artists you should know about part I: Chiaki Kamikawa

I've been seeing so much interesting new artwork in Japan that it seems only fair to share some of it with those of you reading from other parts of the world. I'm thinking to do a post a week (or something like that) about a Japanese artist or two that I think you should know more about.

First thing, I want to highlight the work of Chiaki Kamikawa. "Kamikawa" means "paper river" in Japanese, which seems a pretty appropriate surname given the nature of her work. She is currently working on a series of drawings and cardboard sculptures in which she invents curious shrines and ritual objects, then places them into imaginary cultures in which her abstracted characters spend time with them in a variety of ways. She's also one of the few artists I've met here who does work with small-press publications - right now she's making an amazing zine charting the imaginary family tree of various geometrically-shaped objects.

Raised in Yokohama and schooled in Edinburgh and Amsterdam, Kamikawa's work investigates cultural tradition, exoticism, and everyday life with a wry sense of humor and an amazing dexterity with graphite on paper. She is currently an artist-in-residence at BankART NYK (where I'm also working), so I peek in on what she's up to whenever I get the chance.

roof party

If you were to pass by our stairwell the other night, you'd know there was a party going on because of all the shoes piled outside the door. To celebrate all of our public artist lectures and also to make use of the excellent little roof garden attached to Nakamura-san's otherwise tiny little top-floor apartment, the artists in our apartment building (there are four of us) decided to throw a little party for our friends and fellow artists at BankART. We all trailed home, stopped at the 100-yen Lawson's for edamame crisps, gooey dango, and various types of booze, and climbed the four flights of stairs into the starry night. It was a really lovely evening filled with interesting conversation, sometimes incorporating three or more languages and involving a lot of animated gesturing and liberal use of digital pocket language dictionaries.

Thanks to Andy for taking these great photos with the digital SLR. My little compact couldn't handle the darkness, so I focused my attention on the food and giggling attempts at communication.

paper animals

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.

underwater

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.

fish food

a few images here of a project that Andy's up to, which I helped him document the other day: he's been cutting jellyfish and stingrays - local wildlife in the river here - out of konjac / konnyaku, a jellylike food made from a sort of potato-starch that's very good for your health. At first it just looks like something out of a strange cooking show (of which there are many here), but then we set off for the river's edge, to encourage some cross-cultural exchange between the artificial konnyaku creatures and the ones in the water.

hair river waterfall

I've been working on a 7-meter long drawing of hair on a roll of tracing paper -- something I've had in the back of my mind since I got here. I had the idea that I could hang it out the window of my third-floor apartment, toward the river below.

As I worked on it, lots of interesting associations began to arise - its connection to the flowing water of the river itself, or to a waterfall, connecting the body with the river, and also with the architecture of the building. Of course there are some obvious associations to the western fairy tale, Rapunzel, too. As I worked, my fellow artists at BankART began to point out out associations to Japanese history and folklore - most notably the tale of Genji and the very long, black hair of the Heian period, and the ropes of human hair used to make the Higashi-Hongan-ji temple in Kyoto (which I hope to visit in a couple of weeks)... not to mention how long black hair is commonly used to creep people out in Japanese horror films and manga.

The site-specific launch of the drawing was a little wilder than I'd planned, as I had not factored in the effects of summer breezes on seven meters of tracing paper. It's sturdy stuff, though, and caught the wind beautifully, giving us a range of interesting shots and a crackly, strange surprise for passers-by below.

artists talk!

Yesterday Andy and I gave a public talk at BankART on the themes and connections between our work, both individual and collaborative - generally focusing around themes of communication, the body and nature... particularly the river that flows outside our window and through Yokohama.

I think people weren't quite sure what to make of it all - Andy's work (below) is often punny and playful, though he speaks about it in a very conceptual way .. and my work seems to be really scary to most people here -especially the long black hair- though the way I talk about it tends to be a little less serious. It's all very much in-progress, but it was a good chance to start making clearer connections between some of the disparate things we've been working on here. A few images from the talk are posted here.