ACF 679: Exhibit by artist Ken Hamazaki to run Sept 17th to Oct 24th in S.F.

POP CULTURE AND JAPANESE TRADITION COLLIDE IN NEW EXHIBIT BY ARTIST KEN HAMAZAKI OPENING AT THE SUPERFROG GALLERY FOR J-POP SUMMIT FESTIVAL 2010

Grateful Red Exhibition Twists Japanese Tradition And Ancient Rituals
To Explore New Worlds Of Experience And Imagination

NEW PEOPLE and the SUPERFROG Gallery are proud to welcome Osaka-based artist, Ken Hamazaki, who will open his exhibit Grateful Red during the J-Pop Summit Festival 2010. The exhibit runs from September 17th to October 24th.

Making his way to San Francisco from Burning Man, Hamazaki performs his avant-garde Red Tea Ceremony -YOU ARE GOD in the SUPERFROG Gallery on September 18th for the exhibit grand opening and as of the day-long J-Pop celebration. During Summit Festival he will also perform his art of “teeth-making” in a special public performance of Get Bit: HAGATA-MAN from 1:00pm-2:00pm in Buchanan Mall. A performance of the Red Tea Ceremony is also set for the Asian Art Museum on September 11th at 12:00pm leading up to the festival, and again on the day after on September 19th at 2:00pm, at SUPERFROG.

A special reception party hosted by the artist will be held at the SUPERFROG Gallery at 11:00am on Saturday, September 18th during J-Pop Summit Festival. The public is invited to RSVP to attend the reception to www.newpeopleworld.com/rsvp/rsvp-ken-hamazaki.

Taking the exhibition’s name from the free-spirited Bay Area band, the Grateful Dead, Hamazaki uses this sense of freedom to twist traditional Japanese ceremonies and ancient techniques to other worlds of imagination and experience. As the tea ceremony ritual demonstrates the pinnacle of Japanese Zen, its delicacies, and form, Hamazaki channels them through his own pop guise and serves up recipes for titillation.

Red paintings depicting Grateful Dead symbols reflect the concert experience providing an intimate and raw interaction. A life-size magnet painting will also be made on-site for the exhibition. A technique that Hamazaki has cultivated since childhood, the work reflects the sentiment of sand paintings from India as ephemeral moments skillfully rendered and easily transitory. Ken Hamazaki will also present a video collaboration with artist Hiroaki Katayama will be projected in unexpected places throughout the Gallery to kinetically activate the space.

Eclectic elements like a denim canvas by Evisu will be also transformed into Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and Humans. Vividly colored scrolls like these historically provided inspiration for manga imagery. The Japanese word manga, literally translated, means "whimsical pictures" whose genre includes a broad range of subject matter including fantasy, mystery, horror, and sexuality.

With his shaved head, red body paint, and vivid crimson costumes, Ken Hamazaki is known in Osaka’s Minami Senba district as “The Red Man.” When he was 20 years old, Hamazaki traveled to England and after returning to Japan, he opened a gallery in 1992to display his artwork. In 1997, he moved the gallery to Minami Senba, painted the exterior and interior completely red and named it the Ken Hamazaki Museum of Contemporary Art, a title that, in Japanese, has the aggrandizing secondary meaning of the Hamazaki Prefectural Museum of Contemporary Art. In addition to holding exhibitions, his gallery sells interior decorative items and accessories, suggesting a fusion of art and lifestyle. For more information, visit www.kenhamazaki.jp/e/.

The J-Pop Summit Festival 2010 takes place Saturday, September 18th in San Francisco’s Japantown and presents variety of Japanese pop-inspired attractions including fashion shows, theatrical film premieres, live art performances, video game demos, panel discussions, and an outdoor concert featuring bands and artists from Japan and the Bay Area. More details are available at: http://www.j-pop.com/.

About NEW PEOPLE
NEW PEOPLE offers the latest films, art, fashion and retail brands from Japan and is the creative vision of the J-Pop Center Project and VIZ Pictures, a distributor and producer of Japanese live action film. Located in San Francisco at 1746 Post Street, the 20,000 square foot structure features a striking 3-floor transparent glass façade that frames a fun and exotic new environment to engage the imagination into the 21st Century. A dedicated web site is available at: http://www.newpeopleworld.com/.

ACF 670: Upcoming events at Asia Society

©CANDY-NIPPON

Five very interesting events, several co-sponsored by New York-Tokyo, are coming to Asia Society starting tomorrow, September 9th, 2010:

ART: ASIA SOCIETY MUSEUM EXHIBITION

Yoshitomo Nara is one of the leading artists of Japan's influential Neo Pop art since the 1990s. Asia Society presents his first major New York exhibition Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool (September 9, 2010-January 2, 2011) featuring more than one hundred works. More info here.

DESIGN: SEPT. 9th - Asia Society Fall 2010 program co-presented with New York -Tokyo

Fashionable trends on the streets of Tokyo have inspired many across the globe. For the New York Fashion Week, TOKYO! LOOK! highlights some of the latest styles and their cultural significance with a talk panel by Yuniya Kawamura (Professor of Sociology, F.I.T.), Dan Bailey (Co-founder, TOKYODANDY) and others. The panel will be followed by a party featuring fashion showcase by CANDY, with live music, photo collections, and happy hour. We have a special promo code for our readers. Use discount code "asia725" to buy tickets at Asia Society member rate ($10) online. More info here.

MUSIC: SEPT. 25th - Asia Society Fall 2010 program co-presented with New York -Tokyo

The Japanese all-women trio Shonen Knife has built a solid worldwide following with their Ramones meets the Beatles brand of sticky-sweet punk-pop. Shonen Knife will be performing a unique concert at the Asia Society in conjunction with and inspired by Yoshitomo Nara art exhibition. (Their album "Happy Hour" art is by Nara). More info here.

GAMING: OCT. 9th - Asia Society Fall 2010 program co-presented with New York -Tokyo

Celebrating the upcoming launch of CAPCOM's CAPCOM® SENGOKU BASARA™ SAMURAI HEROES on PlayStation®3 and Wii®, NYT will host a special hands-on event three days prior to its street release. Enjoy the game's new features, gift prizes, and also the great atmosphere at Asia Society Museum! More here. (Admission is free, but you must R.S.V.P. This link takes you to a web page with info about all the events. Scroll down to the Game section to fill out and submit the R.S.V.P. form.)

FILM: OCT. 29 - Asia Society Fall 2010 program co-presented with New York -Tokyo

Tokyo's reputation as a media saturated hub for global information and cutting edge innovation makes it the perfect sample for addressing a new outlook on music culture. "Live from Tokyo" is a documentary by Lewis Rapkin that takes the viewer through the back streets and alleys of Tokyo to explore the innovative musicians who create this multi-faceted artistic culture. More info here.

ACF 297: Grand Opening Celebration of NEW PEOPLE in S.F. scheduled for August

VIZ PICTURES PRESENTS THE FIRST ADVENTURE OF THE
J-POP CENTER PROJECT WITH THE GRAND OPENING OF
NEW PEOPLE IN SAN FRANCISCO THIS SUMMER

UNIQUE DESTINATION IN HISTORIC JAPANTOWN BRINGS THE LATEST JAPANESE POP CULTURE, FILM, ANIME, FASHION AND ART TO NORTH AMERICA; OPENING CELEBRATIONS COMMENCE IN AUGUST 2009

VIZ Pictures, a Japanese live-action film distributor and producer of the J-Pop Center Project, adds a captivating new dimension to the city of San Francisco with the opening of a vivid new attraction – NEW PEOPLE – in the heart of the city’s historic Japantown.

This unique entertainment destination will epitomize the latest examples Japanese popular culture expressed though film, art, fashion, and a variety of specialty boutiques and ongoing monthly events. The project, three and a half years in the making, celebrates its Grand Opening this summer with an all day outdoor music and performance event and gala to be held this August. Specific details will be announced shortly.

A dedicated NEW PEOPLE web site is also now available at: http://www.newpeopleworld.com/

NEW PEOPLE is a 20,000 square foot contemporary building located at 1746 Post Street in the city’s Japantown (one of only three remaining in the country), an area steeped in more than a century of history. The structure features a striking 3-floor transparent glass façade that invokes a fun and exotic new environment to engage the imagination for the 21st Century.

With three stories above and a basement cinema below, NEW PEOPLE will offer the latest films, art, and retail brands from Japan. The spacious 143-seat underground cinema space is equipped with cutting edge High Definition digital projection and THX®-certified sound and is the soul of the NEW PEOPLE experience.

Its core focus will be on some of the latest and hottest films from Japan, as well as an incredible legacy of classics, documentaries and anime – making it the only cinema of its type in the United States. These film genres are some of the most recognizable examples of Japanese pop culture and have captured the world’s attention.

Film lineup and details will be announced closer to the Grand Opening date.
NEW PEOPLE will also feature an entire floor devoted to several distinctive, trend-setting clothing labels from Japan including Baby, The Stars Shine Bright (Tokyo), Black Peace Now (Tokyo), 6% DOKIDOKI (Tokyo), and a short-term rotating storefront to showcase a new brand every two to three months

These shops will all mark their retail debut in United States at NEW PEOPLE. Baby, Black Peace Now, and 6% are pioneers of Harajuku street fashion, which has turned this vibrant district of Tokyo into an internationally-respected fashion Mecca of renowned for its unique designers.

NEW PEOPLE will also tout a café featuring organic roast Blue Bottle Coffee and Japanese delicatessen Delica rf-1, an inventive NEW PEOPLE retail store, and a 2,000 square foot art gallery providing an important showcase for a new generation of artists inspired by Japanese pop culture. The opening exhibit is expected to draw worldwide interest not only from anime fans but also serious collectors of Japanese pop art.

Details on the opening art exhibit will be announced in coming weeks.

“NEW PEOPLE is a truly unique space devoted to creativity and self expression, and will become a cultural destination unlike any other in the United States,” says Seiji Horibuchi, the founder and CEO of VIZ Pictures and the founder of VIZ Media as well as the J-pop Center Project.

“NEW PEOPLE will help nurture Japanese pop culture and also connect the public with its diverse creators. As North America continues to embrace a variety of hip trends from Japan, we look forward to expanding the vision of NEW PEOPLE globally through film, art and other multimedia and forging innovative cross-cultural creative partnerships.”