Shinro Ohtake Newsletter #1 , 20/01/97: -------------------------------------------------- Hi all, the new book of Shinro Ohtake "Atlanta 1945+50" (Commissioned as one of five contemporary world artists selected for the Cultural Olympiad Artist book project for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games) is planned for release in mid February. The book is limited to 1,500 copies! For some new prerelease scans of this book and more information: http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/books/atlanta.html I have again updated the SHINRO OHTAKE site with all new better quality scans with progressive jpg and higher dpi. I think the speed is acceptable: http://www.artbooks.de Furthermore I am now able to accept the following two Credit Cards: VISA and AMERICAN EXPRESS Thanks again for all the support in 1996...Shinro really appreciates all the interest so many people around the world show. Best regards, matthias. Shinro Ohtake Newsletter #2, 02/10/97: ------------------------------------------------- Dear friends of Shinro Ohtake`s Art, the year 1997 will see a lot of new book releases. Shinro has just told me that he wants to finish 10 books this year. Probably not all will be released this year, though. There will be large Solo Show of Shinro`s Art in Japan in October (details will be mailed when available). Furthermore, Shinro has just published his new book: PORTRAITS by AVEDON/ 18th July 1979 Book details: 80 pages (black and white) Book 13.5 x 18.5 cm cloth bound in Hardcover. 73 drawings drawn on the 18th of July, 1979 Drawings inspired by Portrait Photographs by Richard Avedon. Year: 1996 For pictures: http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/books/avedon.html The owners of the 354 page catalogue SO-Works of Shinro Ohtake 1955-1991 ( http://artbooks.bic.de/ohtake/so-works.html ) will find some of these drawings on pages 82 and 83. At last: I will keep all email addresses totally confidential! If you do NOT want to get any more mails from me concerning "Shinro Ohtake", please let me know and I will remove you from my list. Thanks for your interest. Best regards, matthias. Shinro Ohtake Newsletter #3, 04/18/97: ------------------------------------------------- Hi all, you have not heard anything from me for nearly a month now, but there have been some changes to the Shinro Ohtake Web Site since then. Furthermore I have added a lot of new information concerning exhibition and public collections. Also I have started a What`s New-Page which can be found on the index bottom line. This What`s New-Page makes it easier for frequent visitors to see recent changes to the site.... The What`s New-page will include news according to Shinro Ohtake as well as information/changes added to the site. Final update to the availability of ATlanta 1945+50. The book should be available within the next 1 to 2 weeks. Shinro is more than happy with the final result. He told me that it is probably his best book ever....before that he said the same about America II , which unfortunately is completely sold out (it was limited to 1,000 copies). ATlanta 1945+50 is limited to 1,500 copies and is heavily back-ordered in Japan. If you want to reserve a copy, please let me know. The price is : USD 60.00 /DEM 120.00 The next 2 books from the Olympia collection will also be available soon: "The Flag Book" by Fernandoz Lopes from Brazil lim. to 5,000 "The Flag Book" lim. ed. of 20 will also be available. "desire and the importance of failure" by Shelagh Keeley from Canada lim. to 1,000 And the remaining last 2 are said to befinished in the summer. I will soon build some Internet pages to inform you better about all 5 books from the Atlanta Olympic Artbook Collection. The Set of 5 cannot exceed the 1,000 number....it is, from what I know, the first time ever that there has been an Olympic Artbook Collection.... A highly collectible series of books... If you wish to receive a special flyer, please email. Shinro Ohtake Newsletter # 4, 07/19/97: ------------------------------------------------- Finally some news according to the artwork of Shinro Ohtake: Information flow from Shinro is currently very slow, because he works day and night for his upcoming exhibitions: October 4. - November 26. 1997: "Large experimental print paintings" at CCGA, Fukushina, Japan January 6. - March 1998: Museum of Niitsu, Japan March 26. - April 1998: Hawaii University, U.S.A. http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/biography/ Since June, Shinro is using the SHIPYARD again, making 10 large sculptures. Working on these sculptures during the day time, the evening is filled with work on large paintings (300 x 250 cm, and the largest will be as big as 400 x 778 cm). On these paintings he uses first a printing machines and then mix the result with paint. SHIPYARD was first used here: 1990 "Tokyo Creative ´90: Shinro Ohtake Shipyard Works 1990", Terada Soko Space T-33, Tokyo http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/books/shipyard.html Furthermore Shinro is currently working on 2 new catalogues and 2 new bookswhich will be released during this year... The exhibition catalogues will also be available for purchase as soon as released. About 800 of 1,500 copies of the "ATlanta 1945+50" book has already been sold since the end of April. The publisher has risen the price from USD 60 to USD 90, because more than half the edition is gone. Lucky first buyers! Some hundred copies were sold at : 1997 May 22. - June 22.: "IN PRINT" at NADIFF book store, Tokyo; Works which were made for the Printed Matter - book and the installation relatingto the "printing" concept of Shinro Ohtake will be shown. The show was a big success! More information on the Nexus Press 1995-1996 Atlanta Book Olympiad duringwhich "ATlanta 1945+50" was released is here: http://www.artbooks.de/olympia/ Shinro has done the cover of domus 3/1997 (Italian art/ architecture magazine). The Cover is a reproduction taken from the RETINA catalogue. http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/magazines/domus.html The Homepage of domus mag is here: http://domus.edidomus.it/domus_eng/home.htm Right now I am adding information on sleeve art by SO to the SO-Archive: http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/coverart/ If you know of covers not yet mentioned on the cover list, please let me know. Thanks for reading. best regards, matthias walzner. Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 20:02:36 +0100 From: walzner artbooks Subject: Shinro Ohtake Newsletter #5/97 As time goes by.... here is # 5 of the Shinro Ohtake Newsletters: Shinro Ohtake`s exhibition at CCGA, Fukushima, Japan is still going on. The introduction to the exhibition can be found here: http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/biography/ccga97.html For more information concerning CCGA, check out their Homepage: http://www.dnp.co.jp/eng/gallery/ccga/welcometoccga.html The exhibition catalogue will be available in December: Exhibition catalogue, Shinro Ohtake: Printing/Painting 30.5 x 22.5 cm, 74 pages, full color offset print with soft cover. Published by the Center for Contemporary Graphic Art and Tyler Graphics Archive Collection (CCGA) An exhibition catalogue containing the introduction by Pierre Restany, French art critic, the artist's interview, chronology, selected bibliography and a large number of the plates. Also in December their is a new book available: Shinro Ohtake: YMCB 25.7 x 18.2 cm, 144 pages, full colors offset print with soft cover. Published by the Center for Contemporary Graphic Art and Tyler Graphics Archive Collection (CCGA) An art book compiled by the artist mainly from his scrapbook collage works, and published as his multiple works. Shinro is currently working on a new book and creating new works for the next exhibition: January 6. - March 1998 at the Museum of Niitsu, Japan. The title of this exhibition is "Japan". The new book (144 pages, no title yet) will be about the new exhibition. One half of the book will be the COLORING PAGES of the Japanese landscape seen by Shinro Ohtake, while the other half will be about his new works with the FOUND OBJECTS and NEON WORKS. Books: Final update to ATlanta 1945+50: Publisher is out of stock. I have got a few of the last copies. Current Price is USD 90. Cover Art: The new CD/LP "Strange Angels" from Kristin Hersh will again feature artwork from Shinro Ohtake. For more information concerning Kristin Hersh: http://www.throwingmusic.com Finally: The artbooks-website is under complete reconstruction and will feature all kind of artbooks in the near future, check out the new design: http://www.artbooks.de Former cnet-Designer Jason Koxvold (jason@artbooks.de) has taken over the responsibility for the design of the site. His portfolio of work is here: http://www.koxvold.demon.co.uk Also: Many thanks to Mr. Terry Green for his advice. Terry is partner of the incredible motion graphics company twenty2 product: http://www.twenty2.com If you have ever wondered who has done some of the great motion graphics from the Nike, hp, Levis... commercials, check out their site. Thanks for reading. best regards, matthias walzner. Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 13:41:22 +0100 From: walzner artbooks Subject: Shinro Ohtake`s new books are now available. Dear artbook friends, now available are the newest books from Shinro Ohtake: Exhibition catalogue, Shinro Ohtake: Printing/Painting 30.5 x 22.5 cm, 74 pages, full color offset print with soft cover. Published by the Center for Contemporary Graphic Art and Tyler Graphics Archive Collection (CCGA) An exhibition catalogue containing the introduction by Pierre Restany, French art critic, the artist's interview, chronology, selected bibliography and a large number of the plates. Price: USD 35/ DEM 60 More information under: http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/books/ccga.html Shinro Ohtake: YMCB 25.7 x 18.2 cm, 144 pages, full colors offset print with soft cover. Published by the Center for Contemporary Graphic Art and Tyler Graphics Archive Collection (CCGA) An art book compiled by the artist mainly from his scrapbook collage works, and published as his multiple works. Truly in the tradition of ATlanta 1945+50. Price: USD 45/ DEM 80 More info is here: http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/books/ymcb.html These books belong together.... YMCB is based on scrapbook #58 which gave Shinro the ideas for the latest exhibition Printing/ Painting at the CCGA. The exhibition catalogue release took quite a while because CCGA wanted to include pictures from the exhibition. The catalogue is the best so far in matter of including biography, books, magazine and other releases by SO... YMCB is unfortunately only soft cover bound and the outer cover is not that spectacular....but do not judge by the package only... the content is once again incredible: the book is in good tradition to America II and ATlanta 1945+50 featuring bright color pages throughout the book. In the middle of the book is a 32pp. BATMAN comic drawn by SO. Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 22:02:30 +0100 From: walzner artbooks Subject: merry christmas from artbooks Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from artbooks. 1997 was a "domain-changing" year for artbooks as many have noticed, but finally artbooks found its home under the easy to remember domain: http://www.artbooks.de As an artbook expert you have showed a special knowledge and interest for a not so usual art. Artists like Tom Baril, Fernando Lopès and ,of course, Shinro Ohtake are not yet known widely to the public, but they surely will in the future. For Shinro Ohtake the year 1997 was an astonishing year, featuring the release of ATlanta 1945+50, Portraits by Avedon and YMCB. The highlight for him though was his biggest exhibition yet: Printing/ Painting at the Center for Contemporary Graphic Art and Tyler Graphics Archive Collection (CCGA) in Fukushima, Japan. The exhibition catalogue features the introduction by Pierre Restany, French art critic, the artist's interview, chronology, selected bibliography and a large number of the plates. Next February a new series of incredible design books will hit artbooks: The ggg book series (ggg stands for Ginza Graphic Gallery) featuring the best designers in poster design, such as Henryk Tomaszewski, Paul Rand, Ikko Tanaka, Saul Bass, Holger Matthies, Tadanori Yokoo, Seymour Chwast, Josef Müller-Brockmann, K2, Milton Glaser.... and others. The series features now 33 books, but will raise to 40 books next year. The series is accompanied by "Graphic Wave" yearly releases (out are 1996 and 1997) of new interesting designers and the books: "Illustration in Japan 1946-95", "Modern Typography in Europe and America" and "Book Design in Japan." More details when they are in stock. Thank you for supporting artbooks in 1997. All the Best for 1998, Matthias Walzner. Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 18:43:21 +0100 From: walzner artbooks To: info@artbooks.de Subject: Shinro Ohtake Newsletter #6 (15 Feb. 98) Dear friends of Shinro Ohtake`s artwork, the current exhibition of Shinro Ohtake is still going on: January 6. - March 15., 1998 "Japan", Museum of Niitsu The translation of the exhibition flyer from this exhibition: "Ambiguousness - Japan is myself" When Ohtake read in his college days Mr. Ango Sakaguchi's literature titled "My personal view on Japanese culture", which was written in 1942, he was somewhat attracted by three subjects which Sakaguchi mentioned: About the beauty related to Kosuge Prison, about a dry ice factory and about a battle ship accident he saw on his trip. In his writing, Sakaguchi does not use a word of mechanical beauty and also he does not mean beauty belong to those subjects themselves. However, Ohtake imagines Sakaguchi's beauty means something directly hitting and hollowing his heart and also something leading his heart to nostalgia and moreover, Ohtake feels Sakaguchi couldn't yet define the feeling such as beauty and tried to get it into more delicate domain unconsciously. Ohtake is impatient with Sakaguchi's writing, but he believes what Sakaguchi tries to say (irritation) has been carried forward to today in various forms and still continues to live boldly in todays very funny scenery, although majority of Japanese thinks everything has now being changed since then. **Ango Sakaguchi - a famous writer and critic during 1940s-50s **Kosuge Prison - a famous prison where General and Premier Mr. Tojou was hung in 1946. Ohtake created 60 new drawings under this theme for the Niitsu Exhibition. Thank you to Mr. Ryo Chigira, dnp, Tokyo for the flyer translation. The Exhibition Catalogue will be available in March 1998. The Flyer Scan is here: http://www.artbooks.de/ohtake/biography/japan.html Thank you again for reading. best regards, matthias walzner