BEAUTY: Mixed Media--Haruki Ogawa

Japanese painter and mixed media artist Haruki Ogawa embeds paint and industrial materials in crystal-clear acrylic resin, creating arresting little cubes of texture.

Top to bottom: Conceptual Sculpture; Object #1; Object #5; Semi Object #2 (detail); Semi Object #2; Three Dimensional Drawing #1; Three Dimensional #2

Haruki Ogawa at Frantic Gallery:
http://www.frantic.jp/en/artist/artist-ogawa.html

BEAUTY: Sculpture--Mihoko Ogaki

Japanese conceptual artist Mihoko Ogaki's series "Milky Ways--Breath" features fibre-reinforced plastic figures of dying or dead people with entire galaxies or even universes inside them. Small holes in the surface of the figure allow star maps to be projected onto the surrounding walls. This simple yet profound image is breathtaking in its scope of meaning. The pieces are rife with the ideas of cycles, transformation, transmogrification, macro and micro, and our connection and place in the reality around us.

http://www.mihoko-ogaki.com/index.html

I am sure I have posted these images before, but here they are again because they are so relevant to the art of Ogaki.

Gassho Zikuri

Gassho zikuri is an ancient style of Japanese dwelling known as minka. The steep pitched roofs help snow to slide off, preventing water from getting inside and preventing the thatch from rotting. Gassho zukuri villages were listed as World Heritage sites by UNESCO in 1995 and this example in Shirakawa in Gifu prefecture will be illuminated for tourists until February 16, 2013.

"Ozu: Passageways"

Assembled by film scholar Kogonada, this hypnotizing survey of scenes and shots in halls, alleys, and passageways by legendary Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu is brief but lovely. Despite the presence of people, it feels lonely...perhaps because they are all rushing around, and we, the viewers, are isolated, watching them all pass by. Ozu was known for his style of cinematography in which the camera rarely moves and is usually positioned below the eye level of the actors.

The music is a track called "A1" from the ambient release "Stare" by Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm (I have a feeling I will be posting something about this wonderful collaboration soon).

I previously posted a Kogonada video in which he surveys the late Stanley Kubrick's one-point perspective camera framing, here.

Go to Kogonada's Vimeo channel to see the other compilations he has made: Tarantino tends to shoot up at his actors from the ground, and Wes Anderson likes to shoot scenes of tableaux, hands, and tables from above.

http://vimeo.com/kogonada

BEAUTY: Photography--Natsumi Hayashi

On her site "yowayowa camera woman diary" (yowayowa means weak or feeble in Japanese), photographer Natsumi Hayashi takes charming self portraits of herself going about her daily activities while floating over, levitating in, and flying across various locales in Japan. She's just a girl who can fly, and that's anything but feeble.

Regular readers know that I am a sucker for any image of anyone floating or flying since I have had near-nightly flying dreams my entire life.

http://yowayowacamera.com/

"The Gentleman's Club"

Decadent dandies à la Des Esseintes in AU REBOURS...

"The Gentleman’s Club" is a feature by photographer Matt Irwin and stylist Shun Watanabe for the Autumn/Winter 2012-2013 issue of Vogue Hommes Japan, its final issue. The editorial features models Noah Huntley, Norbert Michalke, Tom Pricone, Ben Shaul, Mark Stevens, and Chris Tschupp. Regular readers will know that I am a fan of the mature or unconventional model. (Old guys rule.)

http://hommes.vogue.co.jp/vol09/

Underwater Mandalas

Underwater diver and photographer Yoji Ookata discovered something strange on a recent dive near Amami Oshima, Japan, something he had never encountered in his fifty years of diving: large circular patterns with odd, geometric details, some up to six feet in diameter, located eighty feel below sea level on the ocean floor.

He took a camera crew from NHK (the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation) back to the spot where they found the source of these mandala-like sculptures: the tiny pufferfish!

Apparently, the male pufferfish makes these structures to attract a female, working tirelessly, day and night, using only a fin to carve out the peaks and valleys in the sand. The bigger and more elaborate these structures are, the more likely the female is to mate with the male and lay her eggs in the center of the circle! The ridges serve as a baffle, neutralizing the underwater currents and preventing the eggs from being tossed around or lost. The male also cracks shells and lines the ridges with the fragments which could possibly serve as food for the newly hatched eggs. Amazing.

http://ookatayouji.amaminchu.com/