Oh No Kyoto (But Oh Yes)

 

Oh No Kyoto (But Oh Yes)

Prince of Bohemia in Japan

 

Prince of Bohemia in Japan

Yves Klein: Japan

 

"Yves Klein: Japan

Text by Terhi Génévrier-Tausti, Denys Riout. (DILECTA)

I love this book because it deals with my two favorite subject matters: Yves Klein and Japan. In a manner, it's the same subject matter.  The book focuses on Klein's trip to Japan to study Judo, a passion of his, even before doing art. Both of his parents were painters, and, interestingly, he marks himself in a different interest. Eventually, he does focus on art, but his passion for leaving France to another world is a curiosity that an artist usually shares. Once he reaches Japan, he is concerned about organizing an exhibition for his parent's artwork and focusing on his Judo studies. 

The heart of "Yves Klein Japan" is that it's a scrapbook of his time in Tokyo and other cities. Told in a chronicle order of time in relying on the people he met and Japan's sights. He arrived in 1952 and stayed in the country for 15 months. There are photographs of travel documents, souvenirs he purchased, handwritten letters to his parents, the French Government to secure a visa in Japan, as well as correspondence and art he made for friends on postcards. To travel to Japan in the 1950s after the war was made only by the few, and it must have been a strange world to visit. Like all first-time visitors to Tokyo, one is struck by the neon lights at dusk and night, and to this day, it's exactly the same landscape.  

Klein also visited the island of Oshima, which is a few hours away from Tokyo. I stayed on this island for three-weeks, during an art festival. There is very little information in English about this island, which has an active volcano. Klein comments to a friend on a postcard how surreal the landscape is around the volcano area. This is the cliche statement to make when one visits such a place, but it is also 100% true. The starkness of the area around the volcano is colorless in a sense but very livid in its black and gray rocks that surround the area. It's the opposite of Klein's later work and his interest in colors. I feel such foreign earth must have made an impression on his aesthetic in later years. It's very much the opposite of his art, but there is a similar texture and heat issue. Klein looked at colors and fire as a spiritual aspect of life. Although this is more of natural science, it does convey a brutal spirituality in itself. 

Judo is a sculpture in action. It is also a ritual art with rules and boundaries. Klein's work was also in the same mode when he did his performances and even the music he wrote for his first symphony, where it's one-note for 20 minutes and then silent for the next 20. The ritual in his work, I think, came from his visit to and study of Japanese culture—specifically Judo, of course. 

I'm such a Japanophile that I love to hear Westerners' first approach and visit to Japan. "Yves Klein Japan" hits that spot for me, as well as his personal observations of the cities and countryside of this part of Asia. One's culture or work is never an island in itself. It feeds from travel, thinking, and practice. Klein was a great artist and whose work is pretty magnificent. I don't think his contemporary art presence would have been the same if not for this trip to Japan. So, the physical objects are his art and this book, as well as Klein's instructional book Les fondements du Judo. "Yves Klein Japan" is an enchanting book.  

Images of Japan by Tosh Berman

Portrait of Tosh Berman, Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo Bus, Meguro, Tokyo

Western style wedding party, Tokyo

Piss Alley, Shinjuku, Tokyo

Messed-up face display for manga series: Shinjuku, Tokyo

Bar entrance, Nakano Broadway area, Tokyo

Harajuku, Tokyo

Bar in Nakano Broadway area, Tokyo

Hotel in Broadway Nakano, Tokyo

Window display for music shop, Ginza, Tokyo

Meji Park, Tokyo

Music Shop (floor-by-floor) window display, Ginza, Tokyo

Wedding Ceremony at Meji Shrine, Tokyo

Aoyoma, Tokyo Abandoned home

Naked Dolls, but can add clothing, accessories, etc.

Ginza coffee shop, Ginza Tokyo

Ginza Street, Ginza Tokyo

Ginza, Tokyo at dusk

Tom Cruise

Brad Pitt

Doll Faces, Tokyo

Yakuza Dolls

Mid-Century design house items doll size

Rabbit Shrine, Kyoto

Kyoto Burial Grounds

Kyoto Burial Grounds

Meguro, Tokyo, Japan

February 24, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Shinkenshan Train ( Tokyo - Kyoto)

February 23, 2017

On the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) on the way from Tokyo to Kyoto.  There is something so civilized when one travels on a train compared to a flying machine.  For one, I can watch the landscape unfold onto another world.  It's a leap into the future as the Shinkansen moves at the speed of  200 mph.   From my window, I can see Mount Fuji, which is a ghost mountain.   Osamu Dazai wrote this amazing short story about Mount Fuji, "One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji,"  and how it is so prominent in one's life.   The last scene of the story is when tourists come upon the narrator (who we presume is Dazai) and ask him to take a photograph of them with Mount Fuji in the background.  He gave them time to pose, and then without them knowing,  Dazai focused the camera upward on taking a  photo of the mountain, leaving the tourists out of their photograph.   Sometimes a location is even greater than the individual.

February 23, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

February 22, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

When I want to feel someone, not like me, I go to the Ginza district in Tokyo.   I like to go window-shopping and imagine that I'm purchasing objects that I can't realistically afford.  I have always been attracted to music shops that sell not only CD's but also instruments that I can't play.  I live in an imaginary world where I'm a master musician.  The great thing about Tokyo is that there are endless things to see, and therefore worlds that one can enter, without the knowledge of that world.  I'm also fond of the neon lighting in the Ginza.  Soft compared to the harsh light of such locations as Shinjuku or Shibuya.

Ginza to me represents 1960s gangsters hanging out in a bar.  I only know this due that I have watched many comedies as well as gangster films that take place in the Ginza.  Whatever this is true or not is not something I'm concerned about.  It's similar to going to Disneyland and being a concern if Mickey Mouse exists or not in real life.  I'm blessed in the sense that I never care about the reality of the place or situation, but what is important is how I imagine the place.

I leave Tokyo today for Kyoto.   I often think that there is a connection between the two cities.   Again, my knowledge is only attached to what I think - it could be just the name "Kyoto" that brings up images in my head.   I'll let you know when I get there.