of God" cost 14 million pounds to produce and had an asking price of 50 million. Claimed to be a tribute to Dutch still-lifes and the reoccurring theme of death, the piece is showing at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam along side Hirst's personal selection of 17th century Dutch art.

I much prefer Laura Letinsky's (born Canada) interpretation-beautiful photographs of ugly things, a decadent meal shared, unfinished & messy, all alluding to domestic human presence. I love her work as I'm a big fan of the school of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Carefully composed with soft colors and eloquent lighting, Letinsky revisits the classic still-life in the chaotic setting of contemporary consumer culture and creates a series of stunning visuals. Scope 2008. Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York.

striking oil

saatchi gallery 2003-2005

county hall, south bank

Tim Noble & Sue Webster

Lets reflect back on the years past & get into the christmas spirit with "Sacrificial Heart", a giant bleeding heart studded with flashing colored lights and a dagger that goes through it. The ultimate Christian icon adapted by rockers and bikers worldwide in the form of a tattoo....one of my favorites from the old county hall Saatchi Gallery. Love, pain, romance and hate-the piece fuses high art with kitch and reminds us that we are all playful yet tremendously fragile. It's pulsating lights a delightful preview of what's to come, the perfect piece for the entrance of the gallery.

Richard Wilson-Saatchi Gallery Southbank

The other piece that I took with me was 20:50. The experience starts in the old victorian hallway, while you anxiously wait for your turn for the mysterious room. what is that toxic smell in the air? is it safe? Richard Wilson fills the an entire room waist-high in recycled engine oil (from which the piece takes its name). A walkway leads viewer into the space as they find themselves surrounded by oil on all sides. Amazing...a disturbing but fascinating optical illusion created by the dark reflective surface. The viewer cannot distinguish what is the ceiling & what is the floor, what is up & what is down.

frieze 08

detour for dreams

Scope 08-Daniel Glaser+Magdalena Kunz

Video installation that gives a voice to people to talk about their hopes and fears. Movements of figures are so subtle that it plays out within the tension between reality and representation & between presence and absence. I love this work. "Art is a detour for dreams to find their way back to reality. There are no stories in our images except those seen or invented by the viewers. Everybody has to interpret their dreams, no one else can do it for you." DG

piss off!

Frieze 2008 

Andres Serrano, Rape of the Sabine Woman, Yvon Lambert Gallery

Beautiful giant triptych of religious statue submerged in golden liquid light(a.k.a pee). Play on beautiful imagery with vulgar materials. Romantic, classical & strangely gorgeous. Just don't think about it too much. Did someone say asparagus?

more vyner street

fred gallery

45 vyner street E29DQ

Matthew McCaslin's wall mounted video monitors of flowers blooming in an endless cycle of delirious beauty and toxic cows grazing under a black light. Perhaps pointing out our relationship with nature, how it is artificial or mediated by technology? Despite the Hirst-like theme, another installation that would look great in my living room.

Photo: Milly & Miriam in front of "Desk", a strange but saleable exhibition by Phoebe Unwin at the Wilkinson Gallery.

vyner street-art season opening night

vyner street 

bethnal green tube 

cambridge heath past bishop gate

After a short but eventful summer (babies, weddings, career changes...) the art club met up on Vyner Street to kick off the new art season. The street atmosphere was almost carnival like, teeming with art kids and cool hair cuts. 

nettie horn gallery

25b vyner street E29DG

In Dysfuncadelia, Debbie Lawson creates eerie environments through the use of found objects, household furniture and domestic materials such as Persian carpets and wood. A new hybrid meaning is found in the use of these kitch materials.

Sinta Werner's Grey Areas installation is built like a stage set and is an optical illusion using a mirror and architectural elements. There is one viewing point from which the space appears flat and pictorial. If one leaves this viewing point, the illusion is exposed. Order, precision, scientific methodology combined with observations of modern life...there is something very German and lovely about Sinta's work. Currently working in Berlin with a Masters of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths in 2007. Will be watching our for this one...

machine or art?

Brushing off our hangovers and sore feet, our final stop was Volta, one of Art Basel's satellite art fairs. On the top of my wish list were Julius Pop's news output device (if you look carefully the red dots make up letters of a news story) and Yarsal and Kublitz's vending machine where plates and cups fell to the floor in a brilliant crash when selected and bought. A little noisy but would look great in the corner of my sitting room. 

One may question whether these objects were actually art. Or are they just machines like many objects around us we use every day? If one was moved by the way a toaster toasted a slice of bread, is that art too? 

Traditionally art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. Today art is defined as having to be made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as as the mind by transmitting emotions and ideas. So the toaster unfortunately is not art, unless its used like our friend Toast Girl in Japan. 

unlimited art

Apart from the main 3 floors of world-class exhibitors at Art Basel, we spent a fair amount of time in Art Unlimited which spotlighted 60 unconventional works, everything from out sized sculptures and installations to video projections. The highlights were Rina Banerjee's hanging feathered sculpture, Thomas Hirschorn's 44 hotel rooms, Qui Anxiong's death train and my very favorite video installation which made you feel like you were looking up at drowning people being rescued by a helicopter in a Fuerzabruta-esque kind of way. (name of artist?) Reflection of moving silhouettes on the ceiling, lapping waves, distorted sounds of an aircraft and voices of frightened people.... Perhaps you were being left behind or falling deeper into the dark, deep sea...Not happy but definitely thought provoking.

letting go

the shoe boxes are full but need to be emptied. leaflets, brochures & maps & gallery invites, postcards & notebooks filled with dates, illegible scribbles of artist names, forgotten dates, sketches...its much harder than i thought. maybe tomorrow. will it all be safe in cyberspace?

economic crisis? not at art basel

Art Basel 39=Not a Football Free Zone was the art club's very first major art event away from home. 300 galleries. 2,000 artists, record number of applications, unimaginable amounts of first class art being sold & bought. Located on the banks of the Rhine at the border between Switzerland, France and Germany, Basel's small size and friendly layout proved to be the perfect background for an arty girls weekend. They did however overlook one small detail in the calendar but that's a story for another time.

Gagosian gallery, Galerie Anhava, Koyanagi Gallery, Lisson Gallery, Koyama Gallery, Waddington Galleries, Beijing Art Now Gallery and of course the White Cube Gallery....Video

Pieces for My Personal Collection

hiroshi sugimoto-anna karin furves-kohei nawa-jan dibbets-enrico castellani-donald judd-kishio suga-robert rauchenberg

mark rothko at the tate modern

tate modern 

bank side SE19TG

st. pauls, walk over millenium bridge

Celebrating the reunion of all 12 Rothko Segram murals (others flown in from Japan & Washington), the exhibition focuses only on Mark Rothko's later years. I do have to applaud the Tate for keeping the darkest & most intriguing murals for themselves and the British public but I much prefer the display of the 6 murals in the permanent collection or what we call the "Rothko Room".  Bigger doesn't always mean better. Rothko's paintings rely on the subtle vibrations between color & surfaces and they somehow seem withdrawn and uncomfortable in their new environment.

If anything the exhibition triggered my own investigation into the life of this troubled artist (since the exhibition didn't).  I found out he was quite malicious "I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room" and tragic "Mark Rothko was found on the morning of Feb 25 1970, lying dead in a wine-dark sea of his own blood. He had cut very deep into his arms and the pool emanating from him on the floor had created a color field measuring 8ft x 6ft." 

hmmm.....

Kawamura Museum, Chiba, Japan. Rothko Segram Murals, Kandisnsky, Stella

roy voss in conversation at matt's gallery

matt's gallery

42-44 copperfield road E3 4RR
mile end tube, then bus to st. paul's way D6, D7

september 30

A close-up view of Ross's new installation "Pine" in Matt's Gallery with the Contemporary Arts Society. Ross's new work includes large photographs of single white words erected in landscapes and sculptures which masquerade as lamps. He took over the entire gallery for the summer and has filled the gallery space with minimal but emotionally moving visuals which play on scale, nostalgia and relationship between object and image.

I absolutely  love large works of art. Just stand in front of them and see what happens... It's an instinctive response rather than an intellectual one. Ross remained very mysterious & clever about not giving anything away about his work. Is this intentional? As an artist is it important to stand your ground and not give away your secrets? To me the installation was about the great voyage of life and maybe nostalgia for a lost innocence. Or Fraulien Maria and the Von Trapp family??? Guess we will never know. But it was definitely worth slepping through East London in my heels on a rainy Tuesday night. 

rules of the art club

The thursday night art club accidently formed in 2007 and combines art events with great company. Our single aim is to enjoy art. 

There is SO MUCH fantastic contemporary art in London and it's all virtually free. To look at of course. We are working on the buying part. And the making part. It's all very exciting.

Armed with an A-Z, an art map and too often an umbrella, our art evenings feel more like a frenzied treasure hunt than a organized gallery event. Trying at times but always with a happy ending....Something unexpected, something inspiring, something beautiful... and if it was a bad night, it's just drinks & dinner with the fabulous girls of the art club!