The summer months are over and autumn has now begun. To celebrate one of Japan’s most beautiful seasons (and my personal favorite) we have an exciting announcement! We’ve teamed up with artist Tatsuo Horiuchi to bring one of his beautiful excel artworks to market.
If you’ll recall, the 74-year old artist creates traditional Japanese landscapes entirely in Microsoft Excel. This is the first time any of his prints have been made available outside Japan.
When living in a Japanese city, it is not uncommon to spend one’s day going from one small space to another: waking up in a small apartment, going to work in a narrow office, and ending the day in a tiny bar. So when Japanese architects are given a wide lot on which to design a building, what’s more natural than dividing it into four narrow, vertical units? This is the basis for the unique project carried out by Be-Fun Design architects in Matsumaya, Ehime prefecture.
all photos by oji masanori © spoon & tamago | click to enlarge
Japan is comprised of 47 prefectures, each with their own unique tradition of food and craft. And thanks to a new exhibition at the d47 Museum you can now get a flavor for design from across Japan under a single roof. Lined throughout the Design Bussan 2014 exhibition space are 47 tables that – you guessed it – represent each prefecture. And on display are carefully selected prime examples of both traditional craft but also craft that’s been merged with contemporary design. The result is an all-encompassing view of how Japanese design sensibilities are evolving.
In 1912 the Manseibashi Station began operating as the last station on the Kobu Railways (now Chuo line). The station served as the lifeblood of the Kanda district in Tokyo but by the late 1920s it had begun to lose relevance as neighboring stations grew and developed. In 1943 it officially ceased operating and was converted into a transportation museum.
Nendo has created a furniture collection for Italy’s Desalto, known for their metal furniture. Turning the tables on metal’s typical hard and heavy feel, Nendo gives the material a light, flexible feel, “as though the metal has become paper or cloth.”
I’m in Sapporo this week exploring the 2014 Sapporo International Art Festival. The theme of this year’s city-wide art show is “Nature and City” and is curated by the great Ryuichi Sakamoto. I’m documenting a few of my favorite installations. The art festival runs from July 19 – September 28, 2014.
Japanese artist Takashi Kuribayashi staged his paper installation “Wald aus Wald,” German for Forest from Forest. The installation, which features a single room ensconced in a white forest made from washi paper, has traveled to museums around the world: Tokyo (in 2010), Singapore (in 2011) and, most recently, Germany (in 2013). But it has now returned to Japan where it’s on display at the Sapporo Art Museum. These photos, taken from the artist’s website, are from previous installations.
I have total log cabin envy right now. UZU architects created “cross house,” a timber home nestled near the hills outside Kyoto. The home was designed around the nationalities of the husband (French) and wife (Japanese) who will live there. The husband, a chef, wanted a pleasant and open kitchen and brightly colored walls. The wife insisted on preserving a Japanese aesthetic by utilizing wood throughout the home. Indeed, the best of both worlds.
I’m in Sapporo this week exploring the 2014 Sapporo International Art Festival. The theme of this year’s city-wide art show is “Nature and City” and is curated by the great Ryuichi Sakamoto. I’m documenting a few of my favorite installations. The art festival runs from July 19 – September 28, 2014.
Fog artist Fujiko Nakaya is using her signature style to encase the courtyard of the Sapporo Art Museum in dense fog. Nakaya once told me that her sculptures rely entirely on the wind, which is true to some extent, but is an unforgivably modest statement. That’s because it completely ignores the careful meticulous studies that Nakaya takes on prior to any installation.
I’m so embarrassed. I wish I could just crawl into a hole and die.
Pictograms are universally recognizable pictorial symbols that communicate daily essentials like directions, the location of bathrooms and which is male and female. But what would pictograms look like if they were applied to more complex idioms and sayings? That was the question that led Akihiro Mizuuchi and his art students at Tokoha Gakuen University to create “Designing symbols sayings.” The web designer, illustrator and educator worked with his students to turn words into shapes.
A lot of the idioms were Japanese, making their equivalent pictogram slightly confusing for those unfamiliar with the language. But here are a few that seemed to work.
Money comes and goes
A child who sleeps well grows well.
Silence is golden
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours
Win or lose
As a fun bonus, Mizuuchi and his class also created a few pictograms for classic movies.
Titanic
The Matrix
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
I’m in Sapporo this week exploring the 2014 Sapporo International Art Festival. The theme of this year’s city-wide art show is “Nature and City” and is curated by the great Ryuichi Sakamoto. I’m documenting a few of my favorite installations. The art festival runs from July 19 – September 28, 2014.
Located on the beautiful, sprawling grounds of the Museum of Contemporary Art Sapporo is wooden pathway that extends out of a sloping hill. Standing in front of it, one can’t help but feel like a prisoner about to walk a pirate’s plank. That’s because the path, designed by artist Ryo Yamada, is just wide enough for a single person to walk out on, and stretches outward about 25 feet only to end in mid-air.
But anyone brave enough to walk the plank out to the ledge is rewarded with a magical sensation of freedom, rather than imprisonment; a new vantage point given to those able to step off the normal path (but also maintain enough balance to keep from falling).
It’s an installation that celebrates passage that’s rooted in experience, rather than a physical path.
“This piece of art represents a wish we all have in common that is invisible: A passage that leads us closer to air, which is the symbol of equality and borderlessness.”
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