Kokoro: The Art of Horiyoshi III

Courtyard Rooms, South Wing, Somerset House, London

Horiyoshi III, the internationally renowned tattoo artist currently has his first exhibition in London at the esteemed Somerset House.

Horiyoshi belongs to a royal line of horishi tattoo artists: those specialising in the traditional full-body tattoo called Irezumi. This exhibition studies his paintings on silk as well as displaying tattoo instruments and paint brushes.

Kokoro means ‘heart‘ and ‘feeling‘ in Japanese and through the paintings exhibited Horiyoshi III preserves traditional Japanese culture and mythology through incredibly beautiful silk paintings. Each painting shows typical Japanese images such as dragons, koi’s and white phoenix’s, but each one is depicted is varying sensitivity, intricacy and harshness depending on the story told. The diverse nature of each painting gives the exhibition an eclectic feel considering that most of the paintings are all the same size and repetitively placed beside one another. The varying brush strokes and colours used also add to this fantastic effect.

Having “vowed to never be lazy until the day I die”, he still tattoos six days a week after thirty years of practice. You can see a video of Horiyoshi III at work here which The Guardian recently made.

After meeting Ed Hardy (the exhibition opens with a quote from Hardy about Horiyoshi’s pioneering impact on tattoo culture and history) and becoming close friends, Horiyoshi started to use the electric needle alongside using traditional techniques and pioneered a new form of Japanese tattooing.

The exhibition is free and runs from now until until the 1st of June, it is open every day from 10.00-18.00. More information can be found here

Stunning.

“Butoh” is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the Ankoku-Butoh movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally “performed” in white-body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion, with or without an audience. But there is no set style, and it may be purely conceptual with no movement at all. Its origins have been attributed to Japanese dance legends Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno.

“A Girl” is a 1973 performance. It lasts 91 minutes.

Hijikata A Girl (part 1)
envoyé par rhizomelee. – Regardez plus de courts métrages.

Yesterday, paying a little visit to Mr Hooper I had the pleasure to find there as well my old friend Frank Carter (some of you saw him on the cover of SB 0!). When I met him, he was “just” a tattooer at Frith Street London, but he since became a superstar singer for a band called the Gallows. More than for his music that I must admit not being my “cup of tea”, I always had a big respect for Frank’s extremely good taste in tattooing. The ones he makes and the one he gets. On his head, Frank has an amazing snake by Ian Flower.

Our friend, (pretty photogenic) tattoo artist Laurent Maina recently got this amazing headpiece by superstar, tattoo-pioneer Xed. Here he is just outside Rinzing’s Sacred Yantra studio in Lausanne.

Photography © Maxime Büchi

If I lived those days, I’d be missing them.

I have to leave my flat (actually, Mauricio’s flat, thank you bro) on Rue st Maur to get to the train station, and I will be blogging more fashion shows tonight. But in the meanwhile, let me introduce you to Nick who is Men’s Fashion Director for Bergdorf Goodman, NY. Hard not to notice the very stylish and colorful Nick outside of a fashion show. His beautiful tattoos (executed by our friend Shinji of NYadorned and Dave Davenport in Los Angeles). I have rarely seen people play that nicely with the colorways of their tats and their outfit. And additionally, he is a warm and friendly person.Great encounter.

words & images ©Maxime Büchi