Kjell Hahn

___Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art invited Jimmy Kuehnle to have an exhibition and do a cross-town performance in his taffeta suit, Big Red. The museum is located right in the heart of the city and an ideal location for kuehnle’s obsession with bringing “art” to the masses. On the day of the performance I volunteered to be his assistant, lugging his junk around town, taking photographs and video and occasionally untangling him from power lines. Inside the building he installed an immobile inflatable of the same material titled, Air to Air Communication.

___Kimoto san, the owner of Maison D’art gallery didn’t have much time but our meeting went well and she invited me to have a show there this fall.  She was mostly interested in the Oni Landscape series so I will keep working on them as I begin new projects in the Gunma studio. The gallery has an english, japanese and french website at maison-web.org

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___Yesterday Jimmy Kuehnle and I successfully put on another performance of his inflatable blob, Big Red in conjunction with the Aichi Prefectural Museum of art.  It was probably the smoothest run I’ve seen with the sculpture with no major problems aside from some weaker than expected batteries at the end.  There was generally a positive reaction from the public despite being in everyone’s way in the center of a metropolitan area.  I’ll put photos from the event up in the next day or so.

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on my last day in himeji I had a few minutes in the late afternoon so I sat in front of the castle and drew a few sketches. ill miss that town.

today i leave himeji and will eventually make my way back to onishi.  I’ll stay in kobe tonight with friends.  I promised amy that I would sing neil diamond with her at karaoke so i need to figure out some way to weasel out of that.  Then tomorrow I have a meeting with the owner of the MAISON D’ART gallery owner in osaka. so far i don’t know if the owner is interested in my drawings or just wants to have coffee.  the following day  i get to follow jimmy around in his big air suit waiting for him to pass out from heat stroke.

"nagoya composition 4"

i realized that i havent put the crowd images in their current state up yet.  all of them have been reworked with some acrylic paint that helps to give them depth which can be seen in the detail shots.  the end result is more along the lines of what i was going for. when i get the new studio up and running i’ll be working on developing the theme of repeated images as well as trying out new things.

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next week i will return to nagoya to work with Jimmy Kuehnle on two performances.  the Nagoya Art Museum organized one performance on august 17th based on taffeta suit, Big Red and a new installation in the museum.  Jimmy has posted the official route on his website jimmykuehnle.com The other- with no official sanction- on august 19th we will do solo with the Lawn Bike.

_____leaving jimmy’s apt for tokyo i got on the shinkansen and was in the heart of the beast in no time.  I  just had a short ride through the city to get to my destination. as a man to my left entered the train he yelled at all of us to get the hell out of his way.  immediately after this a chubby man with a backpack to my right  began singing along word for word in english and japanese along with the announcements and continued to do this for every stop.  meanwhile the couple behind me wanted to make sure the rest of us had no doubts of their mutual affection for one another. so i guess japanese people dont act very japanese in tokyo.

_____anyway, after 20 minutes on the train I was already in a car heading out of the city toward the studio.  didnt see a tall building, a famous landmark or anything.  there will be time for that later.

_____a friend i met while working with the artist Ryoji Koie in Gifu prefecture took me northwest 100 km to the studio. Its in a beautiful little town on the edge of the Japanese alps.  the town’s name is actually Onishi 鬼石 which means ogre stones, so there are pictures and sculptures of oni everywhere.  The town’s main export are these giant marbled green and red stones which often line the rivers or are for sale on the side of the road.  I don’t know what kind they are but they are stunning and certainly not cheap.

_____The first two nights I stayed at an NPO, something like an artist community 10 minutes from the studio in the middle of a mountain forest.  The place doesn’t really have any boundries and pretty much has private access to the entire mountain.  I’ve never seen anything like it in Japan, just a few buildings in the wilderness.  It’s also the site of Horikoshi Chiaki’s anagama kiln, an rather esatblished artist who lives right next to my new studio.  I’ll probably be firing the kiln this september or october so I’ll put pictures of the place up eventually.

_____i’ve been working on the studio for a week now and now have a few mostly functional rooms. I’m not exactly looking forward to the next month working on this place though at least I’ll finally have a home base from now on. this homeless shit, crashing at other people’s homes and making all your friends resent your existence, really starts to suck after a while.