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show in NY tomorrow!!!

Just in case anybody's still checking this blog, I will be in a group show starting tomorrow May 23rd.

here's the info & press release:

"Sticky, Messy, and Sweet" - opens Friday May 23rd, 2008 from 6-8pm
hpgrp Gallery
32-36 Little West 12th Street
New York, NY 10014
212-727-2491
http://hpgrpgallery.com/contactus.html - for directions--------------------------------

hpgrp gallery New York presents “Sticky, Messy, and Sweet”
May 23rd, 2008 – June 21st, 2008

It seems these days that Japanese art is hot or new or one of the next great things. Murakami’s enormous retrospective exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum is an obvious milestone but the range of group shows and smaller exhibitions in galleries through out the city in the past year or two featuring art by Japanese artists have grown exponentially. Curator and Little Cakes gallerist Hanna Fushihara Aron presents her perspective on an under recognized faction of Japanese artists.

“Sticky, Messy, and Sweet” focuses on a particularity found not only in contemporary Japanese art but also in its culture where at first glance things may look candy colored sweet but there are other layers and depths which are opposite to the stereotypically orderly and clean image that outsiders have of Japan. The country being both historically xenophobic and self-conscious has the tendency to hide the unkempt, obsessive, or perverted underbelly. As one example, many have not heard about the growing number of young homeless in Japan. As seen in a recent NHK (Japan’s PBS) documentary, teenage runaways use “Manga Kissa” or “Manga Cafes” as cheap places to sleep overnight. The tiny rooms normally used to surf the net or sit and read comics offer only a lounge chair to sleep sitting upright in. During the day these kids might wear Hello Kitty bottled perfume to hide their unwashed body odor and sport their one and only in style outfit but at night they go back into the world of shadows. Another example can be seen in Mike Mills’ documentary “Does your soul have a cold?” which follows five people living with depression in Japan, a nation where the word for depression has only started to be known widely for less than ten years. Anyone “sick” should not be seen. Anyone with a hint of the sniffles should wear a face mask to protect others from getting sick.

This is not to say that this show is about depressing subject matter. On the contrary, the show is brightly colored and swirls with emotions and spontaneity. The references made were to give an idea of “What is shown widely” and “What is not shown as widely” especially when it comes to what is representative of Japan. “Sticky, Messy, and Sweet” shows other existences and experiences contrary to the slick and commodified or cutesy beyond belief. Although some the participants have graduated from prestigious art schools both in Japan and the United States, the others are more self-taught and could be referred to as being somewhat “Otaku”, fixated on anime or manga or on any other hobby, which in and of itself labels them to be outside the masses.

Some of the artwork in this show physically represents all three adjectives in the title; some a combination of two. Ai Tsuchikawa’s obsessive drawings filled with miniature fishy shmoo characters, rainbow flares and wirls are drawn on taped together pieces of paper, her installations of found objects covered in plastic “slime” epitomizes the idea of “Sticky, Messy, and Sweet”. Yui Kugimiya’s thick and goopy oil paintings cut and sectioned by colorful strands of yarn are gross and cute at the same time. Mumbleboy and Reiko Tada use craft to get sticky and messy. Gunji Yusuke uses scotch tape to put together little plastic bubbles holding drawings as if they were idea bubbles. Chie Fukao uses what is immediately around her like her own bed sheets to make an imaginary rabbit character’s resting area. Akinori Shimodaira uses simple, translucent brush strokes to create his dreamy, blurry, paintings.

With this show, the curator hopes to give a glimpse of another side of the Japanese psyche; one that goes beyond the polite exterior. She hopes to delve deeper and explore the more untamed.

hpgrp gallery New York
32-36 Little West 12th Street, 2nd Floor
(Between 9th Avenue & Washington Street)
New York, NY 10014
212-727-2491
http://www.hpgrpgallery.com
Gallery Hours - Tue-Sat 11am-6pm, Sun 12pm-6pm

Site renewal

Mumbleboy site is renewed. This may be the first time that I've renewed the whole site. It still needs a lot of work, so if you have any feedback, let me know.

NYC is a monster

So, I was in NYC for the first time since moving to Portland in May to do an art show with Kao (as Mumbreeze) at our friend Hanna's Little Cakes Gallery. We were there for like 4 days and we're back already, but it was really fun. The first 2 days was mostly spent setting up the show; making big steps out of cardboard for the paper dolls and a big robot head covering for the video monitor. We enlisted the help of our friend Nobuko (she has an album coming out from music related later this month) and we managed to build and paint them in good time. Just as I felt when we made the big cardboard robots in Tokyo, I had the urge to do a big show with a whole bunch of cardboard robots and things. With video monitors inside and maybe even moving parts! Well, to do that, we'll need a big space, a lot of cardboard and paint and plenty of time to make them. If any of you out there have such resources to offer, do let me know. After the cardboard stuff was completed, Hanna's husband and artist David helped us out with hanging the 2-D stuff. This is the part I usually don't enjoy so much, but David is really good at it and enjoys the process, so he really helped us out figuring it out and then he did most of the hanging. The next day, the show opnened at 1pm. Because the gallery is so small, Hanna chooses not to have openings, so we didn't have an overwhelming amount of people there at any given point, so it was more relaxed and people could look at the work and we could talk to them and stuff. People seemed to be into the work, especially the dolls and the video.

After the first day, we had more free time, so we hung out with friends a lot and went out to dinner, played Wii and stuff. I'd never played it before, but it's really fun especially with a lot of people. Kao turned out to be really good at it. (I was pretty bad for the most part except Wii boxing.) It's funny though I don't think when I actually lived in NY, I really enjoyed the company of my friends as much as I did this time. I don't know if it was because I always dreaded the long subway ride home or that I'm just more relaxed and balanced out mentally or something. I guess it's good to have a little distance and then you are able to really appreciate your friends for the great people that they are.

Also, it never seemed to bother me much when I lived there, but after being away and then coming back, NY seemed very dirty, noisy and with lots and lots of obnoxious people. In Portland, it used to shock me a bit when people were so nice to you when you went shopping and stuff, but after having got used to that, it was just as shocking to be treated badly back in NY. It's hard to imagine now how I lived there for so long (about 13 years), and I think it must take some mental toughness for people to keep on living there. Either that or the city will start to wear you down. Anyway, now that I have more of a perspective, I don't think I will move back there to live again. I'm sure I will go visit there once in a while still, but I'm quite happy living in Portland at the moment.

Super Heroes Return

Hello, all! Sorry for not updating in sometime. I don't know if you all pay much attention to this blog or not, but I thought I should at least make announcements when I am doing something. So, as you see above, we (me and Kao) are doing an art show called "Super Heroes Return" which will be opening very soon at the Little Cakes Gallery in NYC from september 6th to the 30th Fridays - Sundays 1 to 6pm (or by appointment). It's sort of partly the same stuff as the "Super Heroes" show me and E*Rock did in Tokyo earlier this Summer, but instead it's mostly our (Mumbreeze) artwork except for the video.

Little Cakes is at:
625 East 6th Street, #1B
New York, N.Y. 10009

Please do come and check it!

Summertime Desktop

I think this has so far been the most pleasant summer I've had in many many years. Summer was something more to be endured and not enjoyed so much. I remember just sweating it out in my old Queens apartment and having a minor headache probably caused by the heat. Anyway, here in Portland, it's so much cooler that even without an AC, I'm totally comfortable indoors.

Anyway, if you are a one of the very few subscribers to my YouTube channel, you may have noticed that I've uploaded a new video there which is the one above this text. It's a music video of Digiki's "Desktop Music". The video quality is pretty terrible, but I think you can get a faint idea of it. It's hard for me to judge my own work, but so far friends whom I hold their opinion highly have told me that it's good, so I'm happy and encouraged by that. I should put a better quality quicktime of it somewhere, so let us hope that I keep my word on that. I'd actually been thinking that making video is a difficult thing because it's a continuing flow of images. You may like an image or a sequence of images, but even with something as short as a music video, it's unlikely that I feel that way about the entire thing. I guess that's why most music videos are made by a group of people and not by just one person. Anyway though I will keep at it and maybe one of these days, I will make a video that I am 100% happy about.

Oh, I'm probably sounding not so enthused about this video, but I was very happy to do it. It's actually my first music video with live footage. It was really fun to do the shoot and then to work with that. Anyway, I hope you get some enjoyment out it too.

contradicting ranting

We had our first guest to our new place and she has been staying here the last few days. I don't have a car, but we decided to go see some sights of Oregon, so we rented a car and drove to Central Oregon. I'd been to Bend, Oregon a long time ago, but hadn't really notice how much variety of terrain there is in this state. My image of Oregon was mostly lush green forests, but there is dessert and a lot of tall snow capped mountains and valleys and more. Anyway, our friend is from Japan and wasn't used to driving in the States, so I became the navigator. I wasn't driving myself, but it had been so long since I took an active role in the act of driving, so I noticed a lot of things had change since I drove regularly which is more than 10 years ago. Most surprising was the price of gasoline. I think it used to be like I could fill the tank with like $12, but I think now it's more than $40. That's crazy. I don't know how or why people pay that kind of money and drive daily.

The other thing I've noticed is that even though Portland is a relatively eco-conscious city, still most people don't think much of how critical things have become with global warming. The other day, I went to a regular supermarket and told the cashier lady that I don't need any bags as I had my own and the lady was like "you do whatever you like, honey". The lady obviously doesn't think not using grocery bags is all that important and it doesn't really change much in the big picture, but I feel I ought to do what I can anyway. I think it's really gotten to the point where we all really have to do things differently. I think if we keep on doing things the same way, things will become noticeably worse in just a few years.

It's maybe contradicting for me to be talk about going driving and then talk about doing things to stop global warming. I'm thinking it's OK to go drive once in a while and see some places, but I don't think driving everyday everywhere is really necessary especially in a city like Portland. If it's something that didn't effect everyone everywhere, then just those of us who want to can do these things, but even if a country like Iceland uses alternative energy source like hydrogen all throughout the country if the other countries don't reduce their CO2 emissions, climate change won't discriminate and effect them as well, so I know it's not really fun to read stuff like this, but I feel like I have to rant about it just the same. If you don't really care about it, but you've been annoyed by weather that's out of whack, that's likely a direct result of us humans polluting the atmosphere.

PDX

back in Portland. The "Superheroes" show just finished in Tokyo. And now I'm getting back into daily life. Riding my bike around the city for errands and starting to do some artwork again. It's nice to just make art without any commitments. It was great to do the show in Tokyo, but towards the end, it got really hectic and I don't know if I was really being creative or just trying to make work presentable. Now there's no pressure to finish work, so I'm just making stuff impulsively and experimenting. The picture you see above is a new work in progress. I'm thinking it'd be nice to do a low key local show here during the summer, but if you know me, you know I hate approaching galleries and stuff, so we shall see if that happens or not.

Tokyo detour

Another month and a half has passed since my last entry.
Since then, I have been in Tokyo and have made an art show with E*Rock at the hpgrp gallery tokyo in Harajuku. It's been open since the 14th, so just 1 week ago. I guess it would've been good writing material to write about all that when it was happening, but I was really too pre-occupied to do so. Anyway, I've been thinking that it's better to write more often even if I don't have any big news to report. Also, until now, I tried to make a photoshop collage for each entry, but usually I end up spending so much time to do that and so I didn't really have the time to do that often either. So, I think maybe that I won't bother trying to make an original image for each entry if I don't have the time. The image for this entry is a T-shirt I made with iron-on print along with some hand-drawn elements. It's sort of a first trial, so it's kind of shabby, but I maybe making more and better ones in the future. I have a couple of weeks left here in Tokyo and then I'll be heading back to Portland. I was only there for like 3 weeks before I came here, so I'm looking forward to going back and settling down into daily life. It's been a lot of fun here though. Especially last week with the show's opening and then hanging out with E*Rock, Ian, Selena, Koshiro, Shawn & Yoshimi. As far as I can tell, the show's been received well and although I think I'm really just starting over making fine art, I'm pretty happy with the show over all. Anyway, so I hope to be making entries more often here.

I have moved

I guess it has been quite a while since my last entry. Over 3 months. A lot has happened since then. Most of you know I reside in NYC, but that's no longer the case. I have moved to Portland, Oregon, all the way on the other side of the continent. I had been thinking about it for a few years to do so and I have many reasons, but probably I just needed a change of scenery after living in NYC for more than a decade. To move in NYC would have made things more difficult financially and I wanted to move to a place where I didn't have to worry so much about paying the bills and have time to do more art. Also, I had been going to Japan quite often in the past few years and I probably will continue to do so, so Portland is a little closer and the airfare is slightly cheaper. Besides, Portland is a really nice city. I'd only been here a few times a few days at a time, but now that I am here going about daily business, I'm really noticing how nice it is. Anyway, now that I have made the move and am settling in, I hope to update this blog more often. I still haven't deleted all the spam in the comments, so I can't receive any comments unfortunately, but feel free to drop me a line if you feel like it.

Getting re-started

Happy New Year!
I am back in the US. I guess I only managed to write one entry the whole time I was in Japan. I had a great time, but I must admit that I really slacked off on work and my work and stuff. I did load up on material to work with as well as being inspired quite a bit, so I will now get back to a more creative mode. The collage you see above is the first one I'd done in a while, but I think it came out fairly well. It's hard to tell as sometimes, when I look at stuff I'd done a while ago, I have different reactions to them.

You may have noticed that this blog has been spammed in the comments section to q quite ridiculous degree. It happened just in a few days span. Before that, I might have gotten a few per day, but when I didn't check for a couple days, all of a sudden I had about 2000 comments all of which I assume is spam. I should've done something right then, but I let it be for another day and then it was up to more than 3000 comments. So, I regretfully decided to turn off the commenting. I'm sure if I let it be, it would have gone out of control to the extent that I might have had to move the blog altogether. Anyway, so unfortunately, even if you wanted to you can't comment on this blog for the moment. I hope to fix this situation, but first I have to manually delete all the spam. As far as I know, there isn't a fast way to do this. I have to put a check next to each comment and delete 10 of them at a time. I think if I had the patience to sit through this boring process, I figure I can do it in about 5-6 hours, but since I don't, I think it may take me 2 weeks to a month of doing a litttle at a time. After I've delted all of them, I hope to turn the comments on once again. In the meantime, if you have something to say about any of the entries, please send me a direct email. I really do like to getting feedback from y'all.

Wonderful Peoples

Time flies!

I've been in Tokyo for 2 weeks now.

After coming back from Miami, there were some nice surprises waiting for me. There was a package from E*Rock(Audiodregs) with new albums by Lullatone, O.Lamm and Melodium. All really great. If you haven't seen it yet, I made a video for O.Lamm, btw. Another nice surprise was the book "Neighborhood" which was a book put together by Rinzen. It's about the remix project that they did which used dolls which were passed on from one artist to another. They were kind to invite me to participate in it. Anyway, the book is really nice. It's definitely worth a look. Another nice encounter before coming to Tokyo was going to see F.S. Blumm play and having a brief conversation with him. It was the night before I came here, so I didn't have much time and I couldn't even stay long enough to see the second set he did, but it was really great. I had seen him play as part of Kinn which is another band he does, but it was really great to see him play solo and to talk to him. Another friend of mine told me that Frank (F.S. Blumm) is the coolest person she's ever met and I really feel that too.

When meeting people in the U.S., I often get the feeling that, whoever I am talking to, they would much rather be talking with someone else, someone more fun to talk to or whatever. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I don't really get that feeling so much when meeting people from other places like Europe or Japan.

I'd been fortunate to have very nice encounters with friends since I'd been back in Tokyo. I met with Ian, Selena and Harmen like 2 days after I'd been back and then I met them and Shawn and Yoshimi(Lullatone) 2 days after that. And then, I met Shimon, David and both of Kiiii. I met more people after that too, but it's like every 2 or 3 days, I see friends who I haven't seen in a while and I have a good time. Maybe it's also because we are all getting older and more easy going too.

Other than that, the best thing I've seen since I've been here is definitely the Shinro Ohtake show. 3 floors of a museum filled with his work from childhood to now. It's definitely one of the best art shows I've seen ever. Unfortunately for all of you who haven't seen it, it's already finished, but I have a feeling that his work will be seen throughout the world in the coming years.

Today, I'm off to visit Kao's parents and then I will be back for new year's eve in Tokyo (Kawasaki to be precise).

Sunburnt in December

So, I am in Miami. My 3rd day here. The pictures you see are from the Skywalkers parade which happened yesterday. I don't know if I can really do justice explaining in words how awesome it was, so I won't even try. Anyway though I neglected to put on sunblock and I am still feeling the effect of the power of our sun. It's unbelievable coming from freezing NYC to this place. We're wearing long johns and mittens in NYC and people here are runnning around practically naked. I thought melanin challenged peoples like the Paper Rad folks might need sunblock, but I didn't think I would need it myself. WRONG. Even in Winter, the sun's mighty rays can be quite deadly to the skin. Fortunately, today it was cloudy. I was scared to walk outside even for 15 minutes to get to the nearest drug store to get some sunblock. I will fly back to NYC early tomorrow, so it looks like I won't have to face the full force of the sun again for some time. I do like the sun, but maybe not so much of it at once. I do like Winter, but probably just as long as I can keep warm inside.

Heading South

As I wrote a couple of entries ago, tomorrow I will be going to Miami to take part in the Art Basel's opening balloon parade eintitled "Skywalkers". This'll be my 2nd trip to Miami.

Also, if you've known my work for a while, you might know that every year around this time, I design a calendar for a store called Airmarket. The 2007 calendar is now out and available there. Usually, I get a bunch to send out to friends and stuff, but with the hectic schedule, I won't be able to do so this year, at least not until I'm back from Japan mid-January. After I'm back from Miami, I'm off to Tokyo 2 days later, so if you do want one, please go to Airmarket (97 3rd Av. NYC) and get one. I think it's free with a purchase or you could buy one for a few bucks.

Well, I have a very early flight (7:50am), so I am now gong to bed.
I'm sure I will have plenty to write about from the trip.

Error

I'd been writing an entry for at least half an hour and when I try to save it, I got an error. (my itunes had been using up all my bandwidth downloading podcasts when I didn't even ask it to do so.) Well, now I have neither the time nor the will to write it all over again. However I did want to upload this collage, so here it is. Hope you are all having a nice weekend. (If you are reading it during a weekend wherever and whenever you may be.)

Our baby is up for sale!

Me and Kao had been making this papier mache doll for some time. It was done a couple of weeks ago. What is it for? For fun mostly, but the practical reason why we made it is for this auction which takes place as part of Art Basel which is coming up in like 10 days in Miami. And why was I asked to partcipate in it? (because I don't have any galleries that represent me) It's because I'm taking part in a balloon parade that the friends with you is putting together and they've asked the participating artists (paper rad, ara peterson, David Choe and some others) to put something in the auction. The parade and the auction are both sponsored by Scion (a car manufacturer that I'm not familiar with) which I didn't really know when I agreed to participate in the parade. People who know me know that I'm not a big fan of cars, so I may have thought twice about this event if I'd known about this sponsor, but I think I still might have done it anyway. I mean, how often do you get to design a huge balloon? Anyway, the auction thing is sort of secondary, but I had in mind from the beginning to make sort of a large scale (larger than what I've made before) papier mache doll. After I'd already began with the doll, I heard from the event staff that, I have the option of making an artwork using a blank Scion car model. It wasn't a requirement and I really didn't want to do that, so I declined that offer and made the doll. Actually, it was mostly Kao that made it. I just sort of designed the shape and then drew the underlining features, but it was Kao who built it and then did all the painting. It would've never come out as good if I did it all by myself. Anyway, the auction started today. You can click here to see it (scroll down to lot #424) and if you have a few hundred lying around, you could bid for it. I think my piece is maybe the cheapest one with the starting price of $150 and as I am an unknown in the "Art" scene, it probably won't get so many bids. The thing is though, I won't see a cent from its proceeds. I think it's for charity, but I'm not sure what sort. I hope it's not something like giving bio-tech food to the 3rd world. Anyway, I'm very happy (Thanks to Kao) with this piece and I hope it goes to someone who actually like it as much as we do.