1. Give Me Food Project
2. Action Destroy Painting
3. Ryoga Kamishibai “The Invitation Card from My Dad”
Buy Ryoga's Artwork and Help Another Expo!
1. Give Me Food Project
Katsuma’s career as an
artist started on the streets of Osaka. He felt sick of boring country life,
and he had run away from his home in Katashima Island, Kochi. At that time,
he was a teenager, and started to live on the streets of Osaka as a homeless
person. He had no money to buy food, but tried to think hard about how to get
money and survive. As a result, he bought a pen and notebook, and started to
draw the portraits of passersby. At first, his drawings were awful, but people
liked Katsuma’s funny character, and started to buy his drawings and give him
food. He started to enjoy drawing, and started to think about becoming a professional
painter. This is the anecdote about why Katsuma started his career as a professional
painter.
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In this project, Katsuma lives in the gallery, and draws portraits of the visitors. If visitors liked Katsuma’s drawing of themselves, the visitors should give him food as an exchange. Sometimes, if Katsuma needs a shampoo, the artist will ask you to give him a shampoo as an exchange for his drawing. While doing the exhibition, Katsuma cannot spend any personal money to get items from the stores. In this project, Katsuma will survive only by his technique of drawing and begging.
2. Action Destroy Painting
After the life on the streets of Osaka for 2 years, Katsuma decided to become a professional painter. He thought that to be professional, he would need money to start his new life in Tokyo. Then, he chose to work at a factory to make money.
10 Years Serving One Machine is Ten Times Worse than Prison
To make money, he started
to work at the factory of Toyota, the first sponsor of the Aichi Expo. Ryoga's
job at Toyota was in an assembly line such as in Chaplin’s film, and he felt
like he was going mad. Actually, some of his co-workers became psychotic because
of the mental pressure of the job. Under this pressure, the only thing which
supported him was his dream of being a professional painter. As soon as he came
back home after the job, he started painting everyday.
Action Mural Painting: Ryoga Katsuma + Harry
on Sunday December 7, 2003@ Thai Cuisine Khao Sarn in Brooklyn
Action Painting: Ryoga Katsuma + Tim Barnes
on November 23, 2003@BPM in Brooklyn
Download the Movie of Action Mural Painting (Mpeg 4 file 11.7MB)
(C) Copyright Sebastien Heizet
QuickTime Player Required (Download Now!)
In some of his paintings, there is a thanatos which comes from his personal experience. In this Action Destroy Painting, Katsuma wears the uniform of Toyota and destroy all the canvas and does painting instead. This is the eruption of his frustration as a blue-collar worker employee of big business.
3. Ryoga Kamishibai “The Invitation Card from My Dad”
In the deep roots of Japanese kid’s play, there is a scene of “Kamishibai,” a traditional play tradition in Japan with storytelling in which story cards are placed inside a small stage and withdrawn as the storyteller acts out the story line.
The number of professional Kamishibai readers increased to 50,000 after the First World War, and during this time, Kamishibai created the legendary character called “Golden Bat.” However, after the popularization of TV, the culture of Kamishibai disappeared. However, the tradition of Kamishibai is connected to the base of Japanimation, and to think about the tradition of Kamishibai might be important, especially in Japan, the world of inflating hyper reality.
In this work, Katsuma made an original story with original paintings. This story itself was created while he was living on the street in Osaka.
On the day of the opening, Katsuma will perform this Kamishibai with his narration. Please come to the opening to witness the unique live air of the Kamishibai performance.
(C) Copyright Shinya Watanabe