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July 15, 2005
...japanese pop culture - check...
I had a day of Japanese pop culture. First stop was the Japan Society to see Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture. As I walked in this class was having a show. It was a look at American pop culture looking at Japanese pop culture looking at American pop culture called Experience Otaku!
The most disturbing exhibit was this slide show of before and after photos of eyes. Photos of people (mostly asian, but one really really scary old white lady) that have had surgery to get the double eyelid.
I can’t imagine going to that extreme for vanity. I can imagine it actually (not something that I would do), but it saddens me. Besides the strange slide show those kids had a great show, especially for a nine-day summer program!
The Little Boy show was fantastic. There was a visual history of hello kitty, which was a kick! I love all the toys. How the toys are regional, made especially for the town, like a mascot. I loved the art from Aya Takano and Yuki Ohshima. They both had these beautiful girls with subtle sexuality. Sensual, beautiful and a little disturbing. As you keep looking at the paintings you see that it is not just a cute girl, but there is danger and a lot of sex. Aya Takano has really beautiful watercolors and these soft larger acrylic paintings. I loved Yuki Ohshima's little figures. I searched the web after I came back from the show and I couldn’t find a lot on him. Not really anything. His little figures though are amazing and I would love to get a hold of one of them. Any one know more about him!?
After I was done with the show I went to the Japanese pop culture mecca, Kinokuniya. I almost bought this book called Masaki’s Lifestyle book by the same people that did the Lotta’s Lifestyle book (as in Jansdotter). I think I may have to go back and buy it because I like to dream about one day having a lifestyle book of my own. First I have to figure out my life. The one person I know that could do one of those Lifestyle books is my friend Lola from Madrid. She is so talented and amazing. I miss her since she moved back to Spain. She has a great little clothing store on Calle de Santa Teres. I can’t wait to visit, it has been too long! If anyone knows who publishes these books, I would love to see what other lifestyle books they have.
It gets slow at work during the summer so I try and take off one day a week. It helps do all the projects that are on my plate. Plus I have a list of things I want to try and do this summer.
Posted by wendy at July 15, 2005 06:25 PM
Comments
Hi Wendy,
Just linked to you from the comments you left on my blog. Thanks so much for e-visiting me on the farm. I hope you'll be back soon.
Oh I would have loved to have seen that Hello Kitty visual history! I secretly covet one of those Hello Kitty toasters that burns a picture of her face on every piece of toast. I actually read this cute review of it in GOURMET magazine years ago--they kind of made fun of it, but at the end of the article they said, Let's face it, you know you want one!
Posted by: farmgirl at July 15, 2005 08:00 PM
sounds like a thought provoking and inspiring day!
have you seen the book "drop dead cute"?? 10 japanese women artists.... it's pretty cool!
Posted by: lisa s at July 15, 2005 08:09 PM
That 'Little Boy' exhibit looks great. I hope I get a chance to see it. I find "Asian-looking" eyes so beautiful that I find it sad when people want to change how they look. I have a female friend from Japan who recently told me that Japanese women also find belly-button outies ugly and have surgery to get that changed. I didn't know about that!
Nice site.
Posted by: Neil at July 18, 2005 12:03 AM