Pure Puri

 In Tokyo, there are shops where hundreds of trading-card photographs of j-pop “idols” are displayed hung in plastic sleeves. These shops are filled with teen girls searching for images of their favorite group or singular star. The cards are coveted; collected in special scrap books.  

There are huge amusement arcades with computer games and with "Puri-Kura,” computer photo booths, that for 300 yen (@ $3.00), offer sheets of photographs that can be digitally decorated with fancy frames and borders. As you stand in front of a video monitor which shows your face, loud teeny-bob music blares and lights flash while a high pitched female voice calls out. Your portrait can be embellished with a variety of effects: glitter text, cascading hearts, playful kittens, and rainbow colorful backgrounds. Then, in about a minute, the machine prints out a sheet. The small photos are used for personal introductions, posted as surprise impromptu visages on power poles, and eagerly traded.

Marc De Ansar was enthralled by the Puri-Kura and spent many happy hours adding to his repertoire of postures and pronouncements. He liked the idea of the “idol” and thought that he should display himself as such. 

Nine Years, Nine Lives

  

Elements 1 a CalArts alumni exhibition at the Presidio in San Francisco, in an alcove I mounted Nine Years, Nine Lives a pop-up featuring artifacts from Making Marc 1996-2021 an in-process longitudinal portrait study. I presented four painting variations from photo booth pics, a portrait collage composed of beach plastic, my first watercolor portrait, a grouping of Marc postcards, a vitrine with Marc’s boxing jacket and gloves with screen saves from his video Punch Out where, in a gesture to fight the hyperventilated prose of artspeak, he punches out all obtuse villainous phrases: https://youtu.be/Ia07b8TG6TI

To invite visitor participation, a red bench was set with nose and glasses so people could try on the guise. Although the exhibit was small, it was a great way to introduce my project that I had, by then, been working on for 9 years.