Yoko Higashino

"ALL LOVES YOU!"

Awarded for many awards including the TOYOTA Choreography Award 2004 as one of the leading choreographer in the next generation, Yoko Higashino is a contemporary dancer and choreographer whose improvisational dance performance receives high attention worldwide. Started to form a dance company BABY-Q, she also performs for solo works under the name as Yoko Kemumaki.

Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] presents one-night dance session "ALL LOVES YOU!" - a collaborative dance perfomance with Yoko Kemumaki and all kinds of artists, musicians, DJ, VJ to exploring different kinds of expressions of dance, music, video, and light and space for the 4th series of the dance performance YCAM Performance Lounge.

Photo: Banri

Please introduce yourself.

David Lachapelle Retrospective

Contemporary art exhibition boom in the historical buildings in France?

Museum, 2007 © David LaChapelle

Lately, France is absorbed in having contemporary art exhibitions at the historical buildings such as Jeff Koons at Château de Versailles, Palais de Tokyo's contemporary art show at Fontainebleau, and so on.
Among the boom, even Monnaie de Paris had announced a plan to have a large scale contemporary art exhibition. There were several small scale exhibitions at the Monnaie de Paris before, but this time, it is a retrospective of an American artist, David Lachapelle, who is a hip photographer in fashion and advertisement industries.

Knotan

Knotan is powerful.

First time I saw his photographs I found a unique and special power behind, composed by striking result. Well, his name actually means the bone of any part of the body when is visible under the skin.

When I met him, he told me – “Victor, is not that I woke up this morning and decided that my artistic name is going to be Knotan, it´s just the name which everyone called me from my childhood due my skinny proportions then so I just I grew up with that”.

He was born in 1973, he has a particular background as a fashion photographer, trained as a welder, he quickly grew to dislike a series of dreary jobs and ended up taking the decision to attend photography school. Since then he has turned in one of the favorite Scandinavian photographers for many ones.

MeMeMe © Knotan

Jules Julien

CADAVRES EXQUIS

Jules Julien is an artist and illustrator, works in Paris, who was born in 1975.
After working as a freelance art director, he started making art work, mainly drawing and design, since 2006. His works appear in lots of magazines in Europe, America and Australia, and many media and galleries are interested in him. Nowadays, he joined the exhibition at Gallery Margalef ＆ Gipponi and Gallery Antebellum.
Then, his first exhibition in Japan is held at the DIESEL DENIM GALLERY AOYAMA in Tokyo, called CADAVRES EXQUIS. I interviewed him just before its opening.

Please tell us how you feel about your first exhibition in Japan.

Austrian Accessory Designers

"You can never have enough hats, shoes and bags"

was the advice Joanna Lumley aka Patsy Stone fed to the avid fan following of the glorious Absolutely Fabulous britcom. Indeed indeed, we feel tempted to add. So that's why, following a motto of wear-it-well-from-head-to-toe, AUSTRIANFASHION.NET and Shift magazine would like to take you on a tour of the most outstanding and remarkable accessory design studios in Vienna. This comes as another part in our ongoing series of designer portraits realised throughout the Japan-Austria-Year 2009.

© Sonja Bischur, Photo: David Auner

Maria Vittoria Benatti

Hi! We are Pupette!

Self portrait © Maria Vittoria Benatti

Maria Vittoria Benatti aka hi! works as a freelance visual designer based in Modena, Italy, one hour half away from Milan by train. Her works are characterized by cute and lovely figures which she calls them as Pupette. Started off by participating in the Domestic's wall sticker project, her Pupette will spread across the world and might soon come by to your town!

Could you introduce yourself including your background?

Makoto Azuma

A florist who creates punk art using plants and flowers.

Makoto Azuma is an owner of a flower shop Jardins des Fleurs as well as an artist who not only explores visual beauty of colors and shapes that are given off from plants and flowers, but also create works of art feeling sound from them. In his works you can capture the opposing essence of dynamism and subtlety or hard and soft. So far, he has exhibited in various places nationally and internationally including a show at colette, a performance for Les Soirees Nomades at Fondation Cartier, a solo show at NRW Forum in Germany and etc. He has also actively showcased his creation for 2 years in his own private gallery AMPG which was closed in last March. Shift had a phone interview to him who has been making strides forward in parallel with plants and flowers.

Please introduce yourself.

Steve Paxton

An experimental dancer exploring body expression with spine.

Photo © Jordi Bover

Steve Paxton is an experimental dancer and choreographers who developed Contact Improvisation (C.I.). He is one of the main people in American post modern dance. At this time, his exhibition, workshops and talks have been held across Japan: Aomori, Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto and Yamaguchi. The main focus of this project is a workshop and exhibition called "Phantom Exhibition" at YCAM about the Material for the Spine, which he has been working since 1986. Steve Paxton has been integrating Aikido, Yoga, Vipassana meditation, and other Asian body techniques into dance. I visited his workshop in Yokohama to interview him.

Could you tell me how this project began?

Art Dubai 2009

The third edition of the annual Art Dubai festival opened its doors at the popular Arabic-style entertainment complex Madinat Jumeirah.

Art Dubai, evening, Courtesy of Art Dubai 2009

The art installations gathered for this world-class art event were as many as 2000, by 400 artists, from 68 galleries all around the world. The event was so large, that art displays spilled out of the large Madinat amphitheatre and flowed onto a neighbouring beach and parking area.

Beach Installation, Courtesy of Art Dubai 2009

Yoko Kawamoto

“Landscapes that are just there”, which make an impact on the memory.

Yoko Kawamoto is an illustrator who is a self taught painter that started to paint in the end of the 90’s. Up to now she has explored her career through presenting her works at exhibitions nationally and internationally as well as working on her own work-collective book, cover art for CD's, etc...and she is now ready to showcase her oil paintings, which have been completed over the past 3 years in her solo exhibition “for the present” which is being held at NANZUKA UNDERGROUND from May 16.

Yoko Kawamoto, Untitled, Oil on canvas, 606 × 409 mm, 2006, Courtesy of the artist and NANZUKA UNDERGROUND

As long as we live, we see various sceneries in our everyday lives. As there are boundless unseen sceneries we never pass by, there are also boundless forgotten sceneries we pass by in everyday life. Yoko Kawamoto focuses on such “passed-over” landscapes for her painting works.

Maison Martin Margiela interior decoration

An ultra modern temple. The world of Maison Martin Margiela.

What awakens you by a proper noun, Martin Margiela? Margiela's "white". Margiela's "cotton". Margiela's "trompe-l'oil". It's amazing to realize to see that all of it comes with "Margiela's".

You can fully enjoy "Margiela's interior decoration" at the Cite de L'architecture & du patrimonine until the beggning of October in 2009.

Torocadero in Paris, where Le Palais de Chaillot spreads its wings just like veiling the Eiffel Tower across the Seine. In the eastern wing, the omnibus museum that consists of French architecture and cultural heritage opened in September 2007.

Hosted by the renowned French interior magazine "ELLE decoration", a project "la suite" features a 220 square meter apartment with a great view of the Eiffel Tower and Paris city where Jacques Carlu, architect of palais Chaillot, used to live and offers an opportunity for a distinctive designer to take in all of the interior decorations each year.

Yuri Suzuki Exhibition

An artist bridge between digital and analog.

Aren't you the kind of person that prefers a digital-acoustic guitar, electric dictionary over a hand-writing pad, a digital camera over a LEICA, or reading the newspaper on an iPhone? Based in London, Yuri Suzuki, a product designer working on product design, interactive design and music, arouses the feeling of those people who are between digital and analog.

©Yuri Suzuki, courtesy of CLEAR GALLERY

That's easy to say "digital and analog". I think there seems to be long, deep profound disagreements between them. Some say they don't read the newspaper on the Internet, and others say they get music only from iTunes Store. Of course, I don't mean to make a sweeping judgment about which is better, digital or analog. Nevertheless, it can't be denied that the world around us has transformed into such a digital dominant world, and the whole society is expected to make analog society a legacy of the past.

WASARA

Beautiful disposable paper ware for spiritual enrichment.

The increase of people’s awareness of environmental issues globally, we start to refrain from using one-time only paper-made plates and cups, but we still don’t want to use plastic plates simply because we want to enjoy great food arranged on beautiful tableware. This spirit of hospitality has been known as a Japanese tradition and aesthetic since ancient times. Born from this idea, WASARA is an eco friendly paper tableware company that still keeps a sense of this type of hospitality.

WASARA has a series of paper tableware, which is made from non-wood materials; reed pulp that is in no danger of extinction, and sugarcane waste called bagasse. Marking the 100th anniversary since its establishment, the packaging company started to develop and propose WASARA as their new approach. A producer of WASARA has seen the enormous amount of dishes used at various parties, and the experience made him search for efficient tableware that would add spice to Japanese food. As a result, WASARA has dressed their product with the idea that a, “simple and modern design gives a fine appearance to the tableware with Sushi on it.”
Shift introduces some of the WASARA series materials used and their ecological approach.

Please introduce some of WASARA tableware.

Akira Nishitake

The expanding and transforming mysterious world.

Taking a look at the August visual on the SHIFT 2009 Calendar, you will see somewhat weird fantasy world created by Tokyo-based artist, Akira Nishitake who explores a wide range of work styles including painting, drawing manga, font design and creating a zine. As you might have read his report about the magazine symposium COLOPHON 2009 that was held in Luxembourg in March, he is now contributing the cover art for SHIFT this month.

Could you introduce yourself?

The 3rd Pictoplasma Conference

Character, Icon, Comic, Anime, Robot and Android.

There is the most impressive one among Berlin's street posters. It is the 3rd Pictoplasma Conference's poster, which was designed by Boris Hoppek who is known by his simple character faces made from three circles. This poster is characteristic of his work and gives people a strong impression.

This event began in 2004, and its aim is to share the artists approach to character development, which uses icons created by artists and designers. Pictoplasma is a three day long event held at Haus der Kulturen der Welt located at Tiergarten (a center in Berlin) the 19-20th of March 2009. It includes presentations by artists from all over the world, symposiums, animation screening over 100 films, workshops and exhibitions.

Carrie Chau

The inner beauty of the world.

Carrie Chau, one of the well-known illustrators in Hong Kong, spreads the positive message of happiness and love by creating her lovely artwork. Her name continues to grow with her imaginative characters and her new product line. Lucky for us! Her wonderful pervious exhibition “Indigo Child” was held at the end of last year in Hong Kong. She successfully created a dreamy wonderland with some huge 3-D sculptures in the heart of Causeway Bay; it surely was a great hit in the city to celebrate last year Christmas. While waiting for her next piece, Carrie has shared with SHIFT about herself and the show.

Please tell us about yourself and your background.

Colophon 2009

International Magazine Symposium Colophon.

The second edition of Colophon took place in Luxembourg from the 13-15th March 2009. Casino Luxembourg, a museum was chosen as the main venue for Colophon. Colophon's programs included lectures and discussions between key players within the independent magazine industry such as magazine editors, photographers, designers, and illustrators.

In fact, I joined the presentation at the portfolio market, and had an opportunity to look through Colophon. Here, I would like to share it with Shift readers.

Simon Esterson
The visual history of independent magazines in Europe from the 1960s onwards. “some of these relationships.” By Simon Esterson (UK).

La Mas Bela
La Mas Bela is an artist duo that has been making magazines using a different format each time. For example, they exhibited a magazine in a Gacha capsule. Gacha is capsule toy sold by GACHA vending machine. There was a question about how they are funded. They said they get funding from some friend and have not been losing financially.

TOMI & CHERRY

The New "TOMI & CHERRY" Show.

TOMI & CHERRY is a creative team of an artist and photographer TOMI and an illustrator, graphic designer and artist CHERRY, and they are based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Focusing mainly on editorial works like fashion photography, TOMI & CHERRY explore their creation using diverse ways of techniques to somehow take us to a exciting and mystic visual world. TOMI & CHERRY will introduce their own wonderland, mixing what they see and feel as a magical spice to create a new imagination.

TOMI & CHERRY

Please introduce yourself with your background.

Diagonale 2009

The festival of Austrian film takes place in Graz from March 17 – 22.

Now in its eleventh year, Diagonale is the festival of Austrian film and attracts everybody who is somebody in Austrian film-making to the the country's second biggest city for five days. One can only agree with the new festival director Barbara Pichler, who, in a statement given during the official press conference, referred to 2008 as a particularly good year for Austrian cinema. This is mainly due to the fact that Stefan Ruzowitzky's drama "The Counterfeiters" received the Academy Award for best international film exactly one year ago. Götz Spielmann's "Revanche", on the list of nominees in 2009, failed to repeat this success but restated the potential of the country's small scene. Consequently, the goings-on in film-making were met with increasing interest internationally as well as on a level of national cultural politics. After some years of drabness in terms of film-funding, the decision made by Hollywood's film academy certainly brought cultural politicians to reconsider the current state of things. In this given context, Diagonale 2009 is particularly important to underscore and promote the potential of Austrian film.

ConceptFilm - Dorit Margreiter, Angelo View Drive (Prequel) 2004, C-Print, 80x120 cm, 2/3
© Courtesy: Galerie Krobath Wimmer, Wien

PLOTZ

A secret project resulting from beyond excitement.

Established by a Hong Kong based designer Sing Chin Lo in 2007, PLOTZ is a women’s brand that is created by his simple and perfect, qualified and sophisticated design, which made my heart shake as though looking at works of art. The models on the portfolio look far way as they were enraptured by his creation.
Gained people’s attention since his art school times, Sing Chin’s creative, vibrant and beautiful wares showcased in Japan and Paris in 2008 received more attention by many buyers and journalists. It’s his design created with his philosophy that has vibrated my heart with a serene moment. Shift interviewed the designer, Sing Chin Lo asking his latest news.

PLOTZ - FW 09 Collection