The definitive guide to visual art in New York and baby sister to insane D.I.Y. mega-project Tokyo Art Beat has launched!

Thursday, May 1 the CalArts graphic design T-Shirt Show. T-shirts designed by design students, faculty, and alumni will be sold to raise money for the CalArts AIGA student group, for workshops, shows, and other events for the students.

Where: CalArts, Tatum coffee shop
When: May 1st, 7:30pm - 11pm

The shirts are always super-rad at this event. Go early to score new designs from famous alumni!

Through 20 interviews with 29 key figures in the Tokyo art world and 6 essays by art specialists, Art Space Tokyo fleshes out a thorough exploration of the Tokyo art world and the issues that revolve around these spaces.

The guide is lavishly ornamented with over 50 beautiful pen and ink illustrations by Nobumasa Takahashi, bringing readers intimately close to the voices and spaces within.

Topics include:

- Japan's position within the rise of the Asian art scene
- Takashi Murakami and the relationship between contemporary art and manga/anime
changes in the Ginza area's position in the Tokyo art world
- an account of connecting with the Tokyo art world as a foreign curator
- converting subway luggage lockers into galleries
- 100 artists renovating a 160 year old warehouse
- contemporary Japanese architecture and urban regeneration in Tokyo
- the current state of Japanese art publishing and art criticism
- international art fairs in Tokyo
- the collecting of artwork and the history of Japanese auction houses
- art and performance in Tokyo's public spaces
- graffiti in Tokyo

Anders is here!

It's been a vaguely exciting month over at Néojaponisme. We've debuted the first English review of Kawakami Mieko's 138th Akutagawa Prize-winning text Chichi to Ran (『乳と卵』, “Breasts and Eggs”), a questionable graphic novella I did years ago in Japanese, a retro review of an even more questionable Japanese submarine action thriller, talked about the northern islands ceded to Russia by Japan following World War II, dropped bootleg Cornelius radio broadcasts galore, some crappy type design, and an enquiry into Japan's attempt to reform its visual language.

There is much, much in store in the next year: limited edition clothing with a certain clothing giant and more...

If you are in LA and are vaguely interested in things Nihonesque, make sure to check out Néojaponisme Editor-in-chief W.  David Marx speaking at J-Wave at UCLA TOMORROW. A more crucial, engaging, and enlightening presentation on global fashion is going to be difficult to find.

Above: the non-LP b-side image that didn't accompany the Murakami review.

Things you can't afford to miss.

Flux from Jonathan Wells and wife Meg. Poised to curate all things visual again. Monthly screenings at the Hammer coming late March.

Geoff & Ed Fella together for the first time. Tomorrow night!

Little Paper Planes store. Now Selling CalArts Pub.

-enjoy

Hats off to Uno the beagle for winning this year's Westminster dog show.

Damien Correll has stepped up to represent VLU New York. God speed.

This is defiantly not a political blog but we want you to take our quick & informal poll on the big day. If your sick of the politics keep scrolling there is plenty of art & design below. Also interesting to see the Map of how our little poll is shaping up. It's a international affair.
_{Image by Max Erdenberger}

Here’s a great library of Ernst Haeckel’s Artforms of Nature, available as 300dpi jpegs. The site’s in German, but it’s easy enough to find great specimens. Haeckel’s works are all in the public domain.

From Haeckel’s Wikipedia entry:

Ernst Haeckel was an eminent German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist. He named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including phylum, phylogeny, ecology and the kingdom Protista.
 

A ton of new (and/or recontextualized) content up on Néojaponisme from Mumbleboy, E*Rock, Jean Snow, Eiko Nagase (AQ/Tokyo Art Beat), Audrey Fodecave Tsujimura (OK Fred Magazine), Nobuo Ikeda, Matt Treyvaud, and David Marx. Includes an article about a weird 80s skiing movie from Japan (with video); the removal of rum, sodomy and the lash from Japan's production of the musical Hair; intense illustrations; Japan's infatuation with raw concrete architecture; and inspired collages.

The official announcement of the launch of this new site:

PingMag MAKE is the sister site to PingMag.
We use an interview format to put the spotlight on a wide range of
people active in rural areas. We document the voices of these
unknown heroes and broadcast them to the world. It's the
Japan-based magazine about people and making things,
coming out once a week. We're passing on the passion,
ideas, skills, and life stories of people who are building today
and exploring tomorrow: craftsmen, engineers, entrepreneurs, and inventors.

The unofficial announcement from my end:

This is a really great idea- there are so many small cottage industries from "days gone by" that produce amazing handmade goods that could benefit from a bit of exposure and hopefully some fresh clientel. The site opens with a visit to a custom umbrella maker (folks use umbrellas here regularly, mind you) and a prosthetics shop.

A great attempt at explaining something so abstract from the Athletics Blog. Very cool of them to include VLU in the process.

Direct Link

 

 

Higher education doesn't guarantee awareness

This new form of information consumption remains a mystery to many — even those with one or more master’s degrees. The insertion of a content aggregator (Google Reader) between users (you, me) and content creators (websites, blogs, etc.) is a level of abstraction that requires some explanation. Perhaps this article will help connect the dots for those interested in increasing their daily information throughput. -James Ellis

Mono caught my interest for their effortless writing and style. I am also interested in them as a thriving studio making things I like outside on NY, LA and London. We are thinking a lot about these towns that creatives tend to be able to exist in and live a normal life. Probably because my wife is 4 months pregnant and you begin to think of everything entirely different. In music Radiohead did it again and the new video from Battles with art direction from United Visual Artists shot in a northern Wales slate pile rocks. Bought this (above) type tote that Brian designed for the Liars it came so fast. Been using google reader religiously, I really recommend that. Here is my shared items list. I also downloaded every picture on the Art Department's site, what a great resource. LA a is burning again right now. Looking at this 5-9 thing, thanks for sending me that. New shirt someone sent me is cool, but I don't need the airside logo on the arm. My friend Carter's aunt Bunny Williams has a neat article on her in the NY Times, Can Taste Be Taught. Parting shot...

Long overdue, Neojaponisme launches with an initial manifesto, outlining the magazine's strategy for broadcasting cutural criticism, design writing, historical essays, music, and original artwork from Japan to the world.

Go deep. (Thanks, Birch!)

F_U flickr hater

Where did you get that flip clock screensaver? Here

I have enlisted the help of some of my friends. Sam Farfsing, Ian Lynam, Eli Carrico, Megan McGinley, Zak Kyes, Don Lehman, Julian Smith, Mark Owens and more. I will be making a proper correspondents page.

I will be in Korea putting an exhibition together and representing Brand New School at the Zero One Design Center May 13th - 20th.