Kathy’s eerie and ritualistic performances are like nothing else; think moulin rouge meets meets victorian morality meets lucifer rising. And they are one of our first confirmed guests for the huge Kirin Big In Japan event that is taking place this December at CarriageWorks [read more]
Tatzu Nishi’s homes are finished! The instillations I wrote about several weeks ago are about to open to the public, and the artist will be discussing his work in a free public talk at the AGNSW on October 2 from 1-2.30pm. Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is also holding a solo show for him from October 3–24 so we can all get totally Tatzud out. [read more]
For his AW09 collection Elizabeth or Spain, Dress 33 designer Toshikazu Iwaya used elements from Elizabethan England (remembered as the Golden Age of England, 1558–1603) and the height of the Spanish Empire (Spain’s so-called Golden Age, 1521–1643). [read more]
‘I really want to see nothingness in an exact way. But what I find always has meaning. So I try to wash out the meaning.’ Takehito Koganezawa is best known for his digital media, sound and light instillations, but he is also prolific in the low fi medium of drawing, forever documenting and distorting the world with pencil and sketchbook. [read more]
A look back at the psychedelic posters of Aquirax Uno, a prolific and vastly influential graphic artist and illustrator of the 60’s and 70’s who had a penchant for the erotic and the weird [read more]
The British author Angela Carter was one of many to become fascinated with the ephemerally of things in Tokyo, which she described as a city of ‘constantly changing appearances, all marvellous but none tangible.’ [read more]
Chu Enoki’s public interventions in the ’70s and ’80s shook up the divides between public and private spaces, art and the every day, spectatorship and participation. In more recent years the artist has moved away from body and performance based works towards sculpture and instillation that utilise found objects and materials including weaponry, ammunition and industrial detritus; such as this sci-fi city skyline made from highly polished junk metal bits [read more]
With their mind-boggling tailoring and cute cute cuteness, designer Eri Utsugi’s clothes are surprisingly laidback and wearable when they’re off the runway (basketball-sized fur mittens optional of course) [read more]
Meiro Koizumi is best known for his video art, but here’s a peek into his collage work. By painting onto magazine pages he changes XXX into G-rated scenes, but the transformation is never quite complete. Whether his women are depicted with pretty dresses in candy-coloured settings or as grey twin towers, there’s always a hint of the image’s naughty past showing through beneath the surface. If censorship was always this artful, I’d be all for it. [read more]
Found on every civilized continent, the spiral has been called the most ancient symbol of all. The damn thing is everywhere: in flushing toilets, in our fingerprints and dna composition, in the very structure of the galaxy [read more]
Nagi Noda’s death on September 7 2008 robbed the world of an unbridled imagination that fed on surrealist pop and hilarious, super-kawaii fantasy. Lest we forget. Not that we could even if we wanted to: everything she touched became infused with her idiosyncratic, candy-coloured exuberance, leaving a vivid impression on all who were exposed to her work.
A film director, graphic designer, toy maker, art director and fashion designer, Nagi was born in Tokyo and spent 5 years in New York before returning to Japan in ‘87. She worked as a multi-disciplinary new media artist for various projects and exhibitions; created ad campaigns for clients including the La Foret department store in Harajuku, Nike and Coca Cola; started a fashion label with artist Mark Ryden, and made countless music videos for the likes of Cut/Copy, Scissor Sisters and Japanese pop star Yuki [read more]
Why bring art to the home when you can bring home to the art? Two new homes are currently being constructed outside the Art Gallery of NSW, swallowing up Gilbert Bayes’ monumental bronze equestrian statues. When they open up at the start of next month visitors will be able to enter via a ramp into a cosy bedroom or living room – perfectly reconstructed with windows, carpets and furnishings – with the larger-than-life hoarse and rider structures protruding out of the floor or bed. The project is the latest from Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi who has been building domestic spaces around public monuments, artworks and streetlights for over a decade. By incorporating familiar, pre-existing structures and images into temporary, intimate domains he literally recontextualises them, forcing us to reconsider the public/private divide. [read more]
Meet the Trippple Nippples, your new best friends / favourite Tokyo fem performance outfit. They will bring to the relationship their unhinged DIY aesthetic, an inimitably intense live energy and a song about teaching your nipples to speak. ‘Express’ yourself! [read more]