Purikura Characters

yanez

Okay, amidst all of the crazy Day of the Dead activity in the last two weeks I’ve been secretly collaborating with the talented and amazing Maya Escobar. We’ve been shooting ideas back and forth and working hard to meld her Acciones Plasticas series with my new obsession with Japanese Purikura aesthetics. I’ll be sharing the final artworks soon but I thought I’d show off some of the Purikura characters we created that are elements of the pieces.

Perhaps I should rewind and explain, Japanese photobooths (known as Purikura or print-club) usually allow you to digitally decorate your photographs after you take them. A common decoration are simply drawn characters that can add a twist and some flavor to Purikura portraits (for example this amorous salaryman in my portrait with Ava). In the case of my collaboration with Maya, they are tropes meant to inform the subjects of the artwork.

Without further ado here they are:

It’s been a great experience working with Maya and I’ll be sharing the fruits of our labor shortly. Come back soon!

Peace,

Rio

Busy Chicano Omake

yanez

The week leading up to SOMArt’s Day of the Dead exhibit is always the busiest, craziest week of the year for me. I’m trying to return my life to a normal schedule while taking care of a few loose ends. I have so much to write about but not much time in the next couple of days. In the meantime enjoy these Purikura photos that I took with my homegirl Ava Alamshah.

Peace & Purikura,

Rio

Altars for the Spirits / Offerings for the Living

yanez

Hi everyone, my curated Day of the Dead exhibit will open this Friday at 6:00PM at SOMArts. Hope to see you there!

Altars for the Spirits Offerings for the Living

Dia de los Muertos 2009

Dedicated to Al Robles and Victor Mario Zaballa

Friday, October 16th through Saturday, November 7th, 2009

SOMArts

934 Brannan Street

San Francisco, CA 94103

Gallery hours: Tuesday – Friday, 12:00PM – 7:00 PM

Saturday, from 12:00PM – 5:00PM

OPENING RECEPTION

Friday, October 16th / 6:00PM / $5.00-$10.00 Sliding Scale

Featuring Classical & Jazz Music by  Mutual Admiration Org.

and Contemporary Mexican & Chicano Music by Liliana Herrera

Special Performance by Tania Llambelis & the Oakland Improv Collective

FIRST TIME EVER: Artist Market of Dia de los Muertos crafts and art for sale in our Theater!

CLOSING RECEPTION

Saturday, November 7th / 6:00PM / Free

Join our flickr group and submit images to be part of our exhibition

http://www.flickr.com/groups/digitalofferings

Rene Yanez and Rio Yanez Curators, Nick Gomez Architect

With a little help from Las Mayas

yanez

Everything has been crazy lately. Although I have been super-productive I have also weathered a handful of tense moments in the last couple of days. My therapy for stress these days has been to produce a ridiculous lip-sync video using photobooth. Below is the product of my latest locura.


What’s kept me sane (aside from the fabulous love and support given to me by Mariela) are my new partners in art mischief who have given me things to smile about.

Y’know, I’ve never met a Maya I didn’t like, especially Guatemalan ones (in fact, I think they’re ALL Guatemalan). I just wanna give a holla to Maya Escobar and Maya Chinchilla for keeping me amused, challenged, and creatively active. I’ve kinda lapsed on our respective projects this past week but I want you both to know that you’re continuing to inspire me. Once the exhibit is up at the end of this coming week, we will take over the world once again.

Me and Maya Escobar: Long Distance Mashup

Me and my homegirl Maya Chinchilla

Thanks Mayas!

Peace,

Rio

At least it wasn’t Selena Gomez

yanez

So every now and then I google my domain name to see what comes up. Guess what I found on facebook courtesy of Deadlee? Aw shucks.

deadleeIt could be worse, I could be catchin’ heat like Miley Cyrus. I’m sure Chicanos around the world collectively had their minds blown when she tweeted the following:

cyrusmozThe backlash was pretty quick and most notably from Kurt Cobain’s daughter:

mozcyrus02I wonder if MEChA groups are organizing to combat this grave injustice? I demand mobilization and action from our Raza revolutionaries! Okay, maybe not.  Speaking of Morrissey though, this made me smile.


Peace,
Rio

プリクラ Jumpoff

yanez

It seems like I have been hustling on graphic design work 24/7 so today I took a break in the morning for an outing to Japantown with my homegirl Maya Chinchilla. We had one goal in mind: hit up pikapika and take some crazy-ass pictures. This was my second trip to pikapika and Maya’s first. Once again the guy who works there was super-friendly and helpful in helping us navigate the menus of the machines we used.

We used the Minna booth (below) and once again I was drawn to the Love Joker booth (above). This time around we used Love Joker’s Shiny Madonna theme. Love Joker has 3 aesthetic themes that you choose from before taking your photos and each theme has a different assortment of backgrounds and suggested poses. The Minna booth had an amazing array of color foil backgrounds that my scanner does not do justice to. Seen in person, they jump off each print.

I am more determined than ever to curate a Purikura exhibit. I can only imagine what kind of images artists and performers can create together with these magical photo booths. If anyone out there is interested in exhibiting or participating in such a show let me know.

Peace and プリクラ,

Rio

Secrets

yanez

There’s an article about my Ghetto Frida billboard/mural up at Mission Loc@l. I had a great time being interview by reporter Kate Kilpatrick. As it turns out she was the editor of Black Like Me a column run in the Philadelphia Weekly written by one of my heroes, Jayson Musson.

The recent press for Ghetto Frida’s Mission Memories has made me think a lot about the boundaries that exist between my public and private selves. Last night, after a long day of doing graphic work I decided to make one of my infamous lip-sync videos set to Private’s Secret Lover (Starsmith Remix). These lip-sync videos are the kind of personal media that I only usually post on facebook. At the moment I’ve been stuck trying to define what the boundaries are between my various online representations. Recently, I’ve had really interesting conversations with friends who have had to rethink their online expressions because of career and familial expectations. I’m beginning to feel the same pressures…But tonight I’m saying FUCK IT and kicking out the jams.



Secret Lover (Starsmith Remix) by Private

Peace,

Rio

Anygüey Love and Lolita Guadalupes

yanez

I was interviewed this weekend by Alejandro Paz for Anygüey and it was just posted today. I do intend to keep my word and design a tattoo for Alejandro. More on that story as it develops.

Yesterday Mariela and I ventured to Japantown, our first trip there in years. Rene and I go to the Kabuki theater all the time but we rarely go into any of the shops these days. I had been dying to check out New People, a brand new shopping center that recently opened. New People was launched by Viz Media; for those of you that don’t know, I actually used to work for Viz and their publication Animerica way back when. It’s crazy to think that the small company of about 20 that I started working with is now an expanding media empire.

The most fascinating shop at New People was BABY, the Stars Shine Bright the first flagship store of the Japanese Lolita Fashion brand. I had only seen Lolita fashion through magazines & computer screens and seeing a store full of these clothes was like being in a surreal movie set. What really caught my eye was a $38.00 tote bag from the store’s Alice and the Pirates line that featured the image below.

Annie and the Pirtates

An image of the Virgin surrounded by a bleeding heart, roses, and a skull. This was very clearly not a Catholic motif but a reference to Chicano pop sensibilities. Is this a sign of things to come in Lolita fashion?

Mariela and I then walked over to the Kinokuniya building and quickly discovered pikapika. pikapika is a store with nothing but Japanese Purikura photobooths (about 10 in total I think). The place was closing soon and Mariela and I had just enough time to hop into a Love Joker booth and take a set of photos. I used to love Purikura booths as a teenager but DAMN, the technology has improved since then. The ring of diffused strobes that surround the touchscreen menu of the booth were impressive. After our shoot we were led to another section of the booth where we could decorate and draw on our photos using wacom-like pens. All the text of the machine was in Japanese but pikapika has helpful translation charts posted on the machine. The end result of our picture taking and decorating was printed out on a 4×6 sheet of sticker paper.

Making the photos was a fun experience and at $10.00 a pop, it wasn’t cheap but it was well worth it. My mind is now spinning with thoughts of curating an art exhibit of artists who create portraits of themselves with purikura booths. With all the machines at pikapika, there are endless possibilities for artists to create amazing images using them. If anyone is interested in participating in or hosting such an exhibit please let me know.

Peace,

Rio