Category — Text and Books

cover for Zoo, the hit single by Tsuji’s band Echoes

Hitonari Tsuji is a writer, musician and film director. His career got started in music but he really began to shine in ’97 when he was awarded an Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan’s most prestigious literary awards. He went on to be the first Japanese awarded with the French Prix Femina prize in ’99. Although he had retired his instruments in ’91, his band, Echoes, made a huge comeback in 2000 when one of their songs was used in a TV series.

The multi-talented artist created a twitter account at the beginning of this month. Ten days later and 82 “chapters,” or tweets, later, he has written a substantial beginning to his twitter novel about an author who decides to write a twitter novel. You can follow him here (Japanese only).

“The Light from the Strait,” Tsuji’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel

photo via Futatsumata-san’s blog

I would love to get my hands on School Road, a new photo book published by Plancton. The idea was to photograph paths and roads all across the country that children use to commute to school. Some of the fondest memories I have of growing up in the outskirts of Tokyo were the walks and bicycle rides to school. There were huge slopes and odd tunnels and I still murkily recall some common faces I would see each morning.

Although my commute was not quite as lush and rural as the picture above, it wasn’t too far off. Volume 1 covers 13 prefectures with each prefecture receiving the treatment of a photographer who grew up there. Tokyo is covered by Saori Tao.

Tokyo Visualist is a joint collaboration by Satoru Yamashita (+81) and Masako Shinn (Graphis). The book explores the work of 32 “cutting edge” artists and designers through interviews and essays by curators including David Elliot (Mori Art Museum) and Sarah Suzuki (MoMA). It attempts to decipher the current for clues on what lies ahead in the future. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it but if you are in NY on March 2nd they are having an event at the Japan Society that would be worthwhile.

featured artist Tomoko Konoike

featured artist Hideki Inaba

featured artist Kohei Nawa

Easy-going Japanese design duo Yuruliku, comprised of Bananao and Kinue Oneda, get their pleasure from designing the smaller things in life. Their prime focus is on stationary but their awesome tote bags that I featured on this site back in ’08 have always been my favorite. Just announced last week, their latest design is grass-shaped post its that serve as page markers. The accumulation of  interest or curiosity creates a blossoming tuft of grass.

They are currently available only through yuruliku’s online shop. For 700 yen you get a total of 75 markers in 3 different sizes.

I realize that “sculptor” may not be the most accurate description of Mitsuru Katsumoto but I dislike the term “multimedia artist” so indulge me in my peculiarities as I attempt to convey my thoughts about the artist. Mitsuru Katsumoto was born 1961 in Shiga Prefecture. Her first exhibition took place at Gallery Eve in 1995 and was aptly titled “Secret Garden.” Since then her work has revolved around the curious and mysterious, often offering sneak peeks into her secretive world of eye-catching details and anachronistic furnishings.

click to enlarge. Courtesy Galleria Graffica Tokyo

clockwise: poster for a field, a home (2007) | living things-flora (2004) | a field, a home (2007)

Katsumoto walks an interesting line between cute and surreal and maintains, I might add, just enough cuteness to remain within the mainstream likings of the Japanese. Furthermore, by including French-Antique charm to the formula she is practically guaranteeing herself a fan-base. That’s not to undermine her work in any way though. There is no doubt in my mind that Katsumoto creates beautiful pieces that keep me coming back to them time after time.

click to enlarge

top: a study in green grass (2002) | all other images part of the “Odd” collection

Her latest exhibition “Odd,” which concluded late last year at the Yukiko Koide gallery, was an ode to some of the more hand-made oddities of her career. I particularly enjoy her vintage postcards – probably the quirkiest of her work.

click to enlarge. Courtesy Mademoiselle Loulou

Finally, here is a sneak peak into 2 of her photo books that she has published. At the top is Study In Green (2008), an intimate exploration into everything from animal fur to boxes, that are, of course, green or dyed green. Below that is One Day (2007), a compilation of Katsumoto’s early work. Both are fascinating meditations on the relationship between art and design.

click to enlarge. Courtesy milebooks

I hope everyone in the US had a Happy Thanksgiving and everyone everywhere else had a Happy Thursday! I was saving this post because it seemed festive and I kept thinking how awesome it would be to welcome guests into a home adorned with flower vases like these.

So, last month art director Shun Kawakami embarked on a bold collaborative project, balloon as vase, to create these fascinating vases that you might see if Jeff Koons hosted a Zen tea ceremony.

I actually considered cropping the vases to optimize them for viewing but decided to preserve the originals because they are really so beautiful in their long and narrow orientation, reminiscent of Chinese scrolls. So please click to enlarge!

Photos by Yuu Kawakami

The vases were originally created for “composition of knowledge and feeling,” an exhibition by Shun Kawakami and Takashi Kawada that was shown at JAGDA TOKYO last month. Other collaborators include balloon artist Rie Hosokai aka Daisy Balloon and calligraphy artist Gen Miyamura, both artists in their own right, and whose standalone work I have shown below.

Flame (2008) by calligraphy artist Gen Miyamura, who creates works in highly deconstructed forms of calligraphy. One may even go as far as calling it abstract. In the past Miyamura has done CD jacket designs, movie posters, and even commercial work for Bridgestone and Docomo.

A dress by balloon artist Rie Hosokai, who started balloon art in 2002 and went on to reign supreme in almost every balloon folding exhibition she entered. The icing on the cake was her 2 consecutive wins in Millenium Jam with her haute couture dresses made from balloons.

Related:

• Prints by Shun Kawakami
• Issey Miyake packaging boxes by Shun Kawakami

Fall is in the air! I can smell it in the fallen leaves, hear it in the flocks of migrating geese, and see it in the scarves and hats. Fall is one of the most popular seasons in Japan and to accompany it are several phrases such as the season of harvest (minori no aki) the season of sports (sports no aki) the season of hearty appetites (shokuyoku no aki) and the season of reading (dokusho no aki). Japanese design shop Baden-Baden has recently introduced their new items for the month of November and they are all about books and reading! I especially love the cutlery bookmarks (reminds me of thanksgiving) and the book necklaces!

From top to bottom:
Cutlery bookmarks by 2e (1,512 yen)
Butterfly bookmarks by D-Bros (683 yen)
Book necklaces by Naho Yamamoto (5,040 yen)
Plywood Book stand by Flange aka Ueda Tsuyoshi (4,725 yen)
Tree Bookcover by Naruse (3,150 yen)

Related:

• Baden-Baden Finds
• Morning Inspiration
• Baden-Baden Finds!

I had a nice chuckle today reading through Christoph Niemann’s latest post in his New York Times’ blog. I can especially relate to his thoughts on sleeping with your kids and how the initial sweet cuddling quickly manifests itself into a problematic reality.

The address tray is a super-stylish address book that doubles as a pen tray for your desk. And it’s really making me want to sit down and copy all my contacts from my computer onto paper. In fact, the design team, andesign (and + design, because “the word ‘and’ connects everything”) talks about their objective as wanting to reignite interest in the romantic qualities of handwriting. Each address sheet can be pulled out and then reinserted. The tray comes in 2 sizes, short (1,470 yen) and long (1,890 yen).

They are sold at Kami no kousakujo (paper factory), a great store I frequent for their craft objects made out of only paper.

I would love to get my hands on a copy of “Calculation in Motion.” The book itself was designed by Masashi Kawamura (remember rainbow in your hand?) but there is much more to this amazing book. Back in ’99, Masahiko Sato (these two went on to collaborate on a variety of interesting projects), a professor of Keio University, challenged his 16 lab students to create flip books based on the notion of computation as a new media. The primitive form of animation combined with advanced themes of computation revealed some fantastic results. The professor was so blown away by what his students created that he decided to create a book out of the 16 flip books. Only 200 copies were published by Bijutus Shuppan, which all sold out instantly. If anyone has any leads on where I can get a copy please let me know!