Moholy Ground Magazine

A Knowledge of Photography

{sept. 2010002

Featuring

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Moholy Ground Magazine

Seiji Horibuchi

[framed]

New People is a recently constructed three-story mall

in Japantown, but it’s much more than that. New People

is a theater, a gallery, a retail space, and a concept. More

specifically, New People is a “J-pop center,” which is how

owner and creator Seiji Horibuchi envisioned it.

If you are already a fan of Japanese film, manga,

animation, music, gadgets, and fashion, then this is your

Mecca. According to Mika, the PR representative for New

People and Super Frog Gallery (named in honor of a short

story by Haruki Murakami), cultural exchange is the focus of

this J-pop heaven-on-earth. New People delivers and promotes

Asian pop cultural icons and movements, many of which have

only been enjoyed by Asian markets.

Prior to launching New People, Horibuchi founded VIZ Media

(licensor of English translations of Japanese manga)

and VIZ Pictures (distributors of Japanese film). Horibuchi

wanted to deliver the full J-pop experience to an American

audience who grew up on anime and manga.

He envisioned a venue to showcase aspects of Japanese

culture that were not as readily accessible to the American

public. New People provides a venue for the rare and

TOKYOCALLING: NEW PEOPLE

B Y : B R Y A N F E R R E I R APHOTOS: GABRIEL WHEELE R

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hard-to-find items, whether that be the latest Harajuku fashion,

a film, or work of art. You are most likely not going to see

what New People has to offer anywhere else and Super Frog

is one of the few galleries that strives to bring established

and emerging artists over from Japan.

The building that houses New People is a testament to

Horibuchi’s attention to detail. The architect was sent to Tokyo

to get a feel for the city and incorporated some of that ultra-

modern spirit into the design elements of the building and its

interior spaces. The cafe that greets visitors in the lobby, Blue

Bottle Coffee, sent a representative to many coffee shops in

Japan to refine their recipes. The Japanese tend to go all out

in most everything they do. This Japanese passion for both

detail and going to extremes is certainly represented in the

multiplicity of offerings at New People. From the Gothic Lolita

fashions to the film screenings, not to mention the ever-changing

art at the Super Frog Gallery, there is a lot going on there.

The Japanese have the ability to blend their own traditional

culture with the modern, as well as an ability to absorb

Western culture and reinvent it. This appears to be very much

a part of Horibuchis’ vision of cultural exchange at New

People and something also present in the works of Yoshitaka

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Amano—a famous anime character designer and artist, as well

as one of Super Frog Gallery’s participating artists.

Amano is famous as a character designer

for Yattaman, Gatchaman (known as Battle of the Planets in

English), and Final Fantasy. His piece now on display in the

lobby of New People portrays a Gatchaman anime character

painted on two metal sheets utilizing a high-gloss automotive

finish. This intentional utilization of auto body paint and glaze

on metal as the medium embodies American car culture,

whereas the subject matter represents J-pop culture. The

gallery often features works by Amano, so keep an eye out for

his next exhibit.

VIZ Cinema, New People’s theater housed in the building’s

basement, is a rare and important institution. It provides

an exclusive forum to present Japanese film at a time when

many foreign and indie cinemas in San Francisco have

closed. VIZCinema shows an eclectic variety of Japanese films,

including classics by Kurosawa and new films based on manga

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such as 20th Century Boys. The theater also features films from

Korea and is currently promoting works from South Korean

director Chan-wook Park, director of the 2003 film Old Boy.

The theater has shown a week of Gundam (popular anime)

films and a week of Godzilla films; you would be hard pressed

to find such programming anywhere else in the country. The

theater is also home to a monthly lecture series on Japanese

pop culture called TokyoScope. For you spec nerds, the theater

seats 143 and is THX-certified with 35mm and HD digital

projectors. Not to be overlooked are the big orange seats

with fold down armrests and cup holders, so make sure to

bring down a Matcha Latte from Blue Bottle. Another nice

detail about VIZ Cinema is the comfortable lounge area with

long tables and pull-out chairs where you can hang out, drink

coffee, and discuss film.

Japanese art and cinema are one thing, but what really

translates to Americans iskawaii — the cult of all things

cute, which has been Japan’s most sought-after export since

the birth of Hello Kitty. Lolita and Gothic Lolita fashion,

which is a combination of Victorian styles, punk, goth,

and kawaii, is a street phenomenon from Harajuku — the

infamous neighborhood in Tokyo most known as a magnet of

underground culture. The Lolita movement has spread around

the world with the rise in popularity of manga and anime,

as the Lolita look is often incorporated into those mediums.

Lolitas from all over the Bay Area flock to the second floor

of New People to pick up these hard-to-find fashions. Moholy

Ground Magazinepartnered with New People and a bevy of Bay

Area Lolitas for an all-day fashion shoot at the New People

building. From the roof to the basement theater, photographer

Gabriel Wheeler captured the latest looks from the designers

Black Peace Now, Baby The Stars Shine Bright, and Sou Sou.

~ Make sure to swing by New People the week of September

13, 2010 for J-pop Summit Week, a festival of Japanese

music, films, events, and (of course) shopping.~

Located in San Francisco’s historic Japantown1746 Post Street.

www.newpeopleworld.com

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L E F E M M E

J O S I E P E R E Z - R A M O N D E T T A

I saw this series in my mind even before I began to

work on it. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to

depict a timeless and soulful female, both fierce and aloof.

The aesthetic was crafted to evoke a lingering sense

of melancholy; a classic romanticism with a modern

liberated edge.

I was inspired by the dark romanticism of film noir and wanted

to marry it with the raw emotion and grit that informed the

World War II era of blues and jazz. I looked at the project as a

retrospect of characters torn from the film stills of John Alton,

Alfred Hitchcock, and Federico Fellini. My need to creatively

experiment with a lens was also fueled by the work of Gordon

Parks, Diane Arbus, and Walker Evans. The series of individual

portraits was created from 1995-2000, and I approached it

with meticulous research and attention to detail.

I knew exactly what shadows I wanted, at what angle I wanted

a hat to be tilted, what look I wanted in a model’s gaze. It was

essential to place each woman in a setting that would reflect

her character’s identity and draw out her essence.

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{As a photographer, it was challenging for me at times to not

only bring down the barriers between my subject and the

camera lens (all the women were friends, not professional

models), but also to gingerly bring out each woman’s natural

beauty and story. That essence of the “timeless le femme”

was evasive, and the more obvious artifices of costume

and setting could have easily overwhelmed the shoot, but I

strove to bring out the best interpretation of each individual

woman’s script.

Aside from the attention to styling each subject, I also tried

to photograph them all in a spontaneous moment with natural

light, without the distraction of additional stage lights or filters

and reflectors. Each woman stands in her unique diorama,

her true essence and power laid bare against the occasional

light bulb and a simple backdrop.

“it was essential to place each woman in a setting that would reflect her character’s

identity and draw out her essence.”

“If film noir males are destroyed or nearly destroyed by fate, the noir woman is fate’s emissary, a siren leading the man to ruin-ation” — Jack Nachbar

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[projected]

reflectreflectSCOTT WALKER

PHOTOGRAPHED BY:

All artists are regurgitators. One takes the world around them or an idea in their mind and filters it through the creative sieve. Artists reflect their surroundings. In my series of reflection photographs, I chose a reflective surface (most often water) and then focused on an

image within that surface. It’s a moment in time. The water will dry or flow into the gutter, and the image I saw will cease to exist. The images I shoot are, for the most part, city scenes.

The liquid softens the hard edges and blurs the straight lines. Water is in constant motion and gives motion to non-mobile images. The reflections also give a false impression of a double exposure; the viewer gets a leaf or cigarette up close, and a tree or building focused farther off. Reflection can also refer to contemplation. My goal is for people to think, “What’s in that puddle?” Or, in the more abstract images, “What is that?

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