konomi and i have adopted one of etsuko miura’s sick children - konomi has named her “miura-chan” - as mentioned in the post below, we went to etsuko’s exhibition at maria cuore in shibuya a couple of days ago - in fact a joint exhibition of mahoko akiyama and etsuko miura - but etsuko’s dolls are so over-whelmingly strong that poor mahoko’s dolls were upstaged to the point of barely being noticed - the exhibition was originally scheduled to end on 7th december but extended till the 28th (timely for monsieur timeless) - we went on the penultimate day and kinda assumed the dolls would be all sold or not for sale - it was a dreamful wish but we didn’t really go with the intention to acquire one of her dolls - but after asking about prices we found they were less expensive than we imagined - so it was an easy decision to buy without hesitation - we had contemplated buying one of her dolls at a previous exhibition but they were (over-priced?) beyond our modest budget at that time - so, needless to say we are now delighted with the new addition to our family - with her skinny arms, long body, little legs, big belly and sulky bottom-lip-biting expression she’s suitably at home here with us (she also has adorably cute tiny red toes and fingers) - we don’t actually have any space to accommodate her but who cares about trivialities like that…
a little (erm, quite big) aside here:
maria cuore has a rather extravagant 1000 yen ($10) entrance fee - being unaware of it, konomi exclaimed “takai!” (”expensive!”) in shock - an oldish guy with very long hair standing close-by angrily (or perhaps only mock-angrily) retorted “NO! - this is worth much more than 1000 yen!” gesticulating around the cluttered cramped gallery space - altho a couple of young female customers also within earshot giggled quietly in mutual agreement with my wife - and i can say the fee has also put me off visiting the gallery before even tho they concentrate of showing doll artists i love (koitsukihime etc) - konomi told me about maria cuore being owned by a rich and famous japanese doll collector, so i said “the angry man” was most probably him! - she didn’t agree but after finding a youtube clip on the collector, discovered that it was indeed him - haha! - then, yesterday, when we went to collect “miura-chan”, he was there carefully wrapping her up - and of course acting somewhat more deferential towards us than on the previous day - a funny turn of events - he actually knew and liked my work and was pleased i was buying etsuko’s doll from them - he even expressed interest in staging the next trevor brown exhibition - he modestly introduced himself as a “doll worker” when we exchanged business cards…
major shopping / big news for me - so please excuse this gloating bloated blog entry
Congratulations on the adoption.
Once again I hate myself for not living somewhere where I can find/see things like this for myself, however I feel that I’d probably find myself broke time and time again if I did =)
I’m sure monsieur Timeless have take photos of all the exibition,&
BRAVO for the Brown familly adoption .
what’s the next art tribulations of “cassoulet” in Tokyo ?
“poor mahoko’s dolls were upstaged to the point of barely being noticed”
hiding from etsuko’s delinquents no doubt.
i bet most went home with all their toys nicked!
nah, it was probably more like mahoko’s dolls concealing knives behind their backs and hacking off the random limbs and performing impromptu lobotomies on etsuko’s dolls …and of course no one notices any difference
photos strictly disallowed unfortunately - i wanted to take pix of the best etsuko dolls there - big assemblages involving organic matter (rotting vegetables etc) spewing from hugely distended burst open bellies
an etsuko miura doll is on the cover of mylene farmer’s point de suture cd in france - she’s looking for more recognition outside japan - work, exhibitions, etc…
I could believe mahokos dolls would want to hack off a few limbs surreptitiously out of pure spite. She’s sickeningly beautiful. Well done on the new family member.