January 21
Photo shooting for the H.P.FRANCE fashion company’s website, which is currently being revamped (under my direction) and scheduled to reopen with a new design on March 1st. For the shooting we don't use living models this time, but 18 male and female mannequins wearing special make-up and the latest spring/summer fashion.
The shooting takes place at a mannequin factory in an industrial complex in Soka, Saitama. The place is not fitted with such luxurious things as air conditioning, and it’s actually colder inside the hall than outside. With the make-up, wigs and clothes, the dummies magically turn into totally real-looking, individual "humans" that after finishing this job will be gracing the show windows of Chanel and other top class boutiques. I can fully understand that the people at the factory "develop a deep emotional attachment to each doll [they] make." Some of them look disturbingly attractive as they pose for our cameraman, and for the first time I seem to understand the affection of such doll maniacs as Yotsuya Simon or Hans Bellmer.
January 23
I catch a preview screening of "Paranoid Park", one of the movies I was especially looking forward to seeing this year. Another film revolving around teenagers, Gus Van Sant’s new one picks up thematically where "Elephant" and "Last Days" left off. Set in the director’s home town and base, Portland, the film tells he story of a 16-year-old boy (Gabe Nevins) and his struggle after accidentally killing a man. Christopher Doyle’s mesmerizing camera work and the superb soundtrack that includes everything from sound art to Nino Rota are excellently edited to form a homogeneous entity that demonstrates how Gus Van Sant keeps evolving cinema with beautiful cutting edge movies. "Paranoid Park" implements in fact an idea I've been playing around with myself for some time, and the idea that it would be a pale imitation if I realized my own thing now that the movie is out frustrates me so much that I end up breaking my no-alcohol pledge…
January 24
Upon Shinoyama Kishin’s urgent request, I jump in and help with photo shootings of interior/product designer Michael Young, who is currently in Japan, for the Italian "L'Uomo Vogue". Shinoyama is increasingly working with overseas clients, especially since his large-scale exhibition in Paris. For "L'Uomo Vogue", he has been photographing the likes of Murakami Takashi and others. The request from Italy came so out of the blue for both Shinoyama and myself that we have to hurry to find a location and call the designer on his mobile the day before the appointment - a way that sounds anything but "high class men’s magazine"! Luckily, Young is a nice and friendly person, so we can finish the shooting at the modern showroom of E&Y, who kindly gave their permission the day before, in happy harmony. With features in the Parisian "Purple" and "Paradis", Shinoyama finally seems to be making his international breakthrough now that he’s in his late 60s.
Later we record a conversation between Miura Koshi from Kuchiroro and Fantastic Plastic Machine’s Tanaka Tomoyuki, to be published as part of the online magazine of Sakamoto Ryuichi’s "Commmons" label. The artists know each other from Miura’s guest appearance in Tanaka’s own radio program, and Tanaka reviewed Kuchiroro’s "Golden Love" as the first album by a Japanese band in a while that he could fully relate to. The two chat about pop music and club culture, and try to define the borderline between both and such things as "stylish pop sound" in general.
After the conversation I attend the opening of an exhibition of Shinoyama’s monochromatic nude photographs of actress Kojima Kanako at T&G ARTSin Roppongi. Leaping from "L'Uono Vogue" to nudes within just a day is typically Shinoyama. At the venue I bump again into Michael Young, who, while slightly bewildered by the sheer stylistic variety of the photographer’s work, gazes at the Japanese-style nude prints and expresses his envy of Shinoyama.
Sugatsuke Office website: http://www.sugatsuke.com