Category — Art

photos by Yuna Yanagi | click to enlarge

Kyoto-based interior designer Hiromitsu Konishi created this magnificent display system for Suzuki Shofudo, a 140-year old retailer of paper goods. With the help of the client, who was understandably versed in the medium, the designer spent months studying the strengths, weakness, and flexibility of paper.

Eventually finding inspiration in the way Japanese fans open and collapse, Konishi created an entirely collapsible paper display system.

source: submission

Discovering his love for skateboards as a young teen, Haroshi not only skates but also creates mosaic sculptures out of recycled skateboard decks. “To Haroshi, his art pieces are equal to his skateboards, and that means they are his life itself.”

Haroshi uses a wood mosaic method similar to the method most Buddha statues in Japan are made. This method helps keep the statues light weight, minimizes wasted materials, and in Haroshi’s case making his art very “green.” He also incorporates a tradition by putting a piece of metal from the original skate board into the center hollow of the sculpture; creating its “soul.” The famous Buddha sculptor “Unkei” (12th century) is said to have put a crystal into where the heart of Buddha would be.

In this video below, Haroshi discusses his latest collaboration with pro skater Keith Hufnagel.

Source: Haroshi | Haroshi (Facebook)

As his title of Producer, Art Director and Maze Illustrator might suggest, Takanori Aiba is a multi-faceted man. Originally getting his start drawing mazes for POPEYE magazine, he later made a name for himself producing a slew of hospitality spaces; everything from the ubiquitous GUSTO to the one-of-a-kind Ramen Museum in Yokohama. He’s even the mastermind behind the gimicky Ninja Restarant in NYC.

But in recent years he’s returned to his roots, taking up his fascination with the intertwining maze and morphing it into a series of amazingly intricate sculptures. Mazes, whether you’re using a pencil to map a piece of paper, or you own 2 feet to navigate the complex systems of a corn maze, appeal to our childhood sense of mystery and adventure. Aiba’s engrossing sculptures stoke the embers of that fire, making us wish that we could get lost in his chimerical creations.

You can see more of his work in his Flickr stream of his facebook page.

source: mymodernmet | G&D | Tokyo Good Idea

photo via bloomize.com

This origami heart is too easy not to make for your Valentines this year! All you need is a square piece of paper. I remember making these through some of the classes I should have paid attention to in school.

1. Use a square piece of paper.
2. Fold in half. Crease.
3. Half again. Crease.
4. Open up.
5. Fold bottom portion to the middle crease line.
6. Turn over. Fold up triangular edges.
7. Turn over.
8. Bring point C to the top.
9. Turn over.
10. Use finger to make an opening.
11. Flatten to form triangle.
12. Repeat step 12 on the left side.
13. Fold a triangle from the edge for both sides.
14. Fold a tiny triangle from each peak.
15. Turn over. Fold the areas behind the dotted lines.

Other than being ‘cute’ and a nice handmade touch to your Valentine’s, it’s also pretty versatile. You can flip up the heart and use it as a little envelope for a small gift or letter. It can be used as a book mark as pictured at the top. And last but not least, when you put 4 of them together, you can create a 4-leaf clover.

photo via bloomize.com

Source: bloomize.com

Bonus – Couple other DIY origami hearts: Origami Heart with Wings & Easy Origami Heart

A first look at the new Yayoi Kusama retrospective that just opened today at the Tate  in London. So much great work, all in one place! Wish I was in London to go see this.

Source: @Tate

Tadaaki Kuwayama, Untitled (1992/2012) anodized aluminum, 22 elements, each 8 x 8 x 2 1/4 inches. © Tadaaki Kuwayama, courtesy Gary Snyder Gallery, New York

Tadaaki Kuwayama, Untitled (1992/2012) anodized aluminum, 22 elements, each 8 x 8 x 2 1/4 inches. © Tadaaki Kuwayama, courtesy Gary Snyder Gallery, New York

I’m intrigued by the minimalist work of artist Tadaaki Kuwayama, who is currently showing at Gary Snyder Gallery in Chelsea (NY). The gallery is configured around 2 main site-specific works, a wall piece and a floor piece. Both are super minimal works sculpted from anodized aluminum and titanium. The basic color of the floor piece is pink, but there’s something about the metal that causes these green-gold interference colors to appear depending on the angle of the light and where you’re standing in relation to the piece. It’s really beautiful!

What i think most inspires me is that the artist – at age 80 – is still experimenting with materials (this is his first attempt at working with titanium)! Perhaps his success lies precisely in that insatiable curiosity, that irrepressible desire to know, no matter what the material. It’s artists like this, with an inextinguishable, undaunted appetite for learning and experience, that will define the future.

Tadaaki Kuwayama, Untitled (1992/2012) metallic paint on Bakelite mounted to aluminum, 8 elements, each 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 x 2 3/8 inches. © Tadaaki Kuwayama, courtesy Gary Snyder Gallery, New York

Tadaaki Kuwayama, Untitled (2012) anodized titanium, 8 elements, each 11 3/4 x 23 5/8 x 5/16 inches. © Tadaaki Kuwayama, courtesy Gary Snyder Gallery, New York

Tadaaki Kuwayama, Untitled (2012) anodized titanium, 8 elements, each 11 3/4 x 23 5/8 x 5/16 inches. © Tadaaki Kuwayama, courtesy Gary Snyder Gallery, New York

The show is on display through February 25, 2012. Do go check it out if you’re around.

Photoｓ by Tartaruga | Courtesy Galleria Maria Grazia Del Prete

For 9 years the artist Satoshi Hirose collected the plastic bottle caps from the bottles he had consumed. His latest sculpture, currently on view at Galleria Maria Grazia Del Prete in Rome, represents his 9 years of existence through a sculpture of those bottle caps that resembles an island or, in my case, a heaping mound of garbage. The day-to-day accumulation of everyday materials are contrasted with the pictures of everyday activities that hang on the wall, immediately forcing the visitor to reflect on the life cycle.

Hirose’s work is on display at GMDP through March 24, 2012.

source: @azito_art

I’m fascinated by these photographs of bones, taken by photographer Eiji Yuzawa. And while wholly involved in the subject matter of death, the photos are hardly morose. Instead, there is a fantastic sculptural quality to the works that is both calming and satisfying. I find myself most attracted to the abstract forms.

Yuzawa began photographing bones in 2006 and compiled a photobook that was released last year. His work has now been released – in what appears to be the next logical step for all fine art these days – as a series of iphone cases.

Yasuhiro Suzuki has a penchant for re-envisioning the ordinary as extraordinary

I’ve had a long-time art crush on Yasuhiro Suzuki, a young artist (32) who has a penchant for re-envisioning the ordinary as extraordinary. His subject matter is often banal – a traditional toy, a zipper or a tree stump. In the most literal sense, Yasuhiro Suzuki is devoted to the design of daily life.

So I was excited to hear he had a new book out covering some of his recent works. Blinking and Flapping encompasses works that were on display at Suzuki’s major retrospective, which took place late last year at the Hamamatsu Museum of Art.

The gorgeous book is now on sale through Amazon Japan (2,625 yen) – they ship overseas!

Here are a few of my favorite projects from the retrospective last year:
(click images to enlarge)
Apple Kendama
In this playful and somewhat nostalgic piece, the traditional kendama toy gets a makeover with a bright red apple.

Ginkaku-ji Chocolate
The “Temple of the Silver Pavilion” gets a silver wrapping and a sweet filling.

Talk about good taste!

Blinking Clock (left) and Bucket Stump (right)

Spoon Sand Watch

A poetic timepiece that replaces the hourglass with a kitchen utensil.

Blinking Leaves
An installation of leaves with open and closed eyes printed on the front and back. They blink as they flutter down. Magical!

Ship of the zipper
This is my absolute favorite piece. Suzuki created a boat-shaped zipper based on a model he had done back in 2004. The waves it created as it drove across the inland sea created the teeth of the zipper. How cool is that!? I bet Moses never thought of using a zipper to part the sea. (be sure to check out the video below)

“Diorama Map Tokyo” (March – July 2004) | click to enlarge

Big cities can be an isolating, coldhearted sort of place where loneliness engulfs you like dry heat. But not for 29-year old photographer Sohei Yoshino, whose work is currently on display at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, along with other up-and-coming photographers. Yoshino’s Diorama Maps, as he calls them, are highly personal recreations of cities that he has visited. Yoshino spends months walking the city streets, taking black-and-white photographs with his 35 mm camera. From his hundreds of contact sheets he cuts out the photos – often as many as 10,000 – to create elaborate 3D collages.

These are my personal memories of a city. The photographs I take and the way I assemble them are influenced by what I personally experienced: what I saw, whom I met and even what I ate

- Nishino in a recent interview

But for Yoshino the process doesn’t end with the collage. Because he wants the viewer to experience his pieces as photographs, he trims them evenly and the reshoots them with a digital camera. Fascinating! I highly encourage you to click the images to enlarge them.

Contemporary Japanese Photography vol.10 elan photographic runs until January 29, 2012.

“Diorama Map New York” (February – July 2006) | click to enlarge

“Diorama Map Paris” (May 2007 – November 2008) | click to enlarge

“Diorama Map Rio de Janeiro” (March – June 2011) | click to enlarge

all images courtesy Sohei Yoshino
source: Japan Times