News and Opinion

Kitano Takeshi Meets Yamamura Koji

March has been an extremely busy month for me. I have a backlog of things to talk about on this blog, but to get at least one entry in this month, I thought I'd mention an interesting "encounter" that is now visible on TV.

On the website for the NHK television show, Takeshi Art Beat, there is a clip of the new opening animation for the show as it transfers over to NHK World. It was made by Yamamura Koji, the Japanese animator whose Atamayama (Mt. Head) was nominated for an Academy Award. It of course features Beat Takeshi (subject of my book KItano Takeshi), who has been hosting a number of art shows since Hana-bi made "artist" part of his persona. The animation follows the usual practice of dividing Takeshi into two figures (here "director" versus "comedian" doing his Comaneci gag) but interestingly mediates them through cubism. That may be a reference to one of Takeshi's earlier art shows, Takeshi no dare demo Picasso, but perhaps it is also a statement that the only way to view Takeshi is through the cubist convolutions of different spaces and times, a view that itself must include both popular commercial media and the experimental.

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