Our “Visual Culture of Japan Series” continues with this post on famed Osaka-based Japanese architect Tadao Ando and some images of his buildings, including the the “4×4 Houses,” “Church of Light” and Awaji Yumebatai in Japan. Ando is one of the world’s leading architects. His Osaka firm has designed buildings through Japan and around the globe.
4×4 Houses photo and copyright: Hiromitsu Morimoto / HET Gallery
“Church of Light” photo and copyright Buou / Chris He
Here’s the first post of our “Visual Culture of Japan” series, which we were inspired to launch given the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster.
We start with the first letter of the alpabet: “A” is for Araki as in family name of the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki whose work inspires, intrigues and provokes us. Araki is well-known for his explicit sexual subject matter and erotic images, but its his street photography, unguarded portraits (see below) and urban landscape images which resonate with us most.
The incredible, terrible destruction stemming from the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, and the subsequent tsunami and nuclear-reactor disasters, has focused much of the our attention on a nation that is arguably one of the most globally influential and sophisticated when it comes to aesthetics and creative culture.
We are devoting many blog posts on Global Graphica for the next week or so to the visual culture of Japan. We’ll be posting about street art, design, photography, video, creators — in short, all facets of the country’s rich visual culture and creative output.
Below is one of the many famous and iconic Hokusai wood-block print images of symbolic Mount Fuji near Tokyo, Japan.
Lots of origami cranes ( tsuru in Japanese ) on display in the Los Angeles offices of a major global advertising agency. The staff at the agency are raising awareness and funds toward helping victims of earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan by making 1,000 of the birds in the Japanese traditional art of paper-folding.
Large dog sculpture by acclaimed Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara at the (surprisingly good) Palm Springs Art Museum, in the city of Palm Springs, the famous southern California desert resort town. Nara is better known for his drawings and paintings of an anime or manga comic book-like character of an impish little girl.
Midtown Manhattan skyline racing by in the distance as seen from a car on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway ( BQE ). It was early evening and we were in a car taking us out to John F. Kennedy International Airport ( JFK ) to catch another flight out to Los Angeles. We couldn’t resist snapping a few pix of home in the twilight.
The lovely A. was gracious enough to show us the awesome feather tattoo on her foot and pose for our camera. We noticed her tat while sipping coffee at one of our favorite cafes in downtown New York City. The composition of the tattoo artwork is aligned with the shape of the foot and compliments the form. Like it. Thank you for sharing, A.!
Some New Orleans natives in the office in Los Angeles recently celebrated a mardi gras tradition and brought a “king cake” in. It’s a visual treat as well as a culinary one.
This is a nice serendipitous diptych-like placement of two copies of Vogue magazine we spotted at the Terminal 5 newsstand at LAX airport. The current issue of American Vogue features pop-singing superstar Lady Gaga on the cover. The image was shot by legendary fashion photographer Mario Testino. Love it.
