Tokyo Art & Music

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Mayada Maya Exhibition at Gallery La Mer

I quite liked Mayada Maya's pictures - and would have liked to talk to the artist about them (particularly the name of the exhibit "Lost my name / Lost my home"), but only the gallery owner and another viewer were there in the gallery when I went by.

Mayada Maya / Gallery La Mer

From what the gallery owner said, the artist is a university student.

The website for the La Mer gallery is: http://www.g-lamer.com/

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://tokyoartmusic.blogspot.com/

Daimon Suihou (大門翠鵬) Exhibition at Ono Gallery-2 (銀座小野画廊-II) - (2010/02)

This exhibit's theme seemed to be a combination of fish and machines. There artist wasn't there when I dropped by, so I couldn't ask about it, but here's the promotional postcard:

大門翠鵬 / 銀座小野画廊-II

The artist's website is: http://www.d-suihou.net/

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://tokyoartmusic.blogspot.com/

"Street Band 'Village' - LIve in Shinjuku on February 23rd, 2010"

This spot on the west side of Shinjuku Station is probably less conspicuous and therefore less likely to draw complaints (to the police, who then ask people to stop playing), but it also doesn't seem to generate many listeners. The plaza was good for getting an audience, but considering how often the police came around, chasing bands away from it in the autumn of 2008, probably it also generated complaints.

These guys seemed to sound pretty good, although I didn't stay very long. Anyway, here's what I heard:

新宿駅西口あたりビレッジのライブ東京

Their website is: http://ip.tosp.co.jp/i.asp?i=village0918

And - here's a still picture I took:

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://tokyoartmusic.blogspot.com/

"Street Band Mitsumassyu - LIve in Shinjuku on February 23rd, 2010"

The flyer I got for this group shows four people, as does a website I saw with pictures of them performing (in Washington DC), but there were only two members of the band on the evening of February 23rd, 2010.

Incidentally, the spelling of their name (based on ミツマッシュ) as "Mitsumassyu" is using a defunct and outdated system of "romaji" for writing Japanese with English letters. They should be spelling their name: "Mitsumasshu", unless, of course, they are doing it intentionally to have a quirky name.

新宿駅西口あたりミツマッシュのライブ東京

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://tokyoartmusic.blogspot.com/

Ani-Zoo (兄藏) Live in Shinjuku on February 23rd, 2010

Ani-Zoo (兄藏) seems to play in Shinjuku fairly regularly - certainly I've seen him there several times myself.

新宿駅南口のストリート

Ani-Zoo's old website: http://red.ap.teacup.com/anizo/
Ani-Zoo's new website: http://ameblo.jp/anizoo/

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://tokyoartmusic.blogspot.com/

"The Band 'Super Natural' - Live in Shinjuku on February 23rd, 2010"

The street band "Super Natural" (two words), playing near the south exit of Shinjuku Station. Maika handles vocals and Zenka guitar. Their website is: http://s-natural.net/

新宿駅南口のストリートバンド "Super Natural"

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://tokyoartmusic.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Fuji Akinaga (藤井光永) and Yamashita Akinobu (山下晃伸) Exhibit at Gallery Serikawa (芹川画廊)

As a photographer, the experience of viewing other photographers' work is always much different from how I feel when viewing paintings, which I am unable to create myself, and so have no competitive feelings about! That preamble out of the way, here's the promotional card for a recent exhibition at Gallery Serikawa.

藤井光永 and 山下晃伸 at 芹川画廊

I focused on the photographs with a critical eye (I can't help doing that when I look at photos...), and was impressed with the way people were recorded out on the streets of Tokyo in a way that you would think the photographer would have to be invisible to do. One picture in particular comes to mind - of a man looking meaningfully into the eyes of his girlfriend by a... square building support I think it is. For a number of reasons, that sort of picture is not easy to take!

So, if you would like to see images of unposed inhabitants of Tokyo, I recommend going over to Gallery Serikawa and having a look by February 28th, 2010, which is the last day of the exhibit. In addition to the prints on the wall - arranged by year - there are several scrapbooks of photos that you can peruse as well. The back of the promotional card has instructions on how to get to the gallery: