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Takao Sakai’s Bean Love

7 Jan 2008 Category: Arts & Crafts, Features, Japan

Takao Sakai’s Bean Love

Imagine touching this sticky beard made of Japanese red beans! A slightly different kind of haptic pleasure... From Takao Sakai's red bean beard portrait series, from his picture gallery.

Takao Sakai does food art. To be precise, he uses sticky red beans which he smears digitally on other people’s faces, if not literally on a Darth Vader helmet! One hilariously weird and simply awesome idea of referencing pop culture’s insignia with this very essential and traditional Japanese ingredient! PingMag wants to know all about Takao’s fond love for beans.

Written by Verena
Translated by Kevin Mcgue

Traditional Japanese tengu mask with a surface like a “grotesque swarm of insects.” By Takao Sakai.

First of all, what attracts you to beans?

I have to explain: The beans I use are adzuki beans, which are one of the most popular ingredients in Japanese cooking with a long tradition of being used in sweets, called wagashi in Japanese [which we extensively showed you before]. Adzuki beans are said to bring good luck, that’s why we eat them as sweets. This image of happiness serves not only as a motif for me, I’m also really attracted to their texture and shape.

Is it about their consistency? Or the liquid they are in?

That’s not liquid but a way to make the beans glossy by boiling them first. That glossiness is a means of showing the deliciousness of the beans visually. When working with beans, I form them like papier-mâché and apply some colours with acrylic paints. Though that part is faked, it is just to show their glossiness realistically.

Beans are so pop! Especially with the new Batman movie coming out soon this year - Bat mask by Takao Sakai. From his gallery.

Why is it a pleasure to work with them?

When Japanese look at my works, they immediately recognise them as adzuki beans used in sweets. However, people from outside tend to feel them to be enigmatic and gross. I actually like that kind of misunderstanding. The adzuki make quite abstract forms - to some people this might look deliciously edible, others might imagine a grotesque swarm of insects. Adzuki beans in traditional sweets are a part of traditional Japanese culture, and I want to give that an ironic twist. It is a way to re-examine my identity as Japanese, and to try to make a new image of this place called Japan.

Darth Vader, stickily updated by Takao.

Monster with pancake head! By Takao Sakai.

Since when have you been interested in beans - was there an incident when you were a kid?

Of course I have always liked Japanese sweets, but there is no special memory connected to them. I only started to think of them as sculpting material a few years ago.

A most stylish hat - mass culture from the convenience store, by Takao Sakai.

… and how come?

An ancient Greek god got a nice sticky wig: Hermes, by Takao Sakai.

I started to use Japanese sweets as motifs in 2003. At that time, I only had a vague idea of what I was doing. But as I continued, their significance gradually became clear. Recently I have been working a lot with adzuki, using them together with other materials. That helps to to create a broader spectrum in my work.

And how on earth did you come up with a bean-covered Batman mask or the Star Wars’ Darth Vader helmet, or a robot covered with beans: Because these are symbols of pop culture? Or as they also relate to your childhood memories?

No, I am just referencing symbols of pop culture. They are easy to express as symbols, as they are understood around the world. And that is the reason I chose them. But since I am using these universally known characters, each small difference of my work becomes a gap between my art and that well-known character. I enjoy that this also generates a kind of misunderstanding.

The red bean beard portrait series #56, by Takao Sakai.

The red bean beard portrait series #34, by Takao Sakai.

What is your ongoing bean beard portrait project about?

For this, I created a fictitious story about a recent trend among young Japanese to make adzuki bean beards: Much like tattoos or earrings before, they were first used as good luck charms or talismans to ward off evil. But then they gave birth to adzuki bean idols, and because of their influence it went so far to become a casual fashion worn in everyday life. Then foreign media began introducing the fad to people overseas as an extension of otaku and anime youth culture, thus spreading adzuki fashion around the world. Now, I am making these portraits to illustrate that fictional story. If some media outside of Japan would mistakenly think that this is really fashion and would report it as news, then I would have succeeded.

A nice twist to minimalist art: Takao Sakai’s reinterpretation of Kasimir Malevitch’s black square, bean style. From his gallery.

And what about your relationship with pancakes: Why a giant pancake hat?

No, no! Those aren’t pancakes, but another kind of Japanese sweets called “dora-yaki.” They are so ordinary, you can buy them in any convenience store. And that projects a somewhat different image than traditional sweets. The effects of consumerism can be seen even in traditional wagashi. I wanted to express that by creating a work stacking up dora-yaki.

Your earlier approach with wagashi, Japanese sweets, was delicious - what inspired you to do that?

I was born and raised in the city, so I grew up in a culture that said we must continue old traditions and, at the same time, said we should create something new. People in my generation who grew up in those circumstances sought out new forms of happiness. In my early works, I tried to express a new form of happiness for contemporary Japan that references Japanese sweets as a form of cultural heritage, but puts them in a totally new setting. The same is true of my current works.

Mysteriously masked hero - with wagashi, and a tribal mask made of delicious sweets. By Takao Sakai, from 2006.

Finally, what’s your favourite bean dish?

Of course I love wagashi with adzuki beans. However, I’m not necessarily interested in any other bean dishes apart from sweets. Occasionally green beans and black beans are also used for that. You know, these sweets are indeed sweet, but also healthy. Okay, I’m not making my art just to advertise Japanese sweets! (Laughs)

Red bean table tennis, by Takao.

Of course not! Thanks, Takao for bringing us closer to Japanese red beans. See more pics of his awesome art in his gallery and his bean portrait project site, please.

33 Comments

wow so lovely

Posted by: Jambo on January 7th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
At first when I saw the beans which were painted black, I thought he used caviar. I guess that would be a french (and rich) alternative.

Posted by: icie on January 7th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
That hat is just amazing, and the picture of the man wearing it´s great too :)

Posted by: Lu! on January 7th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
AGGRESS AutoPost Test

Posted by: admin on January 8th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Wow! You can almost touch the passion people feel for the beans

Posted by: Baglan on January 8th, 2008 at 2:43 am
i love beans!

Posted by: mexist on January 8th, 2008 at 3:54 am
a really creative young man.

Posted by: vat on January 8th, 2008 at 4:25 am
LOL…
This is so funny!
I love the sweet mask!

Posted by: Akai on January 8th, 2008 at 4:41 am
now, monday is my favorite day.

Posted by: jonathan triple on January 8th, 2008 at 8:00 am
is it just me or they look DISGUSTING!!

Posted by: Moku on January 8th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
i love the beans on face lol

Posted by: nzto on January 8th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Looks interesting… and yummy! :)

Posted by: Helen on January 8th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
[...] pretty humorous to see what he’s created. azuki beards, darth vader masks, statues and more. Take a look. Subscribe to comments Comment | Trackback | Share This Add a [...]

Posted by: » Azuki Beards on January 9th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
“It is a way to re-examine my identity as Japanese, and to try to make a new image of this place called Japan.”

Interesting.
I wonder what conclusions he will reach about his identity, and what new images he will create of (this place called) Japan.
Might we expect the anwers to be written in Miso?

Posted by: nickb on January 9th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
[...] gallery and his bean portrait project site. Wanna know more about his way of thinking and his art? Link A few more [...]

Posted by: Bean Fashion by Takao Sakai « Rhapsody SoS on January 10th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Adzuki beans are the strangest thing I have eaten in Japan. I love how they are being used…. Love it….

Posted by: ANNA ANTONIADES on January 12th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Somehow it is such interesting, and shocking. visually..

Posted by: Yuu on January 13th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
so, cool beans?

Posted by: joe on January 23rd, 2008 at 7:51 am
[...] EDIT: at first I casually came accross this image on one of the many blogs I read. I dig a bit further and uncovered this & this. [...]

Posted by: Image of the Day. on January 24th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
this is amazing it made me smile.

Posted by: jordan on February 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
I’m agree with the last comment, varshmen

Posted by: Fishbergoltz on September 24th, 2008 at 2:30 am
And how did you do it?

Posted by: Fishbergoltz on October 3rd, 2008 at 3:23 am
http://bbolpttuoi.sitebooth.com/pokemon-b0/index.html

Posted by: Mister on December 2nd, 2008 at 6:33 am
Posted by: 3gp on January 16th, 2009 at 6:39 am
[...] Takao Sakai does food art. To be precise, he uses sticky red beans which he smears digitally on other people’s faces, if not literally on a Darth Vader helmet! One hilariously weird and simply awesome idea of referencing pop culture’s insignia with this very essential and traditional Japanese ingredient! Read the full story>>> [...]

Posted by: Kevin Mcgue - Tokyo-Based Journalist & Filmmaker » Takao Sakai’s Bean Love on March 3rd, 2009 at 11:10 pm
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a’m very glad to see that!
think, it’s a good idea.
pazitronic 4ever!

AGGRESS AutoPost

Posted by: bloody_axe on October 5th, 2009 at 1:14 am
[...] seiner Gallerie gibt es noch mehr Bilder. Im PingMag gibt es auch ein interessantes (englisches) Interview mit ihm, auch mit anderen [...]

Posted by: fritze’s Kunst-Bart « tokyo foto sushi on November 12th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
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Posted by: daster68er on January 21st, 2010 at 5:15 am
hi good site

Posted by: geeras on February 3rd, 2010 at 11:45 am

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