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imomusYesterday's aventures took us to Koenji -- and straight into a big crowd of obvious yakuza types, mincing menacingly outside the station -- to see Mujinto Production, one of the new galleries MoCA man Gabriel Ritter had recommended. It's a tiny space, currently showing wood-cuts by Sachiko Kazama -- sort of Toho heroes with trains for heads, or little graphs of house prices next to images of the type of property they represent. It's Gustav Doré crossed with Akira Yamaguchi. The links to the Kotatsu School centred around Mizuma Gallery were clear, and in fact Mujinto co-curator Rika Fujiki used to work at Mizuma. She's just about to publish a new book about Makoto Aida, and will spend the summer -- like so many art people -- trekking around Europe's big fairs (Venice, Munster, Kassel).
After seeing the gallery we wandered down the long, car-free shopping arcade that links Koenji and Shin-Koenji stations. I was in paradise -- I love this part of Western Tokyo. Halfway along the arcade we found a culture-junk store (clothes, old magazines, books) called Animal Yoko. As I walked in, "Sky Saw" off Eno's Another Green World started up. I loved the store's visuals -- the postcards tacked up in the changing room, the posters on the ceiling -- and asked the owner if I could take photos. He said yes, so here are a few.
Dotted throughout the store were drawings by an interesting artist, Daisuke Ichiba, a specialist in pervy Japanese sexual neorosis. His recurring motif seems to be schoolgirls with eyepatches, often sporting incongruous vaginas somewhere on their faces. You can see his drawings on his website; he's big in Spain, apparently. Here's a Madrid show he did, and here's a Paris one.
Next we headed to Gallery Sora to see a video piece by Takeshi Murata. Murata was born in the US and lives and works in New York. His video was a jaggy, psychedelic, scary thing featuring chimps. It reminded me of Black Dice records, but it could also have been the screensaver from hell, or an acid remix of Kubrick's 2001. And that was already pretty acid. It was nice to meet Chris Perez at the opening -- I knew him when he was a curatorial assistant at the Whitney, and now he runs his own gallery in San Francisco. It's about to expand into a huge warehouse in the Mission.
The day ended up in the sweaty rock-perch called Nest in Shibuya, where Gutevolk played support to Tujiko Noriko. Hirono played my favourite song, "Sing a Ring" (she told me she added it specially for me), and the Tujiko Noriko show started with a bang, with TN in a mask strutting synchronised dance moves with Paris electroclashers Exchpoptrue. Here they are doing a song which would have made Divine swell with pride, "Morning After Pill":
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Unfortunately -- and despite a constant turnover of collaborators, "asserting authorship" of their arrangements of Tujiko's statutary 80 bpm songs by basically bopping around behind laptops as the playback played back -- Tujiko's own set suffered somewhat by comparison. She has fantastic emotional intensity, but the songs lack structure and melody, and when you hear them end-to-end you feel like you're following the world's saddest yakimo seller on her rounds as she wails her plaintive wares in a distinctive but repetitive call, and a farting horse clatters and plods along behind her. It didn't help that Nest was hotter than a sauna. We left just in time to get home without having to pay a taxi driver $50. The street outside Nest felt vibrant and cheerful, better entertainment than the music going on up in the club. That's a risk you run in Tokyo; the street can always upstage you.
After seeing the gallery we wandered down the long, car-free shopping arcade that links Koenji and Shin-Koenji stations. I was in paradise -- I love this part of Western Tokyo. Halfway along the arcade we found a culture-junk store (clothes, old magazines, books) called Animal Yoko. As I walked in, "Sky Saw" off Eno's Another Green World started up. I loved the store's visuals -- the postcards tacked up in the changing room, the posters on the ceiling -- and asked the owner if I could take photos. He said yes, so here are a few.
Dotted throughout the store were drawings by an interesting artist, Daisuke Ichiba, a specialist in pervy Japanese sexual neorosis. His recurring motif seems to be schoolgirls with eyepatches, often sporting incongruous vaginas somewhere on their faces. You can see his drawings on his website; he's big in Spain, apparently. Here's a Madrid show he did, and here's a Paris one.
Next we headed to Gallery Sora to see a video piece by Takeshi Murata. Murata was born in the US and lives and works in New York. His video was a jaggy, psychedelic, scary thing featuring chimps. It reminded me of Black Dice records, but it could also have been the screensaver from hell, or an acid remix of Kubrick's 2001. And that was already pretty acid. It was nice to meet Chris Perez at the opening -- I knew him when he was a curatorial assistant at the Whitney, and now he runs his own gallery in San Francisco. It's about to expand into a huge warehouse in the Mission.
The day ended up in the sweaty rock-perch called Nest in Shibuya, where Gutevolk played support to Tujiko Noriko. Hirono played my favourite song, "Sing a Ring" (she told me she added it specially for me), and the Tujiko Noriko show started with a bang, with TN in a mask strutting synchronised dance moves with Paris electroclashers Exchpoptrue. Here they are doing a song which would have made Divine swell with pride, "Morning After Pill":
[Error: unknown template video]
Unfortunately -- and despite a constant turnover of collaborators, "asserting authorship" of their arrangements of Tujiko's statutary 80 bpm songs by basically bopping around behind laptops as the playback played back -- Tujiko's own set suffered somewhat by comparison. She has fantastic emotional intensity, but the songs lack structure and melody, and when you hear them end-to-end you feel like you're following the world's saddest yakimo seller on her rounds as she wails her plaintive wares in a distinctive but repetitive call, and a farting horse clatters and plods along behind her. It didn't help that Nest was hotter than a sauna. We left just in time to get home without having to pay a taxi driver $50. The street outside Nest felt vibrant and cheerful, better entertainment than the music going on up in the club. That's a risk you run in Tokyo; the street can always upstage you.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 03:22 am (UTC)all her collaborators looked like otaku to me, very good skills but no fun fashion
too many laptops on stage too... viva post laptop music !
Noriko was great nonetheless.
Antonin / Digiki
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 06:16 am (UTC)When I browsed hes website at first I thought hes a girl, somehow I was disappointted to realize it's a man.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 07:48 am (UTC)I always thought TN just smoked cigarettes and acted plaintively cool, so it's fun to see her doing choreographed dance moves! Cute!
I want yaki-imo!
so I can fart moreichiba
Date: 2007-06-02 08:01 am (UTC)we published a book in France specially done by Ichiba, i know you also like Aida and we did a special book for france aswell
more infos on our website
http://www.lezardnoir.org/
le lézard noir
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 09:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 09:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 10:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 02:59 pm (UTC)Hardly describes you Cap, so perhaps it's a poke at Nick's occassional post-Protestant, poverty preaching.
Thomas S.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 06:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 06:53 pm (UTC)Thomas S.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 09:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 12:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 03:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 07:33 pm (UTC)may I use this occasion to remind/announce interested readers living outside of Japan that we, at Sonore, have a few of Ichiba's books (http://www.sonore.com/artist/Ichiba+Daisuke/), and also a few original drawings (which aren't online but will be anytime soon). Please visit us and spend, spend, SPEND!!!
chienloup
(if you're interested by the original drawings you can mail me at aurelien at sonore dot com).
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 08:09 pm (UTC)Your t-shirt is nice, too. Looks like Reiko Tada did it or something.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-03 12:16 am (UTC)