Two musical moments
Caboladies
Eyes and Arms of Smoke
Friday, April 18, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Mr. by Mr.
I was having difficulty figuring out what my first entry should be. I realize I'm not really in the know enough to write about a lot of awesome/currently happening things.
Given the title of this blog, I thought it would be worth mentioning it's source. Mr. by Mr. is published by Kaikai Kiki and gives an overview of the artist's work. Some may be surprised to know that in addition to semi-creepy paintings of underage anime characters, Mr. has also done various public performances usually in the guise of ninjas or anime personalities. Additionally it includes excerpts from his personal diaries and other writings which don't particularly offer that much insight into his art-making, but are interesting as a backdrop to the pieces in the book.
Due to the limited availability and limited content of the book itself, it is probably only of real interest to people who are especially interested in Mr. himself or Kaikai Kiki. I was able to buy it a couple of years ago from the Giant Robot online store, which seems to always have some really great out of print books. If you happen to see it floating around somewhere you might want to snatch it up.
Why am I so interested in Mr. to begin with? I'm not sure. When I first became acquainted with Mr.'s work in early 2002 I was a bit shocked to see him openly projecting his pedophilia fantasies through his artwork. Now in 2008 when lolicon has become almost a household name and the accompanying trappings of moe warrant items such as this he seems like some kind of prophet.
It's no surprise that Mr. is the senior most protege of Takashi Murakami. As Murakami has stated himself, he is a failed otaku who caters his art to otaku sensibilities. For all intents and purposes, Mr. is an otaku attempting to project himself as an artist. To the casual viewer Mr. easily appears as a less-skilled Murakami copycat. His earlier works, those primarily featured in the book this entry is all about are simplistic and have little in common with the lushly illustrated doujinshi and CG games depicting lolicon type characters. Although his characters sometimes display genitalia, there is an innocence about them that might be compared to the character design of the classic 70's anime series Heidi: Girl of the Alps.
I recently found this video that features a Mr. exhibition from 2007.
Here the increased complexity of the compositions themselves and the detail of the individual characters becomes immediately apparent. They have much more in common with their doujinshi counterparts that have been festering in the bowels of Akiba. Being a senior employee at Kaikai Kiki, I have to assume that Mr. is now using the same stable of tireless assistants as Murakami has to execute his work. Obviously the sculptural pieces were not executed by his own hand. It's rather difficult to find details on any Kaikai Kiki artist besides Murakami (at least in English). If anyone can point me to any info or further reading that would be great.
It looks like I'm off to a great start. Long-winded and without a point.
P.S. I really like Japan.
Given the title of this blog, I thought it would be worth mentioning it's source. Mr. by Mr. is published by Kaikai Kiki and gives an overview of the artist's work. Some may be surprised to know that in addition to semi-creepy paintings of underage anime characters, Mr. has also done various public performances usually in the guise of ninjas or anime personalities. Additionally it includes excerpts from his personal diaries and other writings which don't particularly offer that much insight into his art-making, but are interesting as a backdrop to the pieces in the book.
Due to the limited availability and limited content of the book itself, it is probably only of real interest to people who are especially interested in Mr. himself or Kaikai Kiki. I was able to buy it a couple of years ago from the Giant Robot online store, which seems to always have some really great out of print books. If you happen to see it floating around somewhere you might want to snatch it up.
Why am I so interested in Mr. to begin with? I'm not sure. When I first became acquainted with Mr.'s work in early 2002 I was a bit shocked to see him openly projecting his pedophilia fantasies through his artwork. Now in 2008 when lolicon has become almost a household name and the accompanying trappings of moe warrant items such as this he seems like some kind of prophet.
It's no surprise that Mr. is the senior most protege of Takashi Murakami. As Murakami has stated himself, he is a failed otaku who caters his art to otaku sensibilities. For all intents and purposes, Mr. is an otaku attempting to project himself as an artist. To the casual viewer Mr. easily appears as a less-skilled Murakami copycat. His earlier works, those primarily featured in the book this entry is all about are simplistic and have little in common with the lushly illustrated doujinshi and CG games depicting lolicon type characters. Although his characters sometimes display genitalia, there is an innocence about them that might be compared to the character design of the classic 70's anime series Heidi: Girl of the Alps.
I recently found this video that features a Mr. exhibition from 2007.
Here the increased complexity of the compositions themselves and the detail of the individual characters becomes immediately apparent. They have much more in common with their doujinshi counterparts that have been festering in the bowels of Akiba. Being a senior employee at Kaikai Kiki, I have to assume that Mr. is now using the same stable of tireless assistants as Murakami has to execute his work. Obviously the sculptural pieces were not executed by his own hand. It's rather difficult to find details on any Kaikai Kiki artist besides Murakami (at least in English). If anyone can point me to any info or further reading that would be great.
It looks like I'm off to a great start. Long-winded and without a point.
P.S. I really like Japan.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
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