1) Decide: (a) a theme; (b) the size of the works you want to receive (e.g. postcards or A4); (c) a deadline by which people have to send their contributions.
Of course (a) and (b) can be left free, and the project can be ongoing, i.e. without a deadline.

2) Write and spread the call/invitation. The four main tools you can use are: (a) flyers; (b) zines; (c) e-mail and (d) mail art web sites.

3) Make the documentation. This can be: (a) a traditional paper catalogue with an address list of all the participants; (b) a CD-Rom; (c) an online doc (a website or a blog).
When you spread your call, remember to specify what kind of doc you are going to produce.

4) At the end of the project, send to each participant a copy of the doc [in case you have produced (3-a) or (3-b)].

These are four simple steps with many details left out. For more information you read this article on my blog:
The Joys and Pains of Organizing Mail Art.


Now, for those of you who don’t want to start your own project just yet, the best way to join the Network is to take part in one of the many mail art projects or to contact the mail artists directly.

Here’s some mail art calls to make that important first step:

Wipe
Send 40 sheets of toilet tissue. Size: 14×11cm max. Open theme and technique. No organic material or traces please. Edition made every 20 participants.
Send your contributions to: Field Study, P.O. Box 1838, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia.

Field Report 2009 – Journal of Field Study International
Send 100 copies of a documentation of your performance, instruction, manifesto, journey, and work signed: “Field Study Emanation by…” + artist’s name. Copies have to be flat and landscape format. Size: 5 1/2”x8 1/2” or 15 x 21cm. Leave 2cm on the left-hand side for the binding. Deadline: December 31, 2009
Send to Field Study (see address above).

For more calls and projects, you can check out these websites:
www.dragonflydream.com
www.crosses.net/mailartforum

At the end of many projects you will get a documentation and an address list of all the participants that you can use to contact them. After that, it’s up to you.

Of course, things at first move very slowly, and it may be a little frustrating, but your efforts will be eventually repaid. Just remember that the more you put your time and energy into it, the more you get in return. But let me warn you: mail art is like a drug, and once you taste its pleasures, there’s no way out. You will end up knowing by heart when the postman comes, and will live for that moment. Any day without mail will be a gloomy day, and you will hate Sundays because on Sundays the postman doesn’t come.

If you want to read more about mail art-related subjects, you may want to check the English magazine KAIRAN. One copy costs 500 yen or $5.00 postpaid worldwide.
Copies can be ordered at ilovemondo@yahoo.co.jp.

Much of the arts news this week was dominated by the death of choreographer Pina Bausch at 68, and also Michael Martin, the graffiti artist who died aged 50.

In the Tokyo arts scene, there were two other deaths.

One was a thing, or more precisely, a magazine. Studio Voice has become one of the many recent print media here to close down, part of the global media recession. Though the editors were not answering the rumours at first, it has now been confirmed that the August edition will be its last. It is thought that the magazine will be making the shift online but, as we saw from the demise of Ping Mag last year, even that is not a safe realm.

The second thing to die was an application, namely that of Ueno’s National Museum of Western Art to become a World Heritage Site. In spite of the local pride in the Le Corbusier-designed building, it apparently does not meet the standard of the UNESCO brand.

Talk of the town

Chim↑Pom members are some of the speakers appearing at a Shop Btf event today (July 4), continuing their hegemony of the Tokyo art scene.

In Yuichi Yokoyama’s painstakingly constructed manga “Travel” one encounters a postmodern world through a wordless train society. On trains we engage in superficiality; it’s all we can do. In fact, rather than the careful verbal maneuvering such as that which takes place in the office or the bar, on the train we engage in a purely visual assessment of people around us.

Yokoyama is known as a painter as well, but this foray is on the printed page. His extreme attention to mise en scene in the cell renders words unnecessary and conveys an amazing unique modern society, one that feels like a Kraftwerk-inspired engineer-sociologist-cynic’s dream. The world of unspoken image exchanges, of the gazer and gazed, interactions that we cannot pin down with an utterance; the visual (architectural, fashion, facial) features that operate in that world.

With about ten years of planning and three years of work, “Travel” rewards the reader who searches these deceivingly simple images for a world bearing traits of our own. Maybe we’ve never paid attention to the latticed concrete hillsides outside, the way I sized-up that guy or girl, the flashes of light from an oncoming train at night or the way rain streams horizontally across the window in amoeboid tendrils. But Yokoyama has nailed these things down in his own semiotics of the rails. He solidifies a range of certain looks, glances, wayward gazes and hidden peeks that form the most substantive human interaction in this anonymous place. He captures moments that we easily miss in his own linearly engineered universe.

But don’t be mislead, this is not a documentation of Japanese trains or Japanese society exactly. The settings and inhabitants appear quasi-European (but don’t most characters in manga?), although in a non-stereotypical way. Everyone’s features are reduced to a strange set of nose, mouth, eyes, hairstyle and clothing. Shapes appear at first to be just random abstraction but as you read on you realize this stylization is more of a distillation and minimization of those features that we classify people all the time tinged with the sardonic. This visual style is effective in articulating our superficial engagement with an over-populated urban environment.

At its core, “Travel” is the journey of three people from one place to another – from rural toward urban landscapes. The society has recognizable elements of Japanese life but works more as meta-manga, explicating the medium’s euro-centric depictions of people through their overt simplification. It conveys more without words than any attempt by the most contemporary jargon. This manga is truly a work of art, which, unlike so much contemporary art’s denial of an interpretive gaze, actually yields a critical stance. A must for those of us who travel on trains regularly, this nice dose of irony points out the nuances of inter-train life.

“Travel” by Yuichi Yokoyama (2006, East Press)
Available from Aoyama Book Center, NADiff and other outlets, priced 1,141 yen plus tax.
http://www.eastpress.co.jp/

Mail art is many things at once, and everyone has his or her personal approach and motivations. Some people are in it simply to make friends: it’s a sort of pen-palling-cum-art-exchange. Some are more artistically committed than others, but everybody can become a mail artist. The Network has a high degree of tolerance for newcomers and welcomes everybody, regardless of his or her skills. After all, the communicative aspect is far more important than art for art’s sake; the real masterpiece is not the single artwork but the endless exchange going on, day in day out, throughout the world, and collaboration is one of the key words. It is, most of all, a process that slowly insinuates itself and ultimately realizes the old dream of the avant-garde: building an alternative, non-hierarchical approach to culture in which art = life.

The postcard (handmade, of course!), is one of the favorite means of expression. Other recurring “genres” are collage, xerography, rubberstamp art (using both hand-carved and commercial stamps), artist books, artistamps (fake postage stamps), photos, CDs, comics and so on. The list is virtually endless and one’s own imagination is the only limit. The written word (prose, poetry etc) is not as much represented as visual expression, but written contributions are always welcome. As collaboration is one of the key words in the Network, some of the more interesting projects involve the participation of many people. In the case of the so-called “assembling,” for instance, every participant sends a certain number of copies – usually of the same work – to the organizer, who then assembles and collate them into a book or box. Everyone who has taken part in the project eventually receives a copy of the finished work.

Though Japan is not massively represented in the Network, many Japanese have been active mail artists through the years, including Gutai founding member Shozo Shimamoto, Fluxus artist Eiichi Matsuhashi, visual poet Keiichi Nakamura, and Ryosuke Cohen of Brain Cell fame.

A few years ago I was personally involved in a big mail art project in collaboration with Amnesty International Japan, the local office of the worldwide human rights organization. AI’s 2004-2006 worldwide campaign focused on domestic violence against women, as well as violence in conflict and post conflict. So we decided to ask mail artists for help. This, by the way, is by no means the first time that AI and the Network have joined hands to address specific problems (other topics tackled in the past have been torture and the death penalty).

A task group was formed, with myself concentrating on the mail art part of the project (writing the call, spreading the word, and instructing the others on how to collect and catalogue the incoming works), while other people looked for a suitable venue for the exhibition, invited experts and activists to talk, and organized other collateral activities. We were lucky because overall mail artists are socially and/or politically committed people. So we were able to gather more than 250 contributions from all over the world, including postcards, collages, drawings, photographs, and even local artists, who usually are not active in the mail art network, lent or donated paintings, sculptures and embroidery. The end result was “Fighting Back: Stop Violence Against Women”, an exhibition that was a huge success and has traveled to several cities.

The “Fighting Back: Stop Violence Against Women” catalogue costs 500 yen or $5.00 postpaid worldwide.

Copies can be ordered at ilovemondo@yahoo.co.jp.

The Setouchi International Art Festival 2009 is currently holding a very open call-out for submissions. The Festival will be held on islands in the Inland Sea, including Naoshima. See the official site for details.

Events

If you live in the Asagaya area then you should definitely check out an event happening at the local LOFT from 19:30. No doubt many of you have seen the extraordinary “Stop motion with wolf and pig” video posted on YouTube (see below). Its creator, Taijin Takeuchi, will be giving a talk, along with up-and-coming animation artists Tadasu Taniguchi and Ryo Inoue. It costs 1000 yen and you can make reservations through the LOFT website.

Claska is hosting another big event on July 3 (Friday). “Okaimono Shinight” starts at 19:00 and is free. There will be booths and stalls selling crafts and fashion goods, as well as deluxe Japanese confectionary.

Outside Japan, the London Hayward Gallery has just opened a new exhibition featuring some colourful Yayoi Kusama installations. The Guardian had this report.

Market news

Christie’s has axed more jobs, reports Bloomberg. But the NY Times noted Sotheby’s strong auction this week.

All good things come to an end

The Kodak homepage announced that the company is discontinuing its much-loved Kodachrome film after seventy-four years. Following last year’s demise of polaroid, is this another nail in the coffin of film cameras?

Surviving…

Galleries that participated in the Armory Art Fair in New York last March came back home with a shrug.

Art Fair Tokyo, which took place the following month, was great for galleries with young and still relatively affordable artists (Kodama Gallery re-did their installation once their first batch of works sold out) but galleries with works over 500,000 yen had a harder time convincing the crowd (45,000 visitors over 4 days, an increase from last year) that it was a good time to invest in the arts.

AFT had this to say: “The current mood of cautiousness in the art market prompted many galleries to price works affordably, resulting in pleasing sales results despite the poor economic conditions. According to a survey conducted by the Art Fair Tokyo Committee Executive Office, estimated total sales were approximately one billion yen (US$10 million). Several galleries completely sold out on opening day, while other gallery operators commented that ‘the economic crisis has had little influence on sales. Many even managed to sell some of their more expensive masterworks.”

Contemporary galleries this year mostly seemed to use AFT as an opportunity to show rather than sell. That was one reason why the installations in the booths looked pretty tight.

At the same time 101Tokyo took place again and was attended by 5,000 people. But quite how that translated into real sales for the galleries is more difficult to say. No one wants to break face!

Also, although it is meant to happen twice a year, Takashi Murakami’s GEISAI will not be held again until 2010 it seems.

Shifting around…

Nanzuka Underground moved from its former Shibuya basement location to be closer to other galleries in the new Shirokane complex. And Zenshi has pulled out of the Kiyosumi-Shirakawa building (although this move may not be solely for financial reasons).

Beginning of the end?

Tomio Koyama Gallery will be closing its Ryue Nishizawa-designed Daikanyama space in June (as reported on TABlog).

But the struggle is particularly evident in other areas, especially in the media industry.

Esquire Japan went on an “extended break” (although a petition has been launched to try to bring it back!), along with many other magazines.

Ping Mag closed over the New Year, followed by Tokyo Art Cross (as reported here on TABlog).

ART iT will no longer be printing their glossy issues, but instead will offer their articles and reviews via their new website.

The title “Neoteny” refers to the juvenile characteristics of Japanese society, eloquently described by Takeo Doi nearly forty years ago, that has more recently blossomed in the popularity of otaku fantasies. Childlike emotions are captured by many of the artists in the current exhibition, occasionally reaching an animal-like presence that reveals to the acute visitor the subconscious layers of the human psyche. The arrangement of the artworks lacks a clean narration; like the mind itself, it is a compendium of dream-like reality held together with liminal thoughts.

The Ueno Royal Museum overflows with curiosities of the mind assembled in a way that only a social psychiatrist could. The show may be misinterpreted as a survey of contemporary Japanese art since 1990, but it is more useful to think of the works as a collection of works inspired by the personal tastes and interests of Takahashi himself. In summary, art that springs from and feeds the psyche. Thus the current show moves fluidly in and out of phantasmagoric streams of consciousness, reading more as a form of visual therapy rather than a statement on the condition of Japanese art.

Although the show purports to express the spirit of ‘young’ artists in Japan it opens early on with a room of paintings by Yoshitomo Nara, soon followed by one of Takashi Murakami’s monotonous DOB dolls, flanked by Makoto Aida’s ‘A Picture of an Air Raid on New York City (War Picture Returns)’. Based on a first impression it appears that “Neoteny Japan” may be just another display of superficial otaku subculture. But in fact the show builds intrigue as one enters the caverns of the psyche, reaching a climax in the back room with space-like works on paper from Hiroe Saeki and handmade collages based on everyday walking actions by Sayaka Akiyama.

One of the most outstanding pieces by Akiyama frankly describes the day before she left Berlin in a poetic manner with emotions that anyone who has lived in a foreign country can identify with. Unfortunately the installation of Akiyama’s works was less than splendid, with the English translation of her German/Japanese wall text hidden around the corner by the stairs. This was compounded by the fact that her works were split into entirely separate galleries, placing her current site-specific works in an easily overlooked area adjoining the museum exit. Be sure not to miss this amorphous gallery that also includes the enchanting kaleidoscopic room ‘MUTED SPACE’ by Tadasu Takamine, but also some underwhelming works by the artist known as Mr..

The show, with its lack of translation and domestic tour schedule, is aimed toward a Japanese audience. It opened in Kagoshima last year, moved to Sapporo and will go to four more venues across Japan. The danger of a show claiming to be as broad-sweeping as “Neoteny Japan” is that it becomes a false signifier for “contemporary Japanese art” as a whole. There are many young artists whose work speaks a different language from the “zoological” origins that Takahashi points towards in his adaptation of the scientific term Neoteny. In the current waves of Japanese art Yoshito Ikeda’s subtle video works and Toshiaki Tomita’s socially engaged projects present a remarkably different narrative of contemporary Japanese art. So long as we see the show as one current in a larger river of art practice in Japan the psychological ride is full of thrills and a lot cheaper than a visit to the local therapist’s office.

This is blinger than bling. We’ve been seeing reports and photos of what happened when hip-hop star Pharrell Williams and Takashi Murakami got together in Basel. The results went for $2 million.

Another artist well known for crossing the boundaries of various media is Yoko Ono. Hot on the heels of her recent music award, Ono has given a rare concert in London. However, there were some reviews, such as this one in the London Times, which were not positive.

New Media

Some of you may have heard of the ART iT re-launch, where all content is going to be placed online, with the current magazine website merging with a new, more in-depth one. It appeared from the kari site that the release was to be July but now apparently the site is up, at least in part.

First the good news…

No doubt many readers caught Yuri Suzuki’s extraordinary show at the Clear Gallery from March to May. It has been announced that London-based Suzuki is one of the winners of the 2009 Prix ARS Electronica. See the official website for a list of the winners. Suzuki is also one of the contributors to Claska’s Tokyo by Tokyo, where a range of designers, artists and writers give their recommendations for the capital. You can read more about the book in the TAB Shop.

And now the bad news…

Art prices have fallen 70%. Prices for major upcoming London auctions are that much lower than last year’s, according to this report on Bloomberg.

For Matsui, Micropop is defined as a set of artistic practices that move in two directions: first, it involves the rearrangement of products, fragments of information, knowledge, or cultural signs to create new inventions. This act of rearrangement is said to be driven by “immediate demands in life” rather than ideology or social conventions.

Lyota Yagi’s ‘VINYL’ would seem to embody this first direction. In this simple but remarkable work, a phonograph record moulded in ice is played until it melts. Curiously, the looping noise of the melted disc, rather than the classical music, becomes most evocative for the listener, as the process of liquefaction prompts an intense curiosity, a desire to capture the decaying sound mass.

The second direction of Micropop is described as “the production, or recording, of a physical effect”, this being explained as a deterritorialization of the language of art. For Matsui, it is a question of creating new meanings which cannot be integrated in any context of human authority, invoking nonsense in place of the “order words” of full speech. Koki Tanaka’s ‘Cause is Effect’, Masanori Handa’s ‘Ocean of A (Ocean of Answer)’, and Taro Izumi’s ‘Llama’ might be considered the most exemplary of this direction.

“The Winter Garden” exhibition is organized around three themes: (1) the process of mental association triggered by everyday events; (2) the adolescent sensibility, including its subcultural influences such as manga and anime; and (3) the artists’ affinity with the modes by which plants and minerals survive, growing through the accretion of small elements. These themes are intended to form an organic whole, but they lead us to a significant difficulty with the theory of Micropop: how should we understand its unity?

While Matsui has elected not to organize the galleries of the museum thematically, the sheer variety of works on display, combined with the breadth of practices and forms encompassed by the concept of Micropop, seem to dilute its explanatory power. Part of the difficulty is that Micropop is characterized more as an attitude than a set of practices. While described as being “independent of any major ideology or theory”, Micropop nevertheless appeals to the vitalist immediacy of “life”, with its attendant presuppositions concerning spontaneity and purity.

The theoretical support for this exhibition is set out in Matsui’s 2007 essay “Micropop — The Art of the Late Postmodern Age”, which draws upon the “minor literature” of Deleuze and Guattari, and De Certeau’s “tactics of the everyday”. Here, Deleuzian notions such as deterritorialization, immanence, and assemblages of enunciation, are freely invoked to explain contemporary Japanese art. To elucidate the works of the Micropop artists as forms of minor production, Matsui evokes the situation of children, immigrants, and consumers who live, as Deleuze puts it, “in a language that is not their own.”

Indeed, an adolescent or childish sensibility is evident in many works of the Micropop artists. Notable examples include Ryoko Aoki’s ‘The sun’, Mahomi Kunikata’s ‘The Useless Cave’, and Aya Tanako’s pen and watercolor drawings. Where Murakami’s Superflat ironically questioned the childish qualities of contemporary Japanese culture, attempting to understand its stakes, Matsui relaxes the need for critical interrogation, instead affirming the childish sensibility as a form of minor production. What seems lost here is the recognition, already circulating in Murakami’s work, that there is no longer anything “minor” or “radical” about childishness in the Japanese popular imaginary. Whatever we may think of it, kawaii has become and remains a dominant force.

Similarly, Matsui describes the Micropop artists as “cultural immigrants” within Japan, because of the “marginalized” position they occupy in relation to modern Western culture. While acknowledging the globalization of the art world and the sense in which “maginality is becoming universal”, Matsui’s description of these artists as marginalized subjects occupying a “non-institutional” position is rather curious. After all, we’re talking about artists who have been exhibited in Art Tower Mito, the Hara Museum, and now in an international touring exhibition funded by the Japan Foundation.

To create “a unique cultural identity” through an art whose practices have been formed “in response to the specific conditions of contemporary Japanese society”, and yet to transcend the banner and umbrella of “Japanese art” to create something with “universal appeal” — these, then, are some of the paradoxes, or contradictions, of Micropop.