TOKYOMANGO

Get your hand-printed limited edition TokyoMango t-shirt now (2 weeks only)

My friend Ben and I made a test run of TokyoMango t-shirts on Saturday. They're really nice, do you want one? If so, you can buy one here. Below are the details:

- All shirts are 100% cotton.
- Each t-shirt will be hand-silk screened by me and Ben on his Yudu machine. The shirt logo was custom-designed by Ben. Mango design courtesy of my web designer James.
- The Women's tees come in a t-shirt style (pistacio and white) and a spaghetti strap ribbed tank (yellow).
- The Men's tees come in orange and white. In the pic above, Ben is actually accidentally wearing a girl's tee, but you get the idea... the sleeves will be more manly on the one you get.
- You can choose a custom colored tee for $25. Just shoot me an email with your preference after you place the order.
- The sizes tend to run a little big (except for the tanktops). They might shrink in the wash.
- Some of you will receive a free surprise Japanese toy or gadget with your t-shirt! I'm just gonna randomly stick them into bags, so keep an eye out.
- We're taking orders over the next two weeks only, at least for this first printing. They'll ship at the end of those two weeks, when Ben & I will silkscreen them by hand.
- Last day to order is Monday, October 5th.

UPDATE: T-shirts are no longer for sale. Maybe we'll do another round sometime!

Que Houxo's fluorescent live art

Japanese artist Que Houxo does live performances where he draws giant flowers and other beautiful things using fluorescent paint in black light.

Link via NotCot

Firefly-themed ad campaign offers cool artsy e-card alternative

Hotaru-san (Mr. Firefly) is a fun web program that lets you send short messages to people in a slightly e-cardish way, except it's much more fun. The start screen shows a gymnasium full of people dressed in black full-body tights with giant light bulbs on their bums; they're supposed to be fireflies. When you type a message into the boxes at the top of the screen and press start, the firefly guys will get up, rearrange themselves, and spell out your message with their butt lights. Once you've created a custom message, you can send it to people by email. Cute idea! It's an ad campaign for web provider So-Net.

Link (Thanks, Kazuyoshi!)

Yoko d'Holbachie's surreal alien creature drawings

Yoko d'Holbachie is a young, super-cute surrealist artist who draws these strange colorful creatures. If you want to see her work in person, she'll be exhibiting at the London Miles gallery in London from Nov 19-30.

Artist's home page

Space-age robot art from the 1950s

Life Magazine has a great collection of robot art from Japan in the 1950s. Space travel was becoming a hot topic, science fiction was picking up steam, and toy companies were making all kinds of robot and space age-themed trinkets. Here are a few examples, with more at the Life web site.

Ultraman silhouettes decorate streets of creator's hometown

Electric transformer boxes in the town of Sukagawa in Fukushima Prefecture is currently adorned with these awesome silhouettes of Ultraman characters, to celebrate series creator and hometown hero Eiji Tsuburaya. More pics at Pink Tentacle.com.

I Love Me, a film about famous OCD artist Yayoi Kusama

I just came back from watching a documentary about celebrated avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama. I have always been fascinated with this woman — she's 80 years old, but ever since she was a teenager she has been unapologetically paranoid and OCD and has driven all her obsessions into her artwork, which largely consists of dots and lines and eyeballs. The documentary follows her through the process of making a series of 50 giant black-and-white permanent marker drawings for a traveling exhibition; the film starts off a bit slow with some pretty shoddy footage but improves later as it dives into some interesting detail about a childhood full of manipulation and depression, and her middle years as an active, radical member of the NY art community. There's a lot of great footage of her actually drawing, which is fascinating to watch, and it becomes evident through her frequent self-praise that she's really into herself. I wouldn't call her egocentric, exactly. It's almost as if she isn't able to see outside of herself and her obsessions; it's not a choice, it's a condition she lives with, and copes with through her art, which is indeed brilliant and original.

Related stories:
Amazing handsets designed by Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama, avant-garde genius
Yayoi Deki is the new Yayoi Kusama

Yoichiro Kawaguchi's alien sea creature sculpture

One of my favorite sculptures by Yoichiro Kawaguchi. I want to take this guy home so he can be friends with Ruby and Malcolm!

Related stories:
Artist/technologist Yoichiro Kawaguchi dresses up a traditional temple
Jellyfish screen by genius man

Learn Samurai techniques and watch Zatoichi at the Asian Art Museum

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is having what promises to be a fun event on Thursday, August 27, in conjunction with their Samurai exhibit. It's the latest in their Matcha series, and they're going to have a famous samurai swordmaster teaching Iaido. Also, they're showing Zatoichi.

Way of the Sword at the Asian Art Museum

Kimiko Yoshida's amazingly artsy self portraits

If you liked Kimiko Yoshida's amazing photographs of herself dressed up as futuristic brides, make sure you check out her other self-portraits, too. LifeLounge calls it "narcissism at its best" &mdash I'm gonna have to agree.

Kimiko Yoshida's main page

Andrea Innocent's cute Japanese ghost illustrations

Australian artist and TokyoMango reader Andrea Innocent makes these beautiful, fun illustrations of Japanese folklore and culture. She says:

Basically I am a story teller in pictures and Japan is my muse. A couple of my works have in fact been inspired by posts on your site.

So cool! The one shown above is of Kuchisake Onna, a legendary Japanese ghost whom I used to fear when I was a little girl. You can read about that here.

(Photo via innocentgirl's Flickr)

Comics feature morbidly funny suicides by surgeons, fetuses

Morbid-funny series of manga about different kinds of suicides by comic artist Shintaro Kago. Above is a surgeon suicide, and below, fetal suicide.

Lords of the Samurai, a must-see exhibit in San Francisco, opens Friday

San Francisco's Asian Art Museum has a special Samurai exhibit starting on Friday. It's the private collection belonging to former prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa, who comes from a famous samurai family that dates back 700 years. Hosokawa is the 26th generation.

I went to the media preview and met Mr. Hosokawa in person, which was cool! I remember when he was prime minister &mdash I was a kid, but I liked him instantly because he kinda looks like my dad. He was one of the only post-war PMs who was not a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. He also happens to be a talented ceramicist, and has some his art work on display, too.

The collection includes 6,000 items from the Hosokawa clan's possessions, including armor, samurai swords, and costumes from the times of Miyamoto Musashi. In fact, the exhibit includes original artifacts that belonged to Musashi, like his dual-length wooden swords. Amazing.

The museum will also be hosting fun events on Thursday nights starting next week for those of you who want some nightlife mixed in with viewing art. A must-see if you're in SF between June 12 and September 20.

Exhibit main page

Brazilian ad campaign of famous colorful monsters

A new-ish ad campaign for Cup Noodle in Brazil features these giant, colorful silhouettes of famous monsters like Godzilla and Gamera and the insides of their bellies. For example, here, you see a little man inside of one monster and a little Pikachu inside another. And a cup of noodle inside of the little man and a cup of noodle inside the little Pikachu.

Link via Pink Tentacle

Father-daughter team recreate The Pillow Book on silk scrolls to save the embroidery industry

Yoshihiro Kimura, a 65-year old man in Shimane Prefecture, is collaborating with his 41-year old daughter Chizuru to recreate the 11th century classic Makura no Soshi, or The Pillow Book, in embroidery on silk screen rolls. It's symbolic of their desire to keep embroidery alive in Japan, which has been losing sewing jobs to China and Southeast Asia. They expect it will take years. The Pillow Book is a famous piece of literature written by Lady Sei Shonagon, a court lady in the Heian period. It was made into a Hollywood film starring Ewan McGregor in 1996.

Link

Venn diagram showing Japan's relationship with karaoke

1971, by Tan Nuyen (Thanks, Steven!)

Keith Haring museum at the foot of a volcano

Did you know there's a Keith Haring museum at the foothills of a volcano in Yamanashi prefecture? It's actually from the private collection of Kazuo Nakamura, the museum director. I'd like to check it out!

Nakamura Keith Haring Museum

Issey Miyake's u-tsu-wa exhibit ends this weekend

21_21 Design site, the gallery designed by Issey Miyake in Tokyo Midtown, has a beautiful exhibit of bowls and vases by Viennese artist Lucie Rie called U-Tsu-Wa. It ends this Sunday, so if you want to see it, now's a good time.

Artsy surgical masks from Yoriko Yoshida

Artist Yoriko Yoshida has created a collection of beautifully designed surgical face masks. If you're paranoid about swine flu and you want to be wearing one of these, it might as well be artsy.

Yoriko Yoshida Workbook (Thanks, Scott!)

Amazing stereographic images of Tokyo

Photographer heiwa4126 used an ultra-wide fisheye lens to create 360°x180° panoramas using stereographic projection--a technique used in geometry to map a sphere onto a plane.

via Pink Tentacle and BBG

Inochiku-kun videos making waves on YouTube

If you've ever been to a Takashi Murakami art exhibit, you've probably seen Inochi-kun, the half-alien, half human boy who goes to school with other kids his age and has little adventures with love and lunch milk, etc. I don't know why now, but people have been circulating these videos—which I first saw at the Brooklyn Museum's © MURAKAMI exhibit last year—on YouTube.

(Thanks, Emily!)

Time lapse video of Shinjuku

TokyoMango reader Sam made this awesome time lapsed video of Tokyo. He says:

This one was shot over the span of a year with Canon DSLRs (mostly a 350d/Rebel XT), processed with Lightroom (raw files color adjustment and resizing)/VirtualDub (assembling the pics sequence as a movie, using various filterss to remove any shake or flicker)/Sony Vegas (editing). The original is 1080p HD and looks much much better.

He's a long-time Tokyo resident from France.

Black and white photograph of Ginza in the 50s

TokyoMango reader Dak Roland send me a link to this beautiful photo that his father took of Ginza in the 50s. He says:

My Dad was stationed in Roppongi, Tokyo Japan from 1954 until 1956, and took tons of photos when he lived there. I am in the process of scanning them, and he has many photos of this area of Ginza. Here is one...

(Photo by John Kenney)

Amazing handsets designed by Yayoi Kusama

OMG. I really want this Au cell phone designed by Yayoi Kusama. I don't even care that I can't use it in America. Kusama is a genius OCD artist who lives in Japan—I have written about her here and on io9 in the past. She is now pretty old and lives in a mental hospital in Tokyo, but still commutes to her nearby studio to make amazing things like these phones. The BBC video shows more.

Gum ad features Kimutaku being licked by a cartoon tongue

Nice ad for Xylish, which is actually a pretty tasty Japanese gum brand.

Link

Yuri Suzuki's sound art exhibit in Tokyo

If you're in Tokyo between now and May 2 and want to check out some cool functional art, definitely go see Yuri Suzuki's Physical Value of Sound at the Clear Gallery in Aoyama. If Suzuki's style reminds you of Maywa Denki, that's because the guy worked at the Tosa brothers' famous studio for five years before moving to London for school and work.

Robot signals beginning of future-themed weekend in Roppongi

Tonight in Roppongi happened already, but if you happened to have been there you would have seen the debut of this 7-meter tall aluminum fire-breathing robot called Giant Torayan. It's actually the creation of artist Kenji Yanobe, and it's part of an awesome art project that will transform the entire neighborhood into an alien robot-themed wonderland. (Image by AP)

Jay Horinouchi's lonely axelotl art

TokyoMango reader Jay Horinouchi is having an art exhibit in LA next month. I like this piece a lot. It's called Blind, and it reminds me of Erina Matsui's axelotls. (I interviewed her for my NPR piece earlier this month.) Anyway, here's his explanation of the piece:

I had just graduated from college so I was confused about a lot of things... finding the right job, working through a relationship, etc. The left side represents going with the grain, doing what's expected of me and finding contentment in what everyone else finds contentment in (very Japanese). The right side represents going against the flow, even if I'm alone in doing so. I wanted to evoke the thought of who really is "Blind" in this kind of scenario? To blindly follow your heart or blindly follow the crowd, which is worse? Haha, did that make sense?

Balloon art in Harajuku girl land

Love this balloon art that welcomes visitors to famous girly shopping street Takeshita Dori in Harajuku.

Artist/technologist Yoichiro Kawaguchi dresses up a traditional temple

Tokyo University professor and world-renowned CG artist Yoichiro Kawaguchi had this amazing exhibition at Yushima Seido, a temple in Ochanomizu, which ended yesterday. Lucky me, I was in the 'hood and caught the last bit of it, including a small closing event held by Kawaguchi himself. I wrote an article about him in Wired several years ago, so we had a little chat. He created these ultra super modern sea animal prototypes and planted them in front of the temple's architecture, creating this stark contrast between old and new that somehow perfectly depicted what Japan is today.

70s advertisements predict a cashless future with alien women

Look at this amazing credit card ad from the 70s. It features an alien woman holding the planet in one hand and a JCB card in the other. The tag line on the right reads: "Cash disappeared from earth?" And on the left, it claims that by the year 2xxx, all humans own a JCB card. Interestingly, while we are in year 2xxx now, Japan is still very much a cash culture.

via Pink Tentacle

Chikabo Kumada, pioneer of botanical art

The now-defunct PingMag has a great interview with a 97-year old guy from Yokohama who pioneered what we now call botanical art. His name is Chikabo Kumada; he was on track to become a graphic designer when, at age 26, he decided he'd rather work on children's books. "I love children," he says. "That’s why I started doing it. That was where my years of impoverishment began."

via Boing Boing

Katsura Moshino's cool disco era pop art

PingMag did an interview with Katsura Moshino, an illustrator whose works are iconic of the 80s disco era in Japan. He did cover art for musicians like DJ Krush, Mondo Grosso, and—more recently—The Orb. This one is called World Famous Final—it's an event poster from 1999.

Link

Blue Men with a uniquely Japanese twist

A couple months ago, TokyoMango reader Craig invited me to check out the Blue Man Group show in Tokyo. 

Blue Man Group was started in NYC 20 years ago by three guys. One of the guys had had a vision of painting his entire face blue and doing funny mute tricks since he was a kid, so he teamed up with a creative guy and a business guy to create an off-Broadway show. (The original blue men, Phil Stanton, Chris Wink, and Matt Goldman, are still involved in the organization—which makes it kinda cool, like a little family.)

The Tokyo production kicked off about a year ago—they built an IKEA-like blue warehouse-like building at the tail end of Roppongi Hills, re-engineered the program to fit a Japanese audience, brought over some blue men, and set up an elaborate stage that made cleaning up all the water and paint after each show relatively easy.

Booger girl and box-headed men at Design Festa

More fun stuff that Emily found at Design Festa:

I saw a guy carrying a giant pole that had a girl with a giant swinging booger attached to it. It was a performance art exhibit that used the entire convention hall as its booth—he just walked around saying sumimasen, sumimasen the entire time. 

Report from Design Festa, Asia's biggest art festival

Design Festa, the biannual two-day international freestyle art event, was held in Odaiba this weekend. It began in 1994 and is an outlet of expression for all kinds of artists ranging from amateurs to long time veterans. This year's event had a show of 2600 booths with over 7000 artists from more than 30 different countries. When I first walked in, I was bombarded with sensory overload -- french maids peddling knick knicks, middle-aged people dancing with cardboard boxes on their head, artists wearing gas masks and painting on giant murals, multicolored animation on theater-sized screens, and more. It was like I left reality and stepped into a trippy, artsy wonderland. Here are some snapshots of my little expedition. (by Emily Co)

The picture above proves the power of makeup—guys beware!

Nagi Noda's last music video and kuroko, an old theater trick

Last week, I posted about the unfortunate, way-too-soon death of one of Japan's leading ladies in contemporary art, Nagi Noda. The last thing she worked on was this music video and album art for Japanese singer MEG. In this video, Noda uses kuroko, a traditional Japanese theater technique involving several stagehands dressed completely in black, to make things appear to be moving on their own. Maybe I'm biased, but I think it's really cool how Japanese traditional arts blend so seamlessly with contemporary aesthetic—everything from this video, to kimono fabrics in fashion, to zen influences in interior design.

(Thanks, Aaron!)

Ryohei Tanaka's Serious and Not-so-serious Drawings

Ryohei Tanaka is a Japanese artist who does drawings, papercuts, and prints of funny-cute subjects, like this little girl and her olive friend. He has his work categorized as "serious" and "not so serious." Some of his stuff is currently on display at the Giant Robot store in San Francisco.

Erina Matsui's Sci-Fi Self-Portraits

Wow, I love this person's art. This person = Erina Matsui, one of artist collective Yamamoto Gendai's future feature artists. This piece is called Food Chain-Star Wars! (2008). Matsui is famous for her provocative self-portraits.

I Think Japanese People Should Be More Open: A Photo Exhibit

Photographer Keiichi Nitta is having a fun exhibit at the Constant Gallery in September titled "I think Japanese People Should Be More Open." I think the name of the exhibit and these three pics say it all. Make sure you check it out if you're in LA in September.

Mr.'s Pedophilic Pop Art (NSFW)

This giant anime girl head is the work of one of Takashi Murakami's Kaikai Kiki artists. He goes by the name Mr. and was first recognized by the contemporary art scene while drawing characters on the back of shopping receipts.

Mr. is best known for his slightly pedophilic otaku-Lolita drawings and installations, like the series depicting a normal-sized man (always naked) with his miniature-sized anime girl toy. A slightly NSFW example after the jump.

Apocalyptic Art Portrays Tokyo as Abandoned Dystopia

If Tokyo were to meet the apocalypse, or turn into a zombie-infested dystopia like Manhattan in I Am Legend, it will probably look a lot like this amazing Photoshopped image of Shibuya  created by blogger/illustrator Tokyo Fantasy.  Except in Tokyo, there would probably be giant cockroaches and lizards and crows romping the abandoned streets, and the lone warrior destined to save the world will be Ken Shimura. Or maybe Ichiro.

Tokyo Fantasy (via Pink Tentacle)

Origami Infiltrates High-End Fashion

I had no idea that the traditional Japanese paper-folding craft of origami had become such a huge global fashion trend. The Origami Blog showcases all different kinds of ways in which origami is infiltrating our aesthetic, from the leather Chloe clutch shown above to bookshelves to type fonts to haute couture fashion.

Akino Kondoh Artsy Video Features Creepy-Cool B&W Girl

This is a strangely mesmerizing animated music video created by Chiba-born artist Akino Kondoh. It features a folk-ish song about body-less children and a little Daria-esque morphing girl in black-and-white. Kondoh's work has been featured in museums across the world, including cities like Stockholm, Shanghai, and Boston.

Help Save the Totoro Forest

Did you know that Sayama Forest, the woods that inspired Hayao Miyazaki in My Neighbor Totoro, is in jeopardy of becoming victim to urban sprawl? In a creative effort to prevent this, Pixar Animations Studio is teaming up with a bunch of cool contemporary artists in a mega-auction fundraiser on September 6th. After that, starting September 20, the art will be displayed at the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum.

Totoro Forest Project main page

A Robot Meets a Little Doggie in Goro Fujita's Digital Art

 

Goro Fujita is a Japanese-born German artist who uses digital media to create cool depictions of robots interacting with animals and nature. He has a cube-and-sphere obsession, like me. (I like geometric shapes and things.)

Fujita's web site via io9

Slam Dunk Cartoonist Does Historical Manga with a Calligraphy Brush

You may not have heard of Takehiko Inoue, but you've seen his work. I, for one, was a huge fan of his 90s manga, Slam Dunk. It had the best characters and best action scenes ever. He's famous for doing pages and pages of manga where there are no words at all. Just facial expressions and action shots frozen as though captured by a professional sports photographer.

His new manga series, on display at the Ueno Royal Museum, is about the famous 17th century swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. To add a historical touch to his work, he used sumi ink and a calligraphy brush. True to his last-minute style, he was working on the giant centerpiece (a 3-meter-tall portrait of Miyamoto) until 3am the day the exhibit opened.

Inoue Takehiko on the Web (Thanks, Mary!)

Gajin Fujita's Graffiti-Meets-Ukiyo-E Art

Gajin Fujita is a LA-based Japanese-American artist who combines traditionally-inspired images with graffiti. His materials include semi-precious metals like white gold that he slabs onto wooden panels, plus spray-paint, plus stenciled images of cranes, geisha, samurai, and flowers.

His work is currently on display at the Haunch of Venison in London.

Functional, Creative Barcode Drawings

Design company D-Barcode came up with these creative alternatives to the conventional bar code. These actually work, and are currently being used on products sold in grocery stores across the country. It's a great example of the attention to detail and intricacy that the Japanese are known for—even for things that ordinarily don't have any artistic value. More pics after the jump.

 

What Afghanistan Looks Like as a Cute Anime Girl

There's a wonderfully cute new manga series called Afganisu-tan featuring Middle Eastern and Eastern European countries as animated characters hanging out. Each strip comes with a quick explanation educating readers about the countries. Cute and educational—the best combo ever.

Afganisu-tan main page via Boing Boing

Yuko Shimizu Draws Colorful, Dramatic, Crazy Chicks

Yuko Shimizu is a cool Japanese artist who does these dramatic, colorful illustrations for hot shot clients like MTV, Pepsi, Playboy, and M.A.C. Cosmetics.