Exhibition

TOKYO POP 2014

TOKYO POP
photo exhibition by Androniki Christodoulou
Main Bar & Masukomi Sushi
Nov 1 - Dec 5, 2014

TOKYO POP is a collection of photos taken over a period of 10 years. An ongoing visual diary from the streets, the people, assignments, and sometimes just because I had my camera. Japan's unique and colorful popular culture was one of the reasons I first came and I'm still captivated by it. The mixture between tradition and new trends, uniformity and the extremes, there is space for everything. Popular culture in Tokyo isn't something that is fixed. It flows and changes faces, but there are always these special moments and people who create its highlights. I try to capture the mood of the places and situations as I experienced them in these transient moments.

the NOREN Exhibition "YURA-YURA"
producers: Kontetsu & Shin Nakamura
exhibition in the Main Bar

Oct 4 - Oct. 31, 2014

NOREN, a fabric partition, is linked to Japanese culture and tradition. Since olden days, it has been used as a facade for signage or interior partitions. The first know usage of the word NOREN were in ZEN textbooks during in the Kamakura-era. In the Edo-era, with progress of dyeing and weaving technology, it became widely used by the general public. Inside or outside, ordinary or extraordinary, NOREN fabric gently provides a separation of space. In this day and age, with a need for more global understanding and respect for diversity, we would like to take the notion of a NOREN, swinging and swaying, as an alternative to building walls of separation. This is our "YURA-YURA" concept.

Patterns: photo exhibition by Torin Boyd
Main Bar & Masukomi Sushi
Sept. 6 - Oct. 3, 2014

This series of images were taken over several years and are the result of a subconscious effort. That is, I had never sought out to create a body of work in which patterns and shapes were a common denominator. That all changed one day in 2003 when I was editing my work to build a new portfolio. In looking over my many images, I realized I'd been utilizing patterns on a regular basis for both my professional and personal work. I had developed a photographic style without even knowing it. Presented here are a selection of what I feel are my best pattern images. They span over two decades with many being taken while on assignment for such publications as National Geographic, Newsweek, Fortune, US News & World Report, Business Week, Time, New York Times, and the in-flight magazine of Japan Airlines. Several are images that never made it to print and are being shown for the first time.

"Saltwater Sky": Photography by Mitsuyuki Shibata, Main Bar Aug. 2 - Sept. 5

Saltwater Sky
Photography exhibition by Mitsuyuki Shibata
Main Bar Aug. 2 - Sept. 5

The daily view of the sea spreads before me. To capture it was the only thing that matters. Searching and hoping to meet something new in the same hours, on the same beaches. The sea had not changed or rather, it invites me with greater beauty than before. In the winter, standing on the coastline before the dawn, a deep silence takes over the place, creating a sensation of melting the camera and me into an infinitely changing space and time. Sereneness and openness, more than any words could ever say.

Mitsuyuki Shibata: Movie & Still Cameraman A dedicated surfer, the sea continues to be the center or his life and work. Shibata's romantic and emotional photographs have been embraced, not only by the world of surfing, but within the general population at large. Amongst his published works are; 'Daze' (Marine Planning), 'Lei' (World Photo Press), 'Kaimana Hila Home' (Shueisha Inc.), 'Summer Bohemians' and 'Saltwater Sky' (Bueno Books).

The Exhibitions Committee 

SUMI-E: India and Japan paintings by Yoko Koyano Main Bar and Masukomi Sushi July 5 - Aug. 1, 2014

I think of India as my spiritual home, the home of my soul. Ever since I fell in love with India 30 years ago, I have visited the holy city of Benares at least once every year. Sitting on the banks of the Ganges, I scoop up a handful of Gangajal (Holy Water) and use it to prepare my Sumi ink. I draw the people and the landscapes of this beautiful land. In addition to images of India, I also paint Japanese motifs. For this exhibition, I have artworks depicting Ojizousama (stone Buddha Statue in the shape of a child) and Rakan (achiever of Nirvana).

Profile Yoko Koyano: Calligrapher and SUMI-E Painter Based on her calligraphy and TENKOKU (seal-engraving) profession, Koyano started her SUMI-E painting career in 1977. Since her first visit to India in 1980, she has been providing Indian themed work toward exhibits held over 10 Indian cities, including the 50th anniversary of India?fs independence celebration exhibition. Her works has also been used as title logo of Japanese TV shows and plays.

The Exhibitions Committee

Unholy Matrimony - bride kidnapping: Photo exhibition by Noriko Hayashi, Main Bar : June 7 - July 4

The Minamata Disaster: Photo exhibition by Shisei Kuwabara

Award-winning photographs in the Main Bar from May 10 - June 6, 2014

"This book will perhaps be my last work during my life as an impoverished photographer who began with Minamata disease and returned to it in the end. If I were to do a photographic exhibition now, what kind of exhibition would it be? With this thought in mind, I attempted to select photographs from among approximately 30,000 frames of film. The result is this photo-documentary. I opened with the latest news of the Supreme Court judicial decision because I am a news photographer. I hope to imagine the surprise of the readers when they are told that an image of the deceased patient who finally won her lawsuit is among the photographic film I took 53 years ago while she was alive. The continuing scene of the two memorials is the present culmination of this drawn-out disaster. It is probably not easy for young readers to grasp what this disaster is about when they see the opening sections. I hope to describe and investigate more than a half-century of the Minamata disease's passage up to the present to today's youth. The only thing that I can do is to leave behind these photographs."

The magazine design of Andrew Pothecary
Graphic design by the art director of Number 1 Shimbun
in the Main Bar and Masukomi Sushi

April 5 - May 9, 2014

Design and journalism go hand-in-hand. How to get the story across? How to attract the reader to open the magazine, to read the article, to get an immediate visual summary of the story? And even just to entertain the reader. For Number 1 Shimbun - a magazine that not only contains excellent journalism, but is also partly aimed at a journalist readership - advice from a famous designer on the three rules for achieving good magazine design comes to mind: read the text, read the text and read the text. Each design is a conflation of the facts into a small poster, a concise summary ? and an identity. The designs are not only the face of the publication, but play a part in being the face of the Club's journalist membership.

Number 1 Shimbun has been published for 46 years, and I have worked on it for 7 years. We're getting the stories by the Club's correspondents (and sometimes the stories about the correspondents) out there, and, I hope and intend, looking good.
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Soma-Nomaoi Horse Festival

Photo Exhibition by Tadashi Kumagai & Mayumi Takahashi
Main Bar and Masukomi Sushi
March 1 - April 4, 2014

In June 2011, 3 months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, we met horses that had been rescued from the tsunami and areas around the Fukushima Nuclear Reactors. They were being fed and cared for at the Soma Nakamura Jinja. Historically, it is the location for the 1,000-year-old Soma-Nomaoi Horse Festival, but at that time the shrine was the center for relief operations in Fukushima. This was the beginning of our documentary on these proud horses whose lives had been uprooted by the disaster.

One year after the earthquake and nuclear accident, the Soma-Nomaoi Festival was revived. In the heat of July, about 400 horseback riders dressed in samurai armor engaged in the races and mock cavalry battles. This annual event is the heart and soul of Soma and Minami-Soma people. We have been documenting the festival since its resumption and will be there again this year. Cheering the horses and their riders, we pray for the area's speedy recovery.

Photographers Tadashi Kumagai / www.stbears.com/kuma
Mayumi Takahashi / www.heartfulphoto.com

The Exhibitions Committee

Photo exhibition by Taisuke Yokoyama: Dedication to Two Watermen, Jacques Mayol & Tiger Espere

Feb. 1 - 28, 2014 at

Main Bar and Masukomi Sushi.

I have been fortunate to meet watermen who shared a close relation with the ocean.

Being raised in Kamakura, with a lifestyle anchored in surfing and the ocean close at hand; I believe they reveal all the knowledge and wisdom I need in life. Meeting any waterman is a fantastic experience, but as a photographer these two individuals helped construct a platform on which to build my life. Although both are departed, their memories are still vivid in my mind.

Jacques Mayol and Tiger Espere.

If you who have met either of men, there is no need to explain how special they were. Both had powerful messages, existing without airs and at one with nature.
Having access to such extraordinary watermen, I felt a duty to document their lives and not embellish them.