Cool Hunting
Shinjuku Station? Huge. With 3.3 million people passing through one of Tokyo's busiest stations daily, it's not exactly a place that can be closed for renovation. Starting in 2003, a construction worker by the name Shuetsu Satoh began creating temporary signs made from strips of adhesive tape. These weren't typical construction signs, but instead, elaborate works of art. Not only did his work help herds of commuters find their way through the Shinjuku Station labyrinth, but they were also strikingly attractive.
Using multi-colored electrical tape, trimmed to create different shapes, Satoh employed a distinctive stylized blocky font for his creations, which differed greatly from the bland font the station was already using. According to Satoh, his boss asked him to hurry up with his sign creation—not so much because Satoh was working too slow, but rather, because his boss wanted to see Satoh's latest creation. Now that his work at Shinjuku Station is finished, he is now creating signs and arrows for the Nippori Station, currently under renovation. There's a documentary about Satoh's Shinjuku signs ( here and here) in which he talks about the challenges of creating these signs, and a new doc in progress looks at his new work. It's fascinating, even if you don't understand Japanese and beautiful no matter what language you speak.
See more images here and here.
by Brian Ashcraft
|
previous entry Sneaker Freaker Issue #10 Global Launch Parties |
next entry Marge, the Low-Fat Milk Cow |
Known for his headline-grabbing, large-scale public interventions—like the one in which he placed giant PET bottles along the Tiete River in São Paulo to make a point about the notoriously filthy waterway—Brazilian artist Eduardo Srur's latest campaign, "Sobrevivencia" (survival) is irreverent but nonetheless carries a sincere message. Using a ladder, nylon, stuffing and rope, he's decked out dozens of statues around the city in...
This past weekend at Madrid's annual La Noche en Blanco, a city-wide, all-night arts and culture festival, I watched the Deambulants defy the laws of gravity at 00:30 in the Real Madrid stadium. The floor became the walls and the walls became the floor as the improvisational circus performers and acrobats scaled the stadium, mixing moves from circus acts and modern dance with bizarre,...
After being wowed by the Deambulants and other sights of La Noche en Blanco, I made my way to the Caixaforum building of Madrid to see more. Pushing through the crowd to get closer, I gaped in awe at the enormous exhibition called Graffiti Virtual created by the Catalan collective Omnivor Lab. Consisting of a series of animated digital graffiti projected onto the building's...
Hellovon is a 26 year-old London based pencil perfectionist who takes the art of illustration to dizzying new heights — in this case literally. Hellovon's latest exhibition is called Migration and takes place in two parts, in two major cities, London and New York, over two months. Starting its sojourn in London, the first element of the Migration exhibition can be viewed on a...
Taking on Berlin's largest cathedral, the Berliner Dom, street artist Jaybo recently transformed the facade with a sea of cartoon hands. The sketch (above) looks like Disney and Hokusai collaborated on the piece, but the luminous realization of it (thanks to the high-powered projectors of Skudi Optix) takes the concept a step further. Contact Tristesse Deluxe for more info on the project and check...
Designed by Montreal-based landscape architects Claude Cormier, Pergola was a 2006 pop art piece comprised of 90,000 plastic balls arranged in the form of a wisteria bloom at Le Havre City Hall. A tribute to Monet, who spent his childhood there and much of whose work featured Wisteria, the piece works with an existing vine, creating an interesting juxtaposition between the artificial and the...
Nuun Hydrations Tablets
The Spaceman Watches of 1972-77
Fergus Brown
New York: Magnum Edition
The Invisible: Monster's Waltz
Daze: South Bronx to Naples
Pivot
Alfred Kubin: Graphic Works 1897-1910
Claire Beckett
