Terue Yamauchi creates her conceptually-based projects a variety of media, exploring (among other things) themes of landscape, scale, human interconnection and human-made spaces. Most recently she’s turned her attention toward the relationships between humans and nature, and we’re all the luckier for it.
For her latest projects, Libido (1) and Libido (2) Yamauchi investigated the lives of local slugs to make her work. Her studio hours revolve around the night schedules of her small, slimy collaborators, whom she invites via motion-sensors and beer to create silvery drawings of goo on large sheets of black paper and performances in structures she’s created. These drawings and actions are also translated other media, including an intimate video installation and a large-scale work on suspended plastic sheeting, with a composition based on overlapping tracings of the slugs’ designs.
You can see a range of Yamauchi’s work on her website HERE.
I rarely turn on the television set at home in Chicago, but whenever I'm in Japan I wind up watching television whenever I get the chance – it’s great for picking up the language and cultural nuances, and there are categories of shows that just don’t exist anywhere else. The insane game shows, the children’s programs about beetle battles, the myriad programs of hip young people moaning over delicious food... andthe variety/talk shows that report on news stories or funny stunts with a panel of celebrity guests who watch along with you, their reactions visible in a little rectangle in the corner of the screen.
We just don’t have access to much of this in the US, aside from random youtube clips of the wackier stuff. So many thanks to Kianga for turning us on to Dramacrazy.net, which makes hundreds of Japanese and Korean drama shows available to a wider audience… and with English subtitles!
Among these is Kimi wa Petto (you are my Pet), a comedy-drama that Andy and I've become completely obsessed with lately.Originally broadcast in 2003, the show is based pretty directly on a very popular manga series by the same name, which friend and fellow comics enthusiast Jeff turned me on to earlier this year, available in English in the US under the title “Tramps Like Us.”
The premise is this: Tall, successful, smart and beautiful, Iwaya Sumire seems to have it all... but her stature and status make her completely intimidating to most men, including her former fiancée and her boss, who treat her like crap. Angry, depressed, and lonely, Iwaya comes home one eveningto find a teenage boy passed out in a box in front of her apartment, and struck by his resemblance to her childhood pet, she takes him in and nurses him back to health. Their relationship develops into that of pet and owner, while she navigates some crazy power dynamics with her coworkers, her landlord, her therapist, and her new love interest (!)
The show funny, sexy, odd, and completely addictive. It also offers a glimpse (albeit an exaggerated one) into some of the more unpleasant gender roles that are still at play in Japan. Not all women here are content to be cute and docile, and this show pries open those stereotypes while also showing how complicated it can be to operate outside of them. See for yourself HERE: Just scroll down for links to all ten episodes...
I stumbled across Yumiku Utsu's photography three times tonight during a visit to the excellent art bookstore/gallery Nadiff in Tokyo, and I'm so glad I did.
First I noticed her visceral depictions of eroticized shellfish and walnuts in the Australian food-as-art mag Condiment, which is well worth a look in and of itself.
Then I noticed a poster hanging near the gallery entrance of the eerie-looking cat photograph below (spoiler: not the cat's real eyes).
Finally I came across her totally sexy full-color book Out of the Ark, which accompanied her solo show at Nadiff's G/P gallery in 2009. The catalogue contains hundreds of the most drippingly graphic combinations of insects, toys, seafood, chocolate, and found photography you can imagine - funny and gorgeous and disturbing all at once. What I really enjoy about her work is how skillfully she manages to merge two- and three-dimensional images with her camera, something I've been particularly interested in these days.
Thus far it looks like Out of the Ark is only available in Japan, but here's hoping that it - and Utsu's work- finds itself overseas soon. Thus far Utsu has had shows in Budapest, Korea, China and her native Japan, but no U.S. appearances to date. Curators take note!
Here are some images of paper models like the ones I mention below. Papercraft is very popular in Japan, which provides me with a pretty amazing opportunity for creative research. These photo-based cutout models are like tiny, mass-produced variations on Oliver Herring's photo-based sculptural portraits. I love 'em.
If you're interested in excellent little things made from paper, check out PaperForest.blogspot.com - a really extensive blog focused on pop-up books, papercraft, and pretty much anything made out of paper.
Given my interest in the local sea/river life here, it seemed appropriate to take a trip to the Tokyo Sea Life Park this weekend, where the underwater ecosystems of the region are explored in-depth. Wow. What a worthwhile trip. It's a really well-designed aquarium, beginning with modest displays of some really unusual creatures and building up to a really great multi-level wave-tank pool display of local tidal pool and undersea life, and a HUGE, curved tank of monstrous, silvery tuna (the type everyone eats here as sushi) with ampitheater seating packed to the gills -pardon the pun- with interested onlookers. We arrived just in time for fish-feeding, which was pretty spectacular.
It was also a fantastic place for people-watching - indeed, sometimes they were all you could watch, 'cause it got pretty crowded. The displays were beautiful and often swayed with kelp and the waves, touch-pools filled with sea urchins, rays, nurse-sharks and starfish, and an above-tank viewing area where you can see how it all works.
I saw plenty of creatures I've never encountered before, including air-breathing, rock-hopping blennys, newborn jellyfish, and the spiky sea-cucumber below - many of which made Japanese monster-design seem so much less bizarre and more connected to nature. In terms of the everyday informing creative endeavors that might seem strange and otherworldly in another context, it was eye-opening. The gift shop was filled with surprises of its own, including a lot of really great paper models to fold into paper lobsters and fish. I bought several of these and I'm already thinking of ways to use the patterns for my own paper things.
Terue Yamauchi creates her conceptually-based projects a variety of media, exploring (among other things) themes of landscape, scale, human interconnection and human-made spaces. Most recently she’s turned her attention toward the relationships between humans and nature, and we’re all the luckier for it.
rge sheets of black paper and performances in structures she’s created. These drawings and actions are also translated other media, including an intimate video installation and a large-scale work on suspended plastic sheeting, with a composition based on overlapping tracings of the slugs’ designs.
