“But you are still thinking in terms of a life with a real face. The mask does not deceive and is not deceived. How about putting on a new mask, turning over a new leaf, and starting another life?”

(Kobo Abe, The Face of Another)

A look back at a look book from 2006, marking the first collection from Fugahum; a fashion label which frequently crosses over into the realms of  visual art and  instillation.

After 6 years as a designer with Yohji Yamamoto, Asuka Yamamoto formed Fugahum with Akiyoshi Mishima, an artist, art director, graphic designer, film director and VJ. Their work together is based on the notion of a fictional nation named ‘Fugahum’, and their aesthetic nestles somehwere at the boarders of street and fantasy; gothic and futuristic; macarbe and beautiful [read more]

To mark the opening of international pairing show at the MCA this week – some samples of Zon Ito’s work. Classically trained in ‘Nihongo’ painting, Ito’s stitched canvases often reference traditional Japanese landscape values while being highly innovative embroidery experiments. On show in this exhibition is a range of his subtle but distinctive needle-and-thread ‘paintings’ alongside video works and mini sculptural forms that look like strange fleshy organisms who want to be your friends for ever and ever [read more]

In this 1996 series of self-portraits Yasumasa Morimura transported his body into various lusted-after silver screen goddesses, to both comic and tragic effect. Having previously made himself into darlings of historical western art like the Mona Lisa,Vermeer’s girl with the pearl earring and Renoir’s busty barmaid, his fascination with iconic female identities provides a driving force for continual self-metamorphosis. With his ongoing exploration of the body, gender, race, identity and self-representation, it’s little wonder Morimura has identified so strongly with Frida Kahlo, who was the catalyst for his most recent series [read more]

When Makoto Azuma moved to Tokyo with his band, he didn’t expect to find himself in a flower shop. 12 years later, the artist and musician has cultivated a new approach to creative practice through his florist Jardins des Fleurs. Former curator of AMPG Gallery (where he installed one exhibition per month for two years) and previously featured at Milan Design Week and colette in Paris, Makoto’s green projects are sprouting a healthy reputation far outside of Tokyo. We present a sampling of his work here [read more]

In the traditional, highly refined Japanese artform of banraku puppetry, the three men required to manipulate each puppet are in clear view to the audience. Because the art and the labour are exhibited simultaneously, the artiface of it because an integral part of the performance rather than something to disguise. In a similar way, this film makes no attempt to appear natural and is self-conciously highly constructed and stylised [read more]

If 4 Bonjour’s Parties were pound puppies, you’d be hard-pressed picking out which one to take home with you. There’s the lead vocalists, Koji Ueno and Ayumu Haitani, with their big floppy ears and stickered suitcases full of glockens, bongos, rap tops and ‘noise’. Don’t forget Daisuke Kurihara, with his glossy locks and beatific bass-playing. Yukiko Hamada and Tomomi Shikano? Stars in their eyes, wind instruments under their arms. Masashi Tabei prefers snaps, sax, and Indian curry. Nature and nekos are the guitar player’s favourites. With such an adorable assemblage, it’s no wonder that what we hear is cotton-candy pop, that they describe as “sweet, sometimes drowsy” [read more]

Risa Nakazawa works as an artist coordinator and marketing manager for GAS Japan. As a company, GAS does so many things that we feel slightly dizzy writing them down. Through the GASBOOKS publishing arm, CALM & PUNK GALLERY and 20,000,000 fragments (20MF) fashion label, GAS provides a platform for artists all over the world to showcase their work to a wider audience. Recently, GAS also started workshops that connect kids with artists to hopefully “make world little bit happier with the creative mind-set”. Risa took time out to chat briefly with us about the latest GAS projects [read more]

Do blank canvases make you nervous? Why not make like Ushio Shinohara and show them who’s boss with a few good punches in their blank faces?! [read more]

For his current exhibition at bld gallery in Tokyo, Kenji Yanobe has created an installation of Mini Toyarans, based on his iconic Giant Toyaran sculpture. Part man, part child and in a nuclear suit, Toyaran is modelled on a ventriloquist’s dummy used by Kenji’s father. Running until August 9, the exhibition features a legion of Mini Toyaran. This small army might stand at 10% of the size of their predecessor, but they are 100% as fascinating (and frightening!) [read more]

Created by Taku Satoh Design Office, this campaign for Issey Mikaye’s latest Pleats Please collection is giving us hungry eyes [read more]

Hand sculpted and flawlessly designed, Hakusan’s porcelain is iconic in both its form and history. The company’s legacy began over eight generations ago in a small factory based in Hanami, Nagasaki [read more]

In a short space of time Kazuya Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA have achieved international acclaim with projects around the world such as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Louvre Annex, Lens, France; the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio; and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan [read more]

Takashi Homma wields his camera with the exactitude of a surgeon. Tokyo’s dusky suburbs, rigid parking lots, discarded McDonald’s cups, miniscule rooftop gardens and shadowy shopping window reflections all yield to his crisp gaze. His Tokyo Children and Tokyo Teens – dubbed ‘homo transcendants’ in an essay by po-mo maverick Douglas Coupland – are placed on par with the city itself; its living embodiment, inscrutable, chilly, endlessly intriguing. Interestingly, the doe-eyed child offered up as ‘My Daughter’ in a series is not in fact Homma’s, but a friend’s – is fiction or form here stronger? [read more]