A buildup story

The three days we had available to build the installation and hang the artworks was plenty to build Yakuza. Being the first time, I feared it would be way too short, but we finished in the evening of the second day, after just 27 hours. Some things went exactly as planned, some things even better. And some things seemed to be so hard to solve that I thought we'd never figure it out in time.

My brother Malik had flown over from Tokyo with Yoko, my mum was on standby babysitting a bunch of the kids, and my love was ready too. Two extremely experienced tech guys from the venue were there to help me at all times. Charles from the lab who did the prints, also insisted on personally hanging the artwork to the wall. And a day before the opening, Diego Orlando, dear friend and curator for the Yakuza show, was flying in from Milano.

So we pretty much had it covered. Three stages. Artwork. Rice paper. Goza mats.

The rice paper was the thing that worried us the most. Extremely delicate and without any margin for error (some were printed with images or text), we had to find a suitable way to hang them from the ceiling.

For the artwork I had prepared a detailed layout with exact measurements, and I had faith in Charles, having over 25 years experience doing exactly this kind of thing.

And finally, laying the mats in the right patterns would be pretty straighforward I guessed. Malik took the organization of that one upon him.

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Charles was making tremendous progress hanging the actual artworks... and finished after just 7,5 hours. And at that moment, even without the lighting, rice paper or mats, we could see it was going to be good. Everybody was happy... One down, three to go...

security cam footage of the Yakuza exhibit buildup

In the late afternoon of the first day we encountered or first real challenge, and it was something none of us expected: the goza mats. For some reason we just couldn’t get them to join together in the patterns we needed. We tried everything: sticking, glueing, using a second carpet layer... nothing helped. We tried for hours to figure it out.

Then Yoko found it: goza mats, as is tradition in Japan, should be sewn together to generate the patterns and sizes one needs. Only practical problem: we had to combine one hundred mats into three large shapes & patterns...

We had to find extra hands that knew how to sew. Fast. It was 10pm and we needed them by 9am. We needed them or we'd be in trouble finishing. We started calling around for help.

It was then that I noticed one of the rice paper prints was missing.

Calling Charles he immediately agreed to help me print the missing one at 7am the next morning. I needed to personally be there as we loaded op the paper and printed.

The next morning, at the gallery, a miracle had happened... my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law had both responded to our emergency call for sewing, and took it upon them to bring even more help... Now there was a team of 6 people sewing simultaneously, and things suddenly went really fast... they incredibly managed to finish all the mats just 8 hours later.

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Then It was Tuur's turn to save us. At one point - I'm so glad I was still at the printer at that time - someone drilled through a water pipe in the ceiling... and you can imagine what happened next.

Tuur shouted and everybody came running to the room to rescue the artwork... and quickly thereafter the water mains got shut down and repaired. Nothing damaged. Quick thinking from an experienced builder. And by the time I returned from the printer there wasn’t a trace left of all this... phew.

security cam footage of the Yakuza exhibit buildup

And the rice paper - of which we were all afraid - well, all went flawlessly. The second day, we finished in time, and we all went home completely relaxed. Job done, exhibit ready for final inspection and subsequent opening... fantastic. I slept like a baby.

The next morning, off to the airport to pick up dear friend Diego Orlando (who curates the Yakuza show), and go straight to the venue to check if everything is one hundred percent perfect.

Of course Diego’s eagle eye picked up on something that could be improved story-wise... and we ended up making a genius last minute switch of one image on a different wall and a sequence alteration in another part... in hindsight so simple... so logical... so perfect.

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The opening the next day was a big success.... so many people and friends... and such great moments.

Five years ago Malik and I looked each other in the eye in Taka’s bar and said “hey what if we try to photograph the yakuza?”.

Now, half a decade later, after two editions of the book and the first of a series of solo exhibits, we are finally full circle.

I am SO happy.

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Mum, Malik, Yoko, Miet, Tuur, Jeroen, Charles, Mich, Jules, Kristien, Danny (and of course young Lukas in a supporting role), I simply cannot thank you guys enough for helping at the setup... and thank you Veerle and Eddie for giving me the opportunity in the first place...

An extremely random checklist for an event in the not too distant future

• a perfect image edit ✓
• precise installation layout plan ✓
• fresh orange juice ✓
• clamps ✓
• 100 freshly made goza mats: standard size ✓
• mom on speed dial standby at all times ✓
• opening party ✓
• the images, printed & mounted ✓
• my love ❤ ✓
• bubbly sparkly drinks ✓
• broza ✓
• 200 metres of premium Japanese rice paper ✓
• family, friends & guests ✓
• a bunch of transparent glue sticks ✓
• an ultra cool fold out printed edition catalogue ✓
• a genius curator ✓
• sista ✓
• installation days locked down ✓
• total costs absolutely spiralling out of control ✓
• secret extra stuff for visitors ✓
• chilled belgian beer in a friend’s trunk ✓
• good good vibes all around ✓

Editions and Exhibitions

Finally they're here... Limited editions of images from the different projects I've been photographing.

A humble beginning with an edition for three of my projects, and quite an investment of time and money, but I think it is going to be worth it. Most recently, I was able to make a limited edition of prints from the Yakuza project (to accompany the upcoming exhibits). Combined with an edition of my work shot in Mexico on "I was a Dog/I see a Ghost", and an upcoming edition (Q4 this year) of new Dislocate images, that makes three.

So I thought it might be good to combine them all online into one place, keeping things simple and up to date.

All the editions are actually very limited (although the print size is quite large sometimes... you gotta love large prints).... but after a lot of talking with, and advice from, friends, experts in the field and gallery owners, and of course a great deal of soul searching, I think this is the way I should go.

I'm not a full blown art photographer, but I think I've kinda got my act together and once in a while I do want to make available high quality limited editions of my work, preferably in small numbers... so I can keep it personal... and I think - I hope - editions like these ones speak this message and complement everything else I do.

To be honest, yet again I have no clue if this is the right way to go... it just feels like another natural step to take. I'll see how it goes and report back here regularly... check it out: antonkusters.com/editions

And if you're reading this and interested in buying an editioned print, send me a message and I'll give you your password to access the details...

Have a great day today,

P.S. yes, "Sugar" is on the list too... stay tuned! :-)

Yakuza exhibit teaser #1

66 images, ranging from 12x18" through 40x60" to one that's a whopping 78x118"
(if I can afford that last one, that is)

This is This and This is This

Hey!

Happy New Year.

Here are some things:

This is some snow. This is "a little glow in the dark" at the presses. These are the first dummy tests for the "dislocate" books. This is a good whiskey (after having a few). This is some more work done on the "yakuza" solo exhibit in april. And these are flowers for my mother.

....and there's much more to come.

2013 is going to be a good year, I'm sure of it. For all of us... it has to be. My best wishes to each and every one of you... and see you soon.

a

Yakuza exhibit - first concepts

Hi. I've een working on a first Yakuza exhibit concept. I started out sketching by hand and then taking pictures at the actual location, but constantly going up and down to measure, make new pictures, adjust the sketch, became too time-consuming. The sketches would always lack a sense of proportion: I would e.g. have no idea how large or small an image should be printed to fit a wall in a balanced way, or what would be an ideal viewing distance for any given size.

So I forced myself to make time to learn the basics of 3D architectural modeling (I basically downloaded Google SketchUp and watched all the tutorials). It took a long time to get going, and it's quite crude, but as soon as I'd created the room in the right proportions, it became amazing how easy it was to virtually hang images on the walls, put people in the rooms, and see what the impact would be on the space the images were in, make them bigger or smaller, hang them up a little higher, work with different levels,... In a flash, this tool had become indispensable for me to test all my concepts in many more ways than I ever could do before.

Yakuza C-mine exhibit - sketch

Yakuza C-mine exhibit - beginning edit & layout

Of course to actually sketch out ideas quickly, using 3D is way too slow. For that I will always use pencil and paper and actual tiny prints of my images stuck on a huge page across the whole table... and when I feel an idea that I sketched might just be possible in real life, only then do I go to the 3D environment to actually draw it in detail to see how it holds up. And only if it holds up there, I can start dreaming of the possibility of actually producing...

Another benefit of 3D is being able to show different views. Even though my concept is far from finished, I was able to show the gallery director a walkthrough and the different rooms and basically show whatever she needed to see. She loved it.

But I've still got a long way to go. As you can see, the digital model is still quite empty besides the "hallway"... and I might even change my mind on that one :-)

I'll talk more about the schematics of the room next time, as well as my concept... I just have to work a little more to be able to show you some clearer visuals. But up to now the installation seems to be quite cost efficient, portable, and modular as well; so it could fit it into different shaped or sized locations... because you never know what the future brings...

ps. don't worry about the actual image edit (if you can recognize any of the images anywhere), it's likely to change a million times between now and next week :-)

How do you guys go about sketching an exhibit?

Have a great day today,

a

Yakuza exhibit concept - screenshot

Yakuza exhibit concept - screenshot

Yakuza exhibit concept - screenshot

Ten images that didn't make it into YAKUZA

Sorry that I've been gone for a while... it's the first time in years that I've been able to relax my mind a couple of weeks, and in hindsight it has been necessary: I've been able to take some much needed important decisions, decisions that have been delayed and delayed even without me realizing it, and with a relaxed mind have come to surface and have been easier to contemplate... And of course I've started preparing for the fall when things will get up to full speed again with many especially exciting new things that I want to tell you all about, not only things related to the Yakuza project. More on all this soon... In the meantime, I thought this one would be fun: the ten images that most narrowly did not make it into the ODO YAKUZA TOKYO book.

The story goes as follows: during any book design process, one has to be prepared to meet unexpected circumstances, and it's not uncommon that even at the last instant, things can change completely. In my case, my - what I (and the printer) thought was the - definitive book edit had always been 98 spreads with images, plus 6 spreads for the chapters (plus pages for text at the beginning and the end).

And then it happened. Right at the very last second, when the printer was making the final impositioning for the plates, we both noticed we had made a major calculation error in the book. I had designed part of one book section too many. Simple page count error. Basic rookie mistake. I've been professionally designing books for years, how could this have happened. This could turn out to be a disaster.... because this meant, that in effect, I would have to cut images from the book, and I had to cut them fast. There was simply no choice. The only other option would be to literally stop the printing and re-think the whole book paper, cover, book thickness, weight, binding,... not to mention the extra costs involved... and to delay the book launch by several months.

So I chose to push ahead. Cut the images. And what could have easily become a disaster, in hindsight, actually turned out to be something good. For some reason, I was able to identify the images that had to go, very quickly... having spent months with the edit, somehow it appeared clear in my mind what had to be done. And indeed, leaving those images out, turned out to make a stronger edit.

Of course, after cutting the images, I had to re-look and re-do the entire sequencing, and this in turn leading yet again to be forced to drop out another couple of images. Damn. In total, I decided cut exactly 10 images and changed the sequencing, dividing into more (but smaller) chapters... extremely tense moments I can tell you, especially because I think I only had 2 hours to complete the job, prepare a new hi res pdf and deliver it. The presses were ready to go. And you don't ever want the presses to be waiting for you, trust me.

Even with the pressure looming over me, I still recall those two hours as something extremely positive, as very exciting, as an opportunity to make the book better still. I'm so glad I didn't choke and pull the plug. It was like someone had whispered in my ear: "Anton, you now have 2 hours to make your book better, and it's your last chance... go for it".

Judge for yourself... what do you think of these 10 that didn't make the cut? I know showing them out of their original sequence is not ideal, but I hope it'll work.

(ps. in regards to the "real" b-roll images that weren't used in the book edit earlier along in the process, I'll soon post some of those too)

have a great summer all, and more soon, I promise!

a