NHK aired a program promoting this art show and I happened to be watching so I made it a point to make it to this art show.
I had never been to an art show in Japan, and I wondered if it would feel like art show in the U.S. I've long been exposed to Tezuka Osamu's work since I was a child so this immediately got me giddy.
First of all the fact that it was located at the bottom of a department store called Parco and was not at a dedicated gallery to me felt wierd.
I guess it doesn't really matter where it was held, in a city full of department stores I guess it makes sense.
All the pieces were from up and coming artists with content based off of the life works of Tezuka Osamu.
He has long been compared to Walt Disney and has often times been referred to as the Walt Disney of Japan. It always seems though that the West's view on Tezuka's work is more critical than it is with its own Disney. And in general Japanese animation is seen as sub par due to it having less frames per second and it doesn't always adhere to Disney's principles of animation written about in The Illusion of Life
My view is alot of Tezuka's works span many in depth stories that are aimed at children and adults with deeper and darker content and allowing the viewer to come to their own conclusion what the message is...this also sets the atmosphere for many other Japanese Anime.
Whereas Disney is geared towards children and family and every story has a very straight forward and almost preachy moral to it, along with a happy Hollywood ending.
I immediately identified the pieces they aired on the show, but what attracted my eye the most were the ones not featured.
Alot of meticulously hand cut papercuts made me tired just thinking about all the work it would've taken to cut those.
I enjoyed the simple black clips holding these prints and originals in place. Simple is best.
This installation caught my eye there were a couple like this. The artist cut through layers of comic book pages to reveal portions of the pages below.
I like that this piece felt nice and hand drawn, because it was...but I would've liked to see this in color.
There were alot of Black Jack references and other more obscure Tezuka works.
Since I'm mostly only familiar personally with "Hi no Tori" I was looking for these references but didn't find much.
Other works I had no idea what they were referencing but I noted the techniques they used as creative in their presentation. I especially liked these works with what looked like screened plexiglass over hand painted backgrounds.
These two pieces were my favorite of the show. This back weathered shingle wall was fitting for this piece.
Obviously everybody knows Astroboy. The artist who made this pixelated Astroboy to its smallest form on paper, and then built these using legos in 3d.
Brick by brick, red, white, and black awesome incarnate.