Okay, folks. We’ve found the funnest thing to do in Tokyo right now and best of all, it’s right in the center and it’s even artistic.

Head on down to the Louis Vuitton store on Omotesando, where on the top floor there is an art gallery called Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo. There LV holds regular exhibitions with international and Japanese artists.

The current show is “Madness is part of Life” [sic] by the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, who is known for his organic 3D works.

The main piece is a huge hanging canopy, a sort of hammock-like quasi-zoological sculpture, which you can walk up onto and then along till you reach this snug nest-like section where you can lie down and relax.

Press materials say that it “deals with stability, as well as discovery of how we move, desire, fear, and most importantly, of the fact our existence itself is part of a body that is ‘Life’.”

We’re not sure about that but it is certainly very organic and made us think of children’s ball pits, jungle ropewalks, a rainforest canopy, wombs, snakes, sperm… Well, let’s just say it is an extravaganza of motifs but walking along the hammock tunnels is indescribable fun!

Since the Espace gallery also features these massive glass windows, you can get great views of central Tokyo.

Not surprisingly with its location and child-like (and child-friendly) interactiveness, the show is proving a bigger hit than even the events at the more famous commercial galleries and art museums in Tokyo.

“Madness is part of Life” ends January 6th. Entry is free.

Singaporean photographer Leslie Kee (41) has been arrested by Tokyo police on suspicion of distributing obscene imagery, a development that will surely ignite a fierce debate over the freedom of expression for artists in Japan.

Kee and two others were nabbed by police on suspicion of selling at least seven copies of Kee’s photo books to two customers at hiromi yoshii roppongi gallery as part of Kee’s current exhibition at the well-known venue.

Kee’s new series, “Super Goh” and “Super Miki”, feature extensive male nudity. (Kee is a popular figure in the gay world.)

The Tokyo-based Kee is a star in the local fashion and art worlds, having photographed music artists as major as Ayumi Hamasaki and Seiko Matsuda. He has also worked internationally, including album cover photography for Lady Gaga and famous portraits of the likes of Quentin Tarantino.

Japan, despite having one of the most profligate adult industries in the world, still maintains a bizarre schizophrenic attitude towards depictions of nudity.

A porn producer such as Soft on Demand can have a massive billboard in Shibuya — but to show direct images of genitalia is forbidden under an ambiguous century-old law introduced when Japan was attempting to copy western (i.e. Christian) morality.

This is the reason for the “mosaic” pixellation not just of pornography but also regular films with full-frontal nudity, and of course, photo books as well.

Japanese fringe theatre also suffers from this situation, in that while nude scenes do take place, technically it is not protected by the law and the production could be shut down if patrons then reported the performers to the authorities.

There is definitely something sexist at work here. There are plenty of so-called “hair nude” photo books with female actresses and models stripping off for publications sold in mainstream book stores (usually bound so browsers cannot open them). This has become more and more common over the last twenty-five years, even if the “boom” for them has died off recently.

But full male nudity is much rarer. And yet how sad that Kee, a Singaporean who no doubt relished Japan’s lack of strictures compared to his home country, would have to face the cops for his photography.

Kee certainly wasn’t being discreet, though. The exhibition at hiromi yoshii roppongi was even called “FOREVER YOUNG Uncensored Edition !!!! Male Nude Photo Exhibition by LESLIE KEE”. (One of the other arrested apparently included Yoshii, the gallerist, but there have been conflicting reports about this.) It opened on February 2nd and is (was? will it have to shut down?) set to run until March 6th. The sale of the uncensored photo books seems to have happened on the opening night of the exhibition.

*UPDATE*: The exhibition has been cancelled! Japanese police, congratulations for your act of censorship!

Paddle8, the online art auction portral, is holding a special online art auction during this month, to accompany an exhibition, Trailblazer, happening at the Japan Society in New York. The auction itself will be “held” virtually on March 21st and bids are being taken until the day before.

With the current two-year anniversary of the Tohoku catastrophe on people’s minds, charity events are cropping up all over. This one, though, is not benefitting disaster-relief causes (which, sadly, as we have seen have actually seen little of the money that was donated) but the Japan Society Gallery.

Tomokazu Matsuyama, “I See U” (2012)

The selection of artists’ work, including international illuminaries like Mariko Mori, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Miwa Yanagi, celebrates the best of the modern and the traditional, with prints by Utagawa alongside contemporary curated photography.

The exhibition is celebrating the work of Toko Shinoda and the artist’s centenary.

Toko Shinoda, “Yugen” (1981) [left] and Hiroshi Sugimoto, “Conceptual Form 0026″ (2004) [right]

Miwa Yanagi, “My Grandmothers/HYONEE” (2007) [left] and Mariko Mori, “Oneness” (2013) [right]

This hasn’t taken off yet like we hoped it might — if YouTube video numbers are anything to go by at time of writing — but we wanted to share this video we spotted of an “Avatar Man” roaming the streets of Omotesando at night, amusing and possibly frightening innocent Japanese shoppers.

Here’s the trailer:

And the full video:

The production values are pretty slick, and the hair and make-up in particular are more impressive than anything wandering out of 109 by a million miles.

It is from a series called I AM MODEL, created by Maaserhit Honda.

According to the makers, the series was…

born in August 2011 through the creative ideas of photographer/cinematographer/art director Maaserhit Honda and British fashion model Dean Newcombe. The part documentary, part mocumentary story conveys the experiences of a ‘lost’ model in Tokyo, a metaphor for the unorientated feeling of many of the models in the industry.

Through this model’s exploits, we gain a comical taste of the show business industry.

Kind of like evolution in reverse, the series charts the lost model’s progress from wanderig around Shibuya to regressing to some new primitive state.

“Avatar Man, set free in Tokyo and wandering the unfamiliar streets. Fearful and misplaced, he suddenly encounters a beautiful, foreign-looking doll, and finally warms up to the world around him. Feeling relaxed and in high spirits, he dances his way through the crowds and becomes the life of the party. Is he hungry for a burger?”

Insipid Japanese celebrities, move aside! This “man” needs his own TV commercial right away!

Maaserhit Honda tells us that the next installment, intriguingly titled “Mr. English Teacher” will be out next month. You can stay updated via the I AM MODEL Facebook page.

It seems like I’ve been spending a lot of my time in Roppongi these days. Last week I went to the Pamyuseum, and on Saturday night I ventured back to Roppongi Hills for Roppongi Art Night.

Much like Nuit Blanche, in my hometown of Toronto, Roppongi Art Night is an all night art festival consisting of large-scale outdoor art installations. It’s a beautiful experience that has to be seen to be believed.

I arrived a little earlier than I was supposed to, and stumbled upon the Roppongi Hills Spring Festival, which was booming with excited guests. I left and returned a little later on to find a Roppongi Hills still bustling with people, but also with beautiful and interesting installations.

[First photo from flickr user Ryosuke Takeoka]

Attending Roppongi Art Night is much like attending Nuit Blanche. When attempting to stick to a viewing schedule it almost feels as though you’re missing out installations. It’s best to just go with the flow of the crowd and let your eyes do the navigation for you.

[Photo by flickr user robochick]

One particular installation that stood out to me was the first that I saw. A wooden boat, strung up with colorful flags. A very classic looking piece. Upon closer inspection, the flags were covered in modern manga style illustrations. It felt like a representation of how I see Tokyo: traditional and modern seamlessly woven together.

Part of what makes installation art so interesting is that you, as the viewer, feel involved with the grand spectacle that has been created all around you. Roppongi Art Night filled everyone with a buzzing energy to give the city of Tokyo a running start into the spring season.

We blogged last autumn about the opening of the Art Aquarium in Tokyo in 2012.

After the exhibition pulled in a whopping 200,000 visitors, it’s not surprisingly coming back to the Nihonbashi venue, this time from July 13th to September 23rd for seventy-three days.

As before, the emphasis is on the colors and magnificence to be enjoyed in goldfish, who are lumbered with a far more humble reputation in the west than their Japanese peers.

Produced by Hidetomo Kimura, the event puts the spotlight on kingyo, the fish beloved by Japanese since the Edo era. They feature prominently in art and design, and also traditional places like matsuri festivals, where they are often sold at stalls.

The first exhibition was in 2007. The numbers of fish in 2012 increased from previous years by 1.5 times to some 5,000, their fins and scaly bodies floating hypnotically in the darkness.

Here’s a promotional video for a previous year.

This year’s event will see more of a harmony of goldfish and the lighting. The venue will also be open at night time, making this perhaps the top Tokyo date spot for couples over the summer.

Last weekend I jumped on the Fukutoshin Line and headed down to Shibuya to check out Keitai Mizu (“mobile water”).

From what I had read, the event at Jingu-dori Park was set to be a mobile game, a treasure hunt for art. Players were given fifteen minutes to go through the parkette, search for artist-rendered sea creatures native to Tokyo, snap photos and send them to the Spatial Dialogues Twitter account via Instagram.

When I arrived at the park, I got much more than that. I was lucky enough to get a tour through the entire installation by Larissa Hjorth, one of the coordinators of the event.

The art and the park were put together in a meeting of worlds, of sorts. When you walk by Jingu-dori Park, it’s easy to spot the little bits of rubbish scattered amongst the shrubbery. The participating artists, such as Simon Perry and Kristen Sharp, used found objects to make their underwater animal creations, giving the hunt a real trash-to-treasure feel.

You might be wondering, though, what’s with the sea creatures? Why all the water? Not only did I receive a tour, but also a bit of a history lesson.

Did you know that once upon a time, a river ran right through the middle of Shibuya? It was a channel of natural beauty flowing through the city. Economic power and developmental change brought pavement. The river was forced underground and out of our minds.

I feel lucky to have met the creative team behind such a conceptually interesting event like Keitai Mizu. Throughout the rest of June you can check out other Shibuya: Underground Streams events happening in Tokyo.

While people make charitable donations for (arguably) many different reasons, this year, the annual 24 Hour Television themed “Love Saves the Earth” — which will be aired on August 24th and 25th — might give you yet another excuse to be genuinely generous to others.

Charity or even volunteer work is certainly not a common habit in Japan. One reason might be because the Japanese are so humble that they think they cannot be useful to others — or the more probable one is that the majority of people do not bother to take action themselves, thinking that someone else — not me or us — will do it instead.

NTV’s 24 Hour Television is an annual telethon notoriously famous for spotlighting the physically challenged in a “sympathetic” light — an approach which has been harshly criticized by some as sheer hypocrisy. Unlike other telethons broadcast in different parts of the world, the purpose of this program is not so much to raise awareness of people in need of help, but to make its viewers look down on them as a group of completely powerless, voiceless people. In short, they think that we need a solid reason to be generous to others. (Personally, though, I don’t think we should condemn an attempt to support others regardless of their hidden intentions, if any.)

As part of the charity promotion, each year they design and sell their own charity t-shirts. This year, it’s a collaborative effort by Satoshi Ono from Arashi and the avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama. The tees have already been on sale for 1,500 yen since June 14th and are available in four colors (pink, blue, yellow and white), representing four seasons in Japan (spring, summer, fall and winter) respectively.

Here are the pink and blue versions.

And the yellow and white ones.

Kusama is known for her extensive use of polka dots and psychedelic patterns.

As described in the clip above, she has managed to turn what many would regard as insanity into something worthy of our attention. We think that there is a thick and clear line between sanity and insanity, but is it really a THICK line? Or IS there any line in the first place?

The t-shirt is already kawaii on the outside, but as one individual who very much admires Kusama’s attempt to be borderless in every possible way, I would like to interpret this particular piece of work as a way to question how we see, treat and judge others who are different.

As I mentioned before, the 24-Hour Television telethon likes to focus on the “extraordinary” aspects of physically challenged people, yet at the same time promoting the message of “Love Forever”, which is printed on the back of the T-shirt, as a universal value.

For the majority of people, though, “Love Forever” is not an easy task. The fact that they are asking for love on national television in a predominantly non-religious country means love is a product of hard work. And if the message of “Love Forever” has become prevalent enough in our hearts like in mass-produced t-shirts, that’s when such a show should really become extinct — which is not likely to happen anytime soon.

All in all, the new t-shirts look worth the price… even without the charity concept.

Back in 2008, when the French embassy in Tokyo decided to demolish its premises and relocate, it invited in a whole bunch of French and Japanese artists to create site-specific temporary installations, artworks, concerts and more. The result, “No Man’s Land”, was one of the best bonanzas of art Tokyo has ever seen, so popular that they had to extend the event period.

Likewise, when the Tokyu Toyoko Line’s Shibuya Station, a rare example of a raised station in central Tokyo and much loved for its platforms semi-transparent to the world outside, chaotically moved underground, the original space has subsequently been utilized for pop-up retail and other events.

Tokyo likes to build and rebuild, and it is common for locals to display an apparent lack of sentimentality regarding buildings bordering on the sacrilegious for some, especially if you are from Europe.

Well, when manga publisher Shogakukan decided it was going to demolish its current building in September, it invited in a bunch of its manga artists to turn the blank walls into temporary comic book panels.

The results by Kazukiho Shimamoto, Naoki Urasawa and others were on the walls, windows, glass doors, columns… everywhere in the building was going to be demolished so everywhere could become a piece of graffiti manga!

Which artists’ work can you recognize?

Images via Togetter.

This coming winter, Japan’s iconic cosmetic brand, shu uemura, will celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of its beauty boutique in Omotesando in central Tokyo with the Christmas collection “Six Heart Princess by takashi murakami for shu.”

On August 29th, the brand had its first opportunity to present the collection in public at Shibuya Hikarie.

In collaboration with contemporary artist Takashi Murakami, this collection of nineteen cosmetic items is themed around “transformation,” featuring pink and black as the two primary colors that represent the duality of women. Six Heart Princess (6HP) is Murakami’s animation work which was first introduced at his exhibition in France, “Murakami Versailles,” back in 2010.

For this collaborative project with shu uemura, Murakami created a new character, Black Princess, and made a special version of the anime in the promotion of various cosmetic items which will all help women “transform” into beauties — or anything that they wish to become. The collection features a wide variety of cosmetics (priced from ¥1,470 to ¥27,300), ranging from single items such as eyelash extensions, gel pencil eyeliners, UV under base mousse, cleansing oil, to more convenient sets such as Palette Kit, Brush Set and Makeup Box.

At the event, a live makeup show was performed on stage. Another highlight was a dancing performance of Tempura Kidz, most famous as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu‘s backup dancers, complete with original mascot characters for the project.

Murakami has previously collaborated with Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, while shu uemura has previously hired the artistic talents of film director Wong Kar-wai and photographer Mika Ninagawa.

[Images source]

Heading to a Japanese onsen (hot spring) is one of the best trips you can do in Japan during the winter.

But the exclusive onsen resorts don’t come cheap and they need to keep innovating to attract people to pay top dollar rather than just head to one of the spas in the cities.

Dogo Onsen is one of the oldest hot spring resorts in Japan but it isn’t resting on its laurels. It has set up the Dogo Onsenart 2014 festival in ten hotels and Japanese inns (ryokan). This includes some pretty cool and flashy re-designing of hotel rooms as special art concept resorts for the festival.

Sites include Chaharu Inn, Takaraso Hotel, Dogo-kan, Hotel Kowakuen, Hotel Hanayuzuki and Hotel Horizontal. The Onsen Art Collection also changes the streets and outside of the onsens themselves.

There are also special art souvenirs, an artist residency, and one-off events such as Art Parade, which will be held on July 20th involving dance choreographer Kaiji Moriyama.

Participants include the ubiquitous Yayoi Kusama and her trademark polka-dot pumpkins Takaraso Hotel.

Even the seating cushions get the polka dot treatment!

If you are visiting Dogo for a dirty weekend away, stay at this room in Hotel Kowakuen with some erotic photos by Nobuyoshi Araki. You need to be at least 18 years old to stay at this room.

And for more literary tastes, the poetry of Shuntaro Tachikawa features in all kinds of places in this room.

There is also fashion designer Akira Minagawa’s re-design for at Hotel Hanayuzuki.

Other participating artists include Stephen Mushin and Mimi Shinko.

“We’d like visitors to enjoy ‘the chemical reaction’ of the guest rooms and the audacious ideas of the artists,” a festival official said.

The Shikoku district already has plenty of mixture of modern art and tourism, not least the successful Setouchi Triennale and the “art island” of Naoshima, as well as the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum near Takamatsu.

Produced by Wacoal/Spiral, Dogo Onsen Art then comes at an opportune time but we need to see how it competes in the summer against such major art events as the Yokohama Triennale. However, there is no Setouchi Triennale this year and it might be a great stop-off after visiting Naoshima.

The art hotel rooms have been available to guests since the end of December but the festival does not fully open until April 10th. It then runs until the end of 2014. There are a total of 10 rooms that are available for overnight stays and viewings until mid-January 2015.

See more images on YouPouch.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum has demanded the removal of an artwork that criticizes the visits to Yasukuni Shrine by members of the Japanese government.

The exhibition is now running, set to conclude on February 21st. It not one of the main exhibition events organized by the museum but part of its public galleries that often feature group shows. The exhibition features around 60 works of art presented by the Contemporary Japanese Sculpture Artist Federation.

One of these is “Portrait of the Times: Endangered Species, idiot Japonica Tomb” by Katsuhisa Nakagaki. The sculpture (pictured below) is a 1.5 meter dome shape draped in a Japanese flag, with pieces of paper on it with political messages written by hand urging the Constitution to be protected, the “folly” of the visits to Yasukuni to be recognized, and the ending of the current government’s “rightist tendencies.”

[Image via Asahi]

The visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine — a shrine in central Tokyo that houses the souls of the war dead, including convicted war criminals — has been a fiercely contested issue in Japan over the previous ten years. Shinzo Abe’s government has re-opened the wounds by officially visiting the shrine, drawing furious responses from Japan’s neighbors in Asia who suffered at the hands of the nation’s past colonialism.

The museum, though, has decided that it cannot allow its facilities to be used for “political activities”. It requested Nakagaki to remove the artwork on February 16th, one day after the exhibition began, and threatened him that if he did not agree, the whole exhibition would be cancelled and possibly prevented from future use of the museum’s facilities.

As a compromise on his part, Nakagaki has removed the handwritten political message. “I expressed my ideas as an artist. I sense the danger of speech control,” he was quoted as saying in media reports. This may not be enough to satisfy the museum, though… or the prime minister.

Japan’s largest art event, Art Fair Tokyo, starts today at the Tokyo International Forum in Yurakucho.

The fair features around 180 galleries and other organizations putting their wares for collectors and the general to inspect and, hopefully, buy!

This year, G-Tokyo — previously an alternate art fair — has fused with Art Fair Tokyo to present a separate section within the main fair venue. In the past, the fair has used a separate venue or the upstairs floor to showcase younger contemporary galleries’ work. This year and last see just a single floor of the forum being used which, while spacious enough, does mean there isn’t the sense of demarcation between different kinds of art and art galleries as before.

You will need stamina to make it through all the booths!

Look out for the specially customize “art Mercedes-Benz” in the entrance.

A mini exhibition is also being held within the fair as part of its annual Artistic Practice series, this year highlighting Japanese modern painting from the late nineteenth century onwards.

If painting’s not your thing, how about the latest in animation and video art? The Japan Media Arts Festival is screening some of its 2013 award-winners at a special screen just outside the entrance to the fair.

There is also a “Discover Asia” section as well as cafe with cardboard furniture being painted by Aki Kondo.

The most exciting-looking part of the fair may also be its most esoteric. Aoyama Meguro gallery has accumulated a fantastic collection of photography by Mitsutoshi Hanaga that showcase the Japanese experimental art and theatre and dance scene from the 1960′s and 1970′s, as well as social movements and student protests from the era.

Whatever your tastes, there’s something for everyone.

Art Fair Tokyo runs from Friday March 7th to Sunday March 9th, 2014. Admission costs ¥2,000.

Dutch artist Jeroen Bisscheroux installed a brilliant swimming pool artwork in Osaka as part of the Namura Shipyard Creative Center Osaka’s artist-in-residency program.

“POOL loss of colour” was shown from March 7th to March 11th at Grand Front Osaka, and looked like a lot of fun!

This flat artwork is a large carpet, 7.5 by 15 meters in size. Its one image “unites the tsunami in Sendai and the disaster in Fukushima” on the floor. By having people play and explore the empty, discolored Tohoku swimming pool, they are re-populating the disaster zone.

The installation “brings the impact of the disaster back to human proportions; the understandable human proportions of the dimension of a swimming pool”.

Bisscheroux says:

In my artwork and as an artist I focus on concepts for public and urban space, projects with a social character are playing a major role. These concepts generate a great deal of energy and engagement from the widely diverse groups whom I’m working with.

This way I gain a sharper picture of what is happening in the society around me, how public processes evolve, how decisions are reached and what the results of these decisions are. I’m interested in all of this in order to more clearly determine my own role as artist and apply myself in relevant social contexts.

The practical limitations of art in public space are part of the creative process. The field of tension between the power of the imagination and existing rules and regulations is an interesting factor. Within the margins of what is physically or technically possible, it is the imagination that must ultimately transcend the limitations. This way, I’m trying to offer the users, participants and audiences a different, more personal reality.

My work is increasingly balanced between architecture, fine art and design.

This is how the team made the carpet artwork.

And here it is being installed in parts in the venue.

The artist and his work.

Artist Asami Kiyokawa, known for her extravagant combination of embroidery and photography, and collaborations with top models and actresses, has got together with Starbucks Japan to create a special Starbucks Card that uses augmented reality.

Kiyokawa’s design is an unsurprisingly floral effort that features a prominent butterfly motif. By using the smartphone AR app junaio with the card, you can watch as the butterfly comes to life and seems to fly.

The AR Butterfly Starbucks Card will be popular with female patrons, no doubt, especially those who want to have gold butterflies fluttering around their coffee cups. Users can take pictures of the scenes they create and then share them on social media.

It will be available from most Starbucks outlets around Japan from June 4th as a gift card of ¥1,000 (or more) while stocks last.

Starbucks is now the second largest coffee shop chain in Japan, present in all but one prefecture. It frequently launches these kinds of campaigns to maintain its brand image in the face of its expansion. These include a collaboration with the studio nendo to create special coffee mugs, a “Japanese crafts” coffee shop in Meguro, and publishing its own “frappuccino fashion” magazine.

Photographer Noriko Takasugi has devoted herself to going in search of modern-day “samurai” in the devastated region of Fukushima in northeast Japan.

Her “Fukushima Samurai” series, though, is far from being just a cosplay gimmick. It’s a story of identity. As the artist says: “Since 2011, I have devoted my time to capturing the survivors of 3.11. While I am listening to their story, I could not ignore the unique spirit emerging in these people. These photos are part of my long-term project that differs from the major news stories about the disaster, having been investigating the evacuees not as victims, but as part of a 1,000-year-old folk culture of the area and representative of Japanese identity, examining how they are surviving and fighting their fate to retain their sense of self.”

With a background in clinical psychology at Waseda University and training under Daido Moriyama, Takasugi is one of eight photographers engaged since 2011 in the “Fukushima Photo Project”. Her own contribution looks at identity and the relationship between man and the environment.

Her project focuses on participants in Soma-Nomaoi, an annual celebration in Fukushima that is 1,000 years old. The high point of the famous three-day festival in the district sees horsemen dressed in traditional samurai gear race against each other.

The resulting work, “Fukushima Samurai”, is available as a photo book and is an exploration of Japan as a “hidden world” of ordinary human warmth and triumph in the wake of the 3.11 disaster. As Takasugi notes, Soma-Nomaoi “is not just an event but also an embodiment of their identity and fight for survival. Here, the samurai way of life, Bushido, corresponds to the concept of chivalry. This sense of identity represents how and why, they live.”

The series of portraits of these unbroken men, still intent on participating in Soma-Nomaoi in spite of the hardships they have faced (death, radiation, the destruction of their homes and businesses), is a quiet reflection on masculinity and the dignity and tenacity required to overcome adversity. It might not be the Hollywood version of the samurai spirit but it’s there all right.

Her work has attracted the attention of press such as The Independent newspaper and has been exhibited widely, including in the UK.

As Takasugi says:

The Nomaoi Samurai warriors portrayed here were once residents in the area close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant but they are no longer allowed to live there. Each of them stands in the places that had a personal meaning to them in the area.

Nomaoi Samurai who stand here were the residents of the area near Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. They are unable to live there anymore but are able to enter the territory during a day. The Nomaoi men took me to the restricted area, to the places personally meaningful to them, reviving memories of home.

Armored from head to toe with inherited familial flags hanging from their backs, five hundred samurai storm forward recreating a battle scene. Soma-Nomaoi is an annual celebration of samurai culture in Fukushima more than one thousand years old.

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011 caused widespread destruction including the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. About two thousand people died in Fukushima, eighty per cent of whom were from the area where the Soma-Nomaoi is held. Due to the radiation, the people were forced to relocate the day after the disaster, with many indefinitely losing their houses, land and jobs.

Despite the harsh conditions, loss of lives and loss of hundreds of their horses and much of their armory, the majority of the surviving Nomaoi men agreed to hold the gathering in 2011, just a few months after the disaster.

Having spent a month with the local people between summer and autumn 2012, I believe Soma-Nomaoi is not just an event but an embodiment of their identity and fight for survival. This unique sense of identity represents not only how, but why, they live.

“It has been tough working there since the disaster,” said one of the portrait subjects, “but I could survive because of Soma-Nomaoi.”

If you’re in Tokyo, be sure to check out Takasugi’s series of “Fukushima Samurai” at the Konica Minolta Plaza until July 14th.

After first appearing in 2011 and proving a massive success in both 2012 and in 2013, the spectacular Eco Edo Nihonbashi Art Aquarium 2014 is back. Exploiting Japan’s love of the decorative and the vibrant colors of kingyo goldfish to the max, the Art Aquarium event is popular with couples on dates and families looking for eye candy for the kids.

It opened for the fourth time at the Nihonbashi venue on July 11th. Last year’s edition achieved more than 300,000 visitors and this year the organizers surely hope to match this, pulling out all the stops with 5,000 goldfish and even new aquaria that use mirrors and lens called Paradoxrium and Reflectrium.

Technically speaking, there are two events: Art Aquarium is open from 11:00 to 19:00 while the Night Aquarium is from 19:00 to 23:30. As we said, the two main targets here are surely families and couples, so from 19:00 the lighting and music change, and visitors are allowed to take around drinks with them. There will also be live music from 19:00 on weekends. In other words, expect things to feel more romantic from the evening.

Themed around Edo and the goldfish motifs that populate art from the period, the aquarium is very much steeped in the tones of Japonism. It’s only a small coincidence that the venue is in Nihonbashi, an area that was instrumental in the Meiji and Taisho eras as Tokyo modernized.

There are many different kinds of aquaria featured in the exhibition, from balls to folding screen shapes, and complete with outlandish names like Elegance Dance, Bonborium, and Byouburium. You can see a slideshow and bilingual descriptions on the Art Aquarium website.

Eco Edo Nihonbashi Art Aquarium 2014 runs until September 23rd at the Nihonbashi Mitsui Hall.

[Images source]

Intergalactic bonsai!

Just when you thought there couldn’t be any more innovations on past traditions, along comes something that makes your jaw drop.

Makoto Azuma, known for his eye-catching botanical art work such as the greenery sculptures that decorated Shinjuku’s Isetan Department Store when it reopened in 2013, has taken things to the next level, stratospherically speaking.

While he has previous suspended bonsai in the air, this time round he actually launched a new piece called Exbiotanica into space. The two botanical objects were sent where no plant had gone before from a special site in Black Rock Desert outside Gerlach, Nevada, on July 15th.

According to Spoon Tamago, Azuma and his ten-man crew, along with help from JP Aerospace (despite the name, actually US-based) and Fujifilm (thanks for the great images!), launched a version of his Japanese white pine work “Shiki” and an untitled flower bouquet into space using a helium balloon.

T Magazine describe the launch:

The expedition started in the dead of night, at 2 a.m. One hour later, Makoto was already building a bouquet with about 30 varieties of flowers. He started with an aerial plant tied to a six-rod axis and studiously added peace lilies, poppy seed pods, dahlias, hydrangeas, orchids, bromeliads and a meaty burgundy heliconia. “I am using brightly colored flowers from around the world so that they contrast against the darkness of space,” he said.

The scent of the flowers was stronger and more concentrated in the dry desert breeze than in their humid, natural environments, and the launch site was redolent with their perfume. Makoto worked quietly, until the metal rods were covered completely with plants. Then he directed his attention to his bonsai. For this particular project, Makoto chose a 50-year-old pine from his collection of more than 100 specimens, and flew it over from Tokyo in a special box. While readying it for space, he kept it moist and removed a few brown needles with a tweezer.

The two helium balloons went up in the early morning, both covering the same flight path. The helium balloons then burst at around 90,000 feet and parachutes softened the impact after the two vessels fell back to earth. Sadly the dangling bonsai and the flower bouquet both disintegrated during the fall. The vessels returned safely but alas, not the foliage.

It garnered headlines worldwide and made a fringe figure the talk of the town. The arrest of Megumi Igarashi (Rokudenshi-ko) on July 12th ostensibly for “distributing obscene materials” after she made data for a 3D printing of her genitalia available to supporters of her crowdfunding campaign ignited a scandal.

She was arrested by ten (yes, ten!) officers, sparking a serious debate over whether she was being punished for being a woman who dared make a thing (literally) out of her you-know-what. There is also the question of whether art was being censored by the state, not to mention how in a nation with a mammoth sex industry, a correspondingly vibrant adult toys market, and the per-capita largest porn business in the world, why were the police so bothered about one woman making a kayak out of her genitalia? And any cursory glance at Japanese mythology or historical art genres like shunga prints would convince you that sexual liberty and nudity should form a healthy part of society.

But this is contemporary Japan, which has a long history of double standards in this area. Although there have been countless full-frontal photography books featuring female celebrities over the past decades — strictly speaking, showing genitals or genital hair is interpreted as “obscene” — and released into the mainstream to great success, last year Leslie Kee was arrested for exhibiting images of naked men in Tokyo. Freedom of expression is not protected for artists and, for example, a couple of years ago a major performing arts event in Tokyo (name retracted on recommendation!), upon being told by the city that they could not allow a public festival to program sexually explicit work, had to ask a director to re-configure a play featuring nudity so that the vital “bits” were hidden from view.

In the end, police decided not to indict Igarashi for now but she still has potential charges (carrying up to two years in prison and a fine) hanging over her. The prosecutors have inadvertently turned Igarashi into a martyr for both feminist and artist causes, though, and would be foolish to continue with their persecution.

Igarashi was released after six days. But getting arrested is an expensive business. Even if charges are not brought or — very rare in Japan! — you are acquitted, you still have to foot your lawyer’s bill.

Always one to utilize her grassroots support, Igarashi has turned to her fans now to help cover the costs. Her gallery has launched a sale of her vagina-inspired “deko-man” (decorated vagina) artworks and she promises in a tweet to use the proceeds to pay her legal team.

Rokudenshi-ko’s mission to reclaim what is hidden, what society deems “obscene”, into something playful and ordinary is here manifest in cute vinyl figurines of female genitalia. You can get pink or gold versions of “Manko-chan”, or even a glow-in-the-dark one! They cost between ¥2,100 ($21) and ¥2,800 ($28), though some of them won’t be available until late August.

See the Shinjuku Ganka Gallery online shop for more. If they put up an English website with PayPal options, we reckon this would be very popular overseas too!

Local police in Nagoya have demanded that the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art remove 12 artworks by Ryudai Takano that depicted male genitalia.

As first reported by Art Info, the action came after members of the public claimed some of Takano’s artworks were “obscene”.

Takano, who is openly gay, is taking part in the group show, “Photography Will Be”, which includes 150 photography and film exhibits by nine major Japanese photographers.

The museum has not complied with the police but instead proposed to cover up the “offensive” exhibits with a kind of veil.

Takano, no doubt aware that you should only pick the fights you can win, agreed to the museum’s idea. “These photos express the subtle, delicate sense of distance when one person touches another. There is no violence here. Instead of concealing this intervention made by the public authorities, I wanted to make it visible.”

In Japan, the depiction of genitalia is ostensibly taboo, as dictated by the conventional interpretation of a law introduced when Japan was westernizing and attempting to imitate the “morality” of Europe and America. This is why pornography is pixellated and why typically even mainstream films have scenes with full-frontal nudity similarly obscured. The latter has eased recently for scenes that are obviously comedic in tone.

Freedom of expression in art is not protected in Japan, despite the immense flourishing of creativity in all fields and concomitant strength of cultural industries like cinema and publishing.

However, there are double standards. When there was a vogue for “hair nude” photo books — i.e. full-frontal, non-censored photography — a few years ago, there were no issues preventing the major release of books featuring the likes of Rie Miyazawa and other famous actresses au naturel. Photographers like Kishin Shinoyama who have stuck to depicting women, especially celebrities, fully nude have usually be able to escape the censor.

But if you are a female artist or gay male, it’s a different matter. The arrest of Megumi Igarashi (Rokudenshi-ko) in July sparked worldwide attention, not least because her “crime” was to turn her genitalia into digital data that could be distributed. Igarashi was practically unknown at the time but has since rocketed to fame. However, even being established in your field does not guarantee protection. Gay Singaporean photographer Leslie Kee, well used to shooting stars for major contracts, found himself in trouble with the police for showing male genitalia in a Tokyo gallery. He was arrested, along with his gallerist and publisher.

And yet Japan has one of the largest porn and adult industries in the world, stores like Condomania prominently and proudly stand on Omotesando, and sex toy brands like Tenga are now known across the globe. Isn’t this missing the woods for the trees?

Censorship and police crackdowns are nothing new. Back in the 1960′s and 1970′s artists would find themselves in the dock for depicting sex or nudity. The most notorious cases are the obscenity trials for the films “Black Snow” by Tetsuji Takechi and “In the Realm of the Senses” by Nagisa Oshima.

But as the late Oshima defiantly said in court: “Nothing that is expressed is obscene. What is obscene is what is hidden.”

“Photography Will Be” runs, in its censored form, until September 28th.