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Vitro NasuIconoclastic Incubator
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On Kawara via artnet
A giant of conceptual art dead at 81
Click to enlarge 
He was life, blood, heart
Alan Sondheim (via netBehavior)
On July 8, 2014, Guggenheim announced On Kawara solo show for 2015 .
Ozu and mother (via)
Ozu Yasujiro Story #1 (youtube)
Ozu and 
his mother
“Ozu remained single and childless all of his life and stayed alone with his mother who died less than two years before his own death.
Ozu died in 1963 of cancer on his 60th birthday.. buried with his mother. His grave at Engaku-ji in Kamakura bears no name—just the character mu (“nothingness”)”
Happy mother’s day!
Mario A told us the sad news that Osamu Kokufu was accidentally killed at his exhibition space. He was only 44 years old.
Via Digmeout
Born in 1970. Graduated from Kyoto University, art research course in 1994.
Creating an original dream machines called KOKUFUMOBIL that have many interesting functions. One of his machines’ inside is converted into a fridge and the other one is converted into tropical jungle. He made a walker that has a helmet with a propeller. His machines are materialized of our child-hood dream. Also which includes an ecological point of view, such as measuring the exhaust gas by balloons and visualize it. Car with a sail run by wind power. Watering the garden in the air by wind power.
Kokufu House 
Osamu Kokufu 
click to see large
Artist Osamu KOKUFU, 44, passed away on April 29th. R.I.P. (Mainichi – in Japanese only)
Mobile (vimeo)
Click to see large 
Humanitarian activities (design boom)
Shigeru Ban (NY times) wins Pritzker
My student Shigeru Ban wins the Pritzker for his work in temporary structures. Look up his curtain house blowing in wind. And for his tubes of cardboard. I loved a poem he wrote that was about being confused at 20 by going from Japan to New York all the time. His embrace of victims of the storms. Proud of his clear architecture.Another example of the greatness of John Hejduk’s conception of the social contract which is, after all, architecture. The fantasies at Cooper became the poetry within disaster. Cardboard !
Shigeru Ban.Paper tube emergency shelter .Time lapse video
Balthus and Setsuko, Chateau-d’Oex, Switzerland, 1989 ..
Harumi (Balthus daughter) is a Jewlery designer
Beauty of Spring (Vimeo) (Created by Donatella Wenders/Mrs Wim Wenders)
Bono makes an apperance.. and unlike Balthus little girls Harumi grew up to became a mother.
Rilke 
Baladine and Balthus (photo via)
Letter to Balthus - Rilke was the lover of Baladine Klossowski, the mother of Balthus.
Ichiro Kojima (onlinebrowsing) – see more photos.
Kojima (b. 1924, Aomori, Japan) served the war effort in China during World War II and returned to his homeland, Aomori, in 1946. Having passed through several jobs, he began to help out in the family business, a photographic equipment shop.
Tsugaru, the series in this exhibition, was shot during Kojima’s first four years as a photographer; it may be said that it was during this time he worked on Tsugaru where Kojima developed his characteristic printing technique.
Under the guidance of an experienced beggar, the younger blind man would learn the basics of shamisen and begging. These men, called bousama (sarcastically meaning “honorable monk,”), were definitely at the bottom of the social ladder. They traveled through farming and fishing areas, where they would be able to play for food in order to survive.
Tsugaru History
Tsugaru-Aomori Japan (see map)
(Google Japan honored Ozu on his birthday)
Ozu was born on Dec 12, 1903.. he passed away on his birthday Dec 12 1963.
Ohayo trailer (youtube)
Click to see Sada Keiji 
I love you…..
Hear his Voice
I was born but... (previous Post)
Tokyo Chorus (previous post – Okada Tokihiko) -
Floating Words (previous post)
The Camera Can Create a Lovely Poem Even from Trifling
Katue Kitasono - Plastic Poems on view at LACMA till December 1, 2013.
POÉSIE
billions of ladies with billions of tongues have billions of peacocks
billions of ladies with billions of peacocks are calm as billions of
peacocks
ABOVE THE SAND DUNE
THE MOON’S OPERA
Katue 
Thing Net I
On View a Reconsideration of Katue Kitasono (NYtimes)
Jacket - 3 Poems Black Fire
Author Toyoko Yamasaki, known for best-selling novels getting to the heart of social problems, such as corruption and injustice, died on Sept. 29. She was 88.
Yamasaki won fame in 1965 with “Shiroi Kyoto” (The white tower), which shed light on the dark side of the medical world and the problem of malpractice.
Other representative novels include “Karei-naru Ichizoku” (The grand family) on corruption among politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats; “Fumo Chitai” (Wasteland) about the life of a former military officer who returned from Siberia; and “Daichi no Ko” (Son of the earth) about the life of a man left behind in China at the end of World War II.
Toyoko Yamasaki“Huffpo/Japan
“Futatsu no Sokoku” 
(Two Homelands) tells the story of the lives of three California-born sons of Japanese immigrants during the years surrounding World War II.
Ken Watanabe as the chairman of an airline workers labor union during aftermath of the tragic 1985 crash of JAL Flight 123. Due to the way the story portrays people who are still in positions of power today, the airline industry has long been unhelpful in bringing this story to the big screen.
The Sun that does not set promo (+ trailer )
This photo by Morimura is a departure from his usual satirical performances.
Issey Miyake collaborated with the performance artist.. see him upside down wrapped in something.
Cute Dog 
See more Yasumasa Morimura
Happy birthday Donald Keene .. he is 91 years old.
His latest adventure? Professor Keene adopted a son.
The adoption grew out of a friendship that started in 2006, and eventually led to Mr. Uehara’s moving into Mr. Keene’s Tokyo home and helping the older man out with things like keeping his large collection of books organized.
Interesting review of his book by Colin Marshall.. Donald Keene on Familiar Terms.
His autobiography is an excellent read.. what an amazing life.
For generations of scholars, critics and artists who have made Japan their field, Richie was a hugely influential and inspirational presence, opening a window on a ceaselessly fascinating world. Those who knew him personally will remember him for his endless approachability, enthusiasm, energy and generosity with his time, even in his final years of illness.
Richie suggested a title change to Kore eda’s wonderful life to After Life. (Japan times – Master Critic)
Donald R had a high praise for Still Walking calling the film..a staggering achievement..(previous post - Still Walking)
Lafcadio Hearn of our time? 
Image via
Kafu was his favorite authors among others Kawabata Yasunari and Junichiro Tanizaki.
Japanese Portraits, picture of different people..
Donald Richtie 1924- 2013 (Diplomat obit)
“It is, in fact, an injustice to call Richie a writer on Japan; really, he is a writer on artifice and time and death, on being human. And most of all he’s a writer on the particularly modern art of learning how to be a foreigner.”
In the introduction, Iyer goes on to place Richie in the company of literary figures such as Graham Greene, Jan Morris, Paul Bowles and Somerset Maugham.
Donald Ritchie at his best talking about Bresson
A Film by Donald Richie
Freedom within bounds (kyoto journal)
Paul Schrader says “Whatever we in the West know about Japanese film, and how we know it, we most likely owe to Donald Richie.” Richie also penned analyses of two of Japan’s best known filmmakers: Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa.
Richie wrote the English subtitles for Akira Kurosawa’s films Kagemusha (1980), Red Beard, and Dreams
Among those he counted as his friends and intimates were the writers Marguerite Yourcenar, Susan Sontag, Christopher Isherwood, Anthony Thwaite, and Angela Carter. (Inclined View – Japan times)
Watch viedo here..Life in Japanese film Donald Richie
Citizen Kane opend his eyes.. he got a camera.
On Mishima was still taboo in Japan according to Donald R.
Yamato damashi – religion of Japan.. they believe in themselves.
Drunken Angel was his first introduction to Japanese film.
Individuality in Kurosawa. (Dostoevsky in Kurosawa).
On Kagemusha.
Katsu Shintaro..was considered – Shintaro brought his own camera crew..the fight erupted.
the part went to Nakadai Tatsuya..Richie saw it as a mistake..
(miscast).
Why women are great actresses .. they practice duplucity in Japanese culture.
Women in Ozu real woman
Women in mizoguchi.. women as victims..
Naruse has a dark view of women
Strong women in Imamura they do whatever…
Ozu Menekata sisters not a good film according to Ritchie..
He also said Simone Beauvoir was better philosopher than Sartre, Colette better writer than Scott Fitzgerald.
Update: Remembering Donald (No1 Shinbun)
Yamada Isuzu (5 February 1917 – 9 July 2012) was a Japanese actress whose career on stage and screen spanned eight decades.
Sisters of gion, (Mizoguchi)
Osaka elegy, (Mizoguchi)
The Throne of blood (Kurosawa)
Tokyo Twilght (Ozu)
Black River
The Lower Depth, (Kurosawa)
Yojinbo (Kurosawa)
She died in 2012 at age 95.
