Graffiti Japan

A long while ago, we introduced you to (legal) graffiti in Japan (and in Tokyo) and its leading lights. Now, a new book has come out to show us the skills of the Japanese masters: For two years, Australian Remo Camerota has compiled the best of street art for his Graffiti Japan book, by Mark Batty Publisher. In a café in wonderful Shimokitazawa, he told PingMag his adventurous story.

Written by Verena

So, when did you start gathering the material?

In October 2006, I came to Japan for the first time to start the book…

… and in the preface it says that you were invited by someone. Tell us this story again, please!

I’m a graffiti artist from Melbourne and I’ve also been photographing graffiti for many years and had done a book about LA graffiti. So I approached an Australian publisher about a book about graffiti in Melbourne, but they just had one out. So instead I wanted to do a book on Japan and, at that time, there weren’t any books out there. (RackGaki came out last year.) There were a few Japanese publications but they weren’t widely released.

We guess graffiti isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Japan…

As an artist I didn’t realize that there was so much grafitti here! I ended up taking up to 15,000 photographs a year here. So, I flew out here with the small advance from the publisher. I knew nobody here and I didn’t know the language…

And, how did it work out?

On the Internet, a whole bunch of graffiti artists came up and that’s how I found SUIKO. I contacted him and wrote to him in basic English and said “I’m coming to Japan to do a book. Can you help me? Can I come and photograph your work because I like it? And where are you?” He wrote back almost immediately and said, “I live in Hiroshima and you can come and stay with me. I’ll take you around to all my work and other peoples’ work and I’ll show you around.”

Wow! Without knowing you! You were travelling to Hiroshima?

It wasn’t even on the itinerary or the schedule! So I decided to make Hiroshima the first stop. It took a while to meet him because we hadn’t seen each other and it was very hard to communicate, he was at the back of the train and I was at the front. It took about two hours to connect! SUIKO turned out to be the king of Hiroshima and one of the best artists from there — but I didn’t know that at the time. He took me to his small home with his family, gave me his bed and slept on the floor somewhere. So I met his whole family. They live in this humble, commissioned building and I was quite taken aback by the whole situation…
I felt a great connection because I could see that he truly believed in his art and that’s all he wanted to do, and that’s all he cared about.

Go on, please!

I was with him for a week and he took me all around Hiroshima and he cleared his schedule… And I got to paint some walls and time-lapse a few photos. He took me to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. The owners like graffiti so they paid him and his friend to paint the whole side of the house, which was brilliant.

SUIKO got me started. It was very trusting of him to let me stay with him. Usually, these guys are very suspicious of foreigners wanting to come and represent them and their art. I only spent a week with him and then he said, “Okay, you have to meet my friend EMAR in Tokyo.” He didn’t have enough money to go so I paid for his ticket and we went together. When we got there it was raining like hell and he dropped my computer and it stopped working for a while. And I broke my camera but I got everything fixed within a couple of days and it was up and running again. I went to EMAR’s house and they just started throwing works at me and I was getting excited. And he also showed me his other graphic design works.

In the end, you stayed with him for a month…

Yes, when I went to leave to go back to my hotel in Asakusa they said, “No, you can’t go! You can stay here as long as you like.” I said “But you don’t have any room!” And they replied “It doesn’t matter we’ll sleep on the floor here.” So I agreed and rang up the hotel. That’s how three grown men slept on the floor and there was just enough room for us to lie down beside each other. That was it.

And then they took you all around Tokyo!

Yes, EMAR and SUIKO introduced me to everyone, such as BELX2 from Yokohama. She’s like the godmother of graffiti, as they call her. She took me to the Yokohama Wall of Fame.

Where is it exactly?

It’s at Sakuragicho Station. As soon as you walk out and turn right and right, you see the wall. It goes for two or or kilometres and it’s amazing. There’s nothing like this anywhere else in the world! [The authorities planned to paint everything over by now.]

In the book, BELX2 said that when there’s a fight between crews they do it in a visual way. What happens?

Through translation it gets a bit lost, but the way she explained it to me was: If one crew isn’t getting along with another crew, and it happens between East and West — the East crews don’t necessarily like the West crews, same with the North and South crews. But amongst all the conflicts there’s respect. I’ve seen people from the South having respect for Tokyo and Tokyo writers respect Kanagawa writers.
However, they compete with each other. One guy will write something that refers to one of the members in a facetious way. So they would go and write something next to it referring back. It’s almost like a comic book scenario… And it would go on until one of them wins or when someone gets caught by the police. Basically they have paint wars and a very complex system of fighting: They’ll try to outdo each other with each painting.

Isn’t this more or less happening in cities around the world?

I think the competition is everywhere and everyone is trying to outsmart the next crew. If someone’s learnt something new, then the next one wants to do something newer. I don’t even know if they meet face to face and have these arguments. But they have a total amount of respect for each other in that they won’t tag on someone else’s work. But if someone does that, that’s it — they’re an enemy. And, if they find out who that tagger is, he could get in trouble…

Sounds scary…

A writer whose name I can’t reveal told me a story: He was at a party in Tokyo and he tagged a car not knowing that it belonged to a scary leader of one of the most impressive painting crews in Tokyo. He had tagged a lot of stuff including this car. So he went back to his hometown and didn’t come back for a year! When he finally visited Tokyo again, I saw him carrying this huge case of spray cans. It was heavy, it didn’t even have wheels and he was lugging it around. He might’ve had 30 cans of spray paint in there. For the whole year, he didn’t go back to Tokyo because he was afraid of the confrontation and getting his head kicked!

Finally, he decided to visit the actual crew member and give him a gift of cans to try and apologise for this scenario — because he wanted to come back to the city again and he couldn’t figure out any other way of doing it. He put his life on the line with this. He went to see this guy and when he came back after one or two hours, he eventually told me: He walked in with the cans, sat down and was very scared. So this other guy sat opposite of him and said, “So, you’re using this sprayer name?” And he answered, “Yes.” And the guy said to him, “I’m a big fan of yours! Your work is fantastic. Why don’t we collaborate?” He accepted his present and now they are actually friends!

No way! What would be the main differences in western styles and Japanese styles for you?

When I first came here to do the book two years ago, in Australia it was all about stencils and none of these graph styles at all. So I thought this would be the trend in Japan too. But when I arrived, the first things I saw in Hiroshima were so much more intricate and dynamic. There is definitely the manga influence, as you can see in the works of Shizentomotel from Kanagawa, and the mix of different alphabets and kanji.

Reminds us of the Air Gear manga and its depiction of noises in katakana…

You won’t find this amount of detail in L.A. works. Also the writing is so detailed. When I came back to Australia, it was all about graphs! But their styles are nowhere near as intricate or as accomplished as the works I saw in Japan. It’s so interesting that the most beautiful walls are somewhere in the countryside, maybe on the back of an abandoned farmhouse…

… and hard to find! Do the sprayer kids mostly work as graphic designers? Where else can their stuff be seen?

Some of these artists are brilliant, but basically all of them have normal day jobs as truck drivers or labourers. They are people in their mid twenties; they could advance themselves just by getting their stuff out there and could have a great future if they play the cards right. However, I sense this heavy apathy in this country and people seemed to be settled with their lot. Most of the artists couldn’t believe that I wanted to photograph their works and put it in a book for the world to see. In the West, everybody seems to always try to excel what they do. But in Japan, these guys don’t even care about the money — all they are interested in is their art. An asset more people in the West should inherit, I think. When I met EMAR, he worked as monkey in a printing factory and I explained to him that his works are amazing and that he should be freelancing as graphic artist. I helped him set up and now he has lots of work!

The Graffiti Japan book cover, by Mark Batty Publisher.

That’s so good to hear! Finally, what’s coming after Graffiti Japan?

I was in the middle of writing a feature film called “Scar,” a psychological horror, when I met Shohei Otomo, the son of Katsuhiro Otomo. I had the idea to work with him and all these great talents in Japan, such as EMAR and character designer Rafal Gosieniecki, to do a manga book in black-and-white and colour about it. Hopefully, it should be on sale by next year through Raven Books.

Looking forward to that! Thanks, Remo for your great Japanese graffiti compilation!
Want to know more? Try KAZE magazine, also on MySpace; Ill blend about Tokyo’s sites or the Street Art Japan Flickr group!

Graffiti Japan Book Launch Parties:
At Juxtapoz magazine issue release party,
Saturday, November 8th, 2008. At Club 6, San Francisco, USA.

Graffiti Japan exhibition
At No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.
Scheduled for December, 2008.

25 Comments

1. [...] Graffiti Japan Ping Mag wrote “A long while ago, we introduced you to (legal) graffiti in Japan (and in Tokyo) and its leading lights. Now, a new book has come out to show us the skills of the Japanese masters: For two years, Australian Remo Camerota…” [...]

   Posted by: DesignNotes by Michael Surtees » Blog Archive » Link Drop for the Week Ending in Friday the 24th (October 2008) on October 24th, 2008 at 8:13 pm

2. [...] Vía | pingMag [...]

   Posted by: Graffiti made in Japón | QuintoH es·Tu·Dio2 on October 24th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

3. whouha!!!

   Posted by: seve on October 24th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

4. wow, awesome collection of graffitis. really exellent pictures, i put a few graffitis of my country but, the japanese are realle awesome. really good artist have there.

   Posted by: x_xabier on October 24th, 2008 at 10:55 pm

5. The samurai one is just… wow

   Posted by: Badger on October 25th, 2008 at 12:43 am

6. I went past the tagged over maiko all the time. There was a bunch of other great murals in that area as well!

   Posted by: Saint on October 25th, 2008 at 2:45 am

7. awesome!!

   Posted by: Flavio on October 25th, 2008 at 4:20 am

8. Thank you - it came out great

   Posted by: remo camerota on October 25th, 2008 at 4:49 am

9. props on the article.

   Posted by: ra on October 25th, 2008 at 6:40 am

10. Awsome Pieces

    Posted by: Tanha on October 25th, 2008 at 6:23 pm

11. [...] Graffiti Japan (tags: graffiti Japan) No tag for this post. [...]

    Posted by: links for 2008-10-25 | Nerdcore on October 26th, 2008 at 2:30 am

12. [...] Check out Ping Mag for the interview [...]

    Posted by: Graffiti in Japan on October 26th, 2008 at 4:50 am

13. [...]   [...]

    Posted by: momodomo » WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME BACK on October 26th, 2008 at 10:12 am

14. Shitz graffiti so much better in Japan than here in NYC. ashame

    Posted by: djmojo on October 26th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

15. [...] Graffiti Japan (tags: graffiti Japan) « links for 2008-10-25 Electroshock-Face-Dance » [...]

    Posted by: links for 2008-10-25 | Ubernerd on October 26th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

16. [...] Graffiti Japan (tags: graffiti Japan) « links for 2008-10-25 links for 2008-10-25 » [...]

    Posted by: links for 2008-10-25 | Ubernerd on October 26th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

17. wheres ekys at?!

    Posted by: roku on October 26th, 2008 at 9:37 pm

18. I love white!

    Posted by: njlsmelle on October 27th, 2008 at 4:21 am

19. [...] Crazy graffiti out of Japan. [...]

    Posted by: Picdit » Blog Archive » Vinyl Toy of a Man - Mixed Bag of Pictures on October 27th, 2008 at 11:48 pm

20. Realy Nice work ;:: I like the graffiti, because we can found, many concepts and forms to used,
    and the result always is a good work.

    Posted by: Twone on October 30th, 2008 at 1:09 am

21. Really nice article, I love how welcoming the Japanese are and there style is so detailed. Great interview Ping.

    Posted by: Uriah on October 30th, 2008 at 3:26 am

22. I like the graffiti

    Posted by: iriart on November 4th, 2008 at 3:18 am

23. [...] durante meses para hacer un libro recopilatorio con los mejores murales que ha encontrado. En pingmag le hacen una extensa entrevista donde cuenta curiosidades y anécdotas de su [...]

    Posted by: Barcelona’s Chiringuito » Archivo del weblog » Grafitti made in Japan on November 18th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

24. [...] talento ang pinoy sa paggawa ng graffiti na maihahalintulad na din sa talento ng mga kabataan sa ibang ibayo o sa iba pang karatig-bansa gaya ng Amerika at [...]

    Posted by: Pinoy Graffiti - ALLANZA Family on November 26th, 2008 at 7:02 am

25. Good job! Nice..

    Posted by: hairstyles on October 11th, 2009 at 7:31 am

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