Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Ithaka Darin Pappas "UMBILICUS" (the Tokyo belly-button project 1992)




"UMBILICUS" (the Tokyo  belly-button project)
by artist, Ithaka Darin Pappas 
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"UMBILICUS" by Ithaka Darin Pappas (Japanese belly-button project - 1992) @photographer_ithaka.d.pappas *To schedule this exhibit at a museum or gallery - or for merchandising inquiries, please contact ithaka.official@gmail.com
Although originally conceived in 1988, it wasn’t until the summer of 1992, while briefly living in Japan, that Ithaka Darin Pappas began and completed his photographic project UMBILICUS, a collection of one-hundred and twenty-seven black and white navel portraits. During a period of two months, Ithaka combed the streets of Tokyo is search of willing belly-button subjects.
However, photographing in the light of day, sometimes in the middle of public squares and parks filled with thousands of people, did not prove to be an easy task. Japanese people were quite shy when asked to show their navels in public to a stranger, further complicated by the fact that the photographer was a Gaijin (foreigner).
For this reason some sessions were held in the subjects’ homes or offices after first meeting them in public. Regardless, because of the high rejection rate (10-20 refusals for every one acceptance), sometimes it would take an entire day just to complete the belly-button portrait of only one or two subjects. In addition to the Japanese majority of navels photographed, a percentage of outsiders were also included. These individuals were from Brazil, China, Denmark, England, Germany, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United States. Subject ages ranged from three to ninety-six. In addition to the Japanese majority of navels, a percentage of outsiders were also included. People from Brasil, China, Denmark, England, Germany, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and the United States. Says Ithaka, “I didn’t photograph tourists for the project, but only actual residents of Tokyo.The foreigners who participated, mostly in their 20s-40s, were all living full-time in Tokyo and held a diverse spectrum of jobs from dishwasher to scientist. Among the Japanese subjects - I photographed the navels of children as young as three (as well as those of their parents) and elderly people too, one in his late 90's. The end result of UMBILICUS wasn’t only a study of human anatomy, but in actuality, concluded in becoming an anthropological observation of Tokyo’s population in 1992."
UMBILICUS was published for the first time in January 1993 in the Japanese edition of the world-renowned fine art photography quarterly called Déja-Vu (Issue #11), the same issue that photographic legends Inose Kou, Frederick Sommer and Nobuyoshi Araki appeared. Other international magazine appearances of UMBILICUS soon followed. In 1995, the rock group Flood (signed to the Portuguese label, União Lisboa) chose images from UMBILICUS to appear on the front and back cover of their debut album, Despertar.








In 1996, the San Francisco culture magazine Speak featured Ithaka’s UMBILICUS as their cover-story. The cover itself (designed by world-famous graphic artist Martin Venesky) was considered controversial, causing the magazine to be returned by many of their distributors. It was the worst-selling issue in the magazine’s history.


Also in 1996, UMBLILICUS was exhibited at Lisbon’s Instituto Português do Juventude, with selected images printed as large as two-meters wide and toned with Ithaka’s trademark deep blues. Later in 1998, UMBILICUS was shown at Galeria Zé dos Bois (ZDB) in Lisbon, as part of Ithaka's larger photographic exhibit entitled, Quality Time. #bellybuttons #photography #ithakadarinpappas ________________________________________________________________ Ithaka is represented by WOA-Way Of Arts (Portugal) and Coffin Alley Gallery (US)
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Photo: Ithaka Darin Pappas © 2018

Note: These images are not Public Domain, it is Necessary to acquire authorization
thru my myself ithaka.official@gmail.com or my representatives at the Tack Artist Agency Group in Los Angeles before reproducing in print, online or merchandising ... thank you.

Monday, June 15, 2020

Artist-musician-photographer Ithaka Darin Pappas by photographer Dede Fedrizzi (São Paulo Brazil 2013)

 Artist-musician-photographer Ithaka Darin Pappas by photographer Dede Fedrizzi (São Paulo Brazil 2013)



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Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Ithaka Darin Pappas "Aliens Of Akahtilândia" (insect photographs



Aliens of Akahtilândia
by Ithaka Darin Pappas (insect photographs & art/ book-exhibit)
*To book this exhibit or for merchandising inquiries please contact ithaka.official@gmail.com Aliens of AkahtiLândia I'd been living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for five years and was feeling it was time to move on, when after researching a tip from an anonymous stranger in October 2010, I investigated (and soon afterward purchased) a small brick house on an acre of jungle property just outside of the Serra do Mar Atlantic Forest Reserve on the southern coast of the State of São Paulo – about 400 miles south of Rio. Needless to say, it was a move that somewhat metamorphosized my mostly urban-suburban upbringing and adulthood. The immediate neighborhood of about 2000 acres, an area I call AkahtiLândia, is extremely rural. There is a native Guarani village just down the road, where many of the local residents literally live in mud and stick huts. There are several rivers and small mountains, exotic birds and wild animals. For the past four and a half years, I've been occupied with a mutated version of the life I've known since my early twenties: making art and music…and surfing, but this time in a neo-tropical forest environment. One of the things that has really impressed me most about the jungle is the insect life. Visually, there's no end to the variety. The colors and geometric forms are absolutely mind-blowing. To me, insects are living, cutting-edge, contemporary art forms. I spend several hours a week just observing and photographing them. And attempting to ID them… but sometimes that's impossible. Many of them have yet to be officially recognized by the scientific community. It's also probable that in creatures having such short reproductive cycles (some procreating more than thirty generations of offspring in a single year) that subtle adaptations are constantly resulting in new variations of existing species. I've noted some bugs with extremely sophisticated behavioral traits. A few, believe it or not, seem to demonstrate what appear to be real emotions. This relatively recent obsession of mine has fueled an entirely new body of work entitled, Aliens of AkahtiLândia - integrating all three of my visual mediums; sculpture, photographs and mixed-media paintings. The sculpture pieces, although based on actual insects I have seen or photographed, are modified and manipulated versions of the real thing, while the flat mixed-media pieces are normally truer to the actual insects that inspired them. I call them Aliens not only because of their seemingly unearthly eccentric multi-colored appearances and high IQs, but also because of their extremely complex, functional and almost indestructible body designs. Most people who believe in extraterrestrial life think that beings from other solar systems will appear somewhat humanoid and be more or less our size. I disagree. I find it more likely that they would be something much smaller and more insect-like. Imagine if some of these creatures already present on this planet originated from other parts of the universe. How would we even know it? One earth insect, the Tardigrade - aka the Water Bear, has already been proven to be capable of surviving the vacuum of space. And if one or more of the insect species already here was actually more intelligent than us, how could we even measure or determine that? (maybe they simply choose not to communicate with us). More importantly, would we admit something so much smaller in stature to mankind is in fact superior to us in many ways? Ithaka Darin Pappas (2015) ===========================
#Ithakadarinpappas #contemporaryart #wildlifephotography #aliens

Artists I Like: , Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, Jasper John, Takashi Murakami, Romero Britto, David Hockney, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, AI Weiwei, Junko Koshino, Yoko Ono, Louise Bourgeois, Peter Blake, Shepard Fairy, Richard Prince, Kadinsky, Monet, Helen Frankenthaler, Kirin Kiki, Slavador Dali, Picasso, Duchamp, Kruger, Banksy, Odeith, Vhils, Basquiat, Futura 2000, Os Gemoes, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Camille Henrot, Tomie Ohtake, Stephen Antonakos, Chryssa, Alekos Fassianos, Chryssa Romanos, Lucas Samaras, Jannis Kounellis, Takis, Mike Kelly, Chaz Guest, Retna, Edward Ruscha, Damien Hirst, Jorge Marin, Gabriel Orozco, Dr. Lakra, Daniela Rossell, Damián Ortega, Carlos Amorales, Minerva Cuevas, Julieta Aranda, Yoshua Okon, Gabriel Kuri, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Friday, April 10, 2020

The Reincarnation of a Surfboard - sculptures by artist Ithaka Darin Pappas





Artwork by Californian artist: Ithaka



Links:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/468212-ITHAKA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIZXy50yj_t9UuHqeOQhpGQ
http://planetithaka.blogspot.com/
https://genius.com/artists/Ithaka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaka_Darin_Pappas
http://ithakaofficial.com/
https://www.facebook.com/IthakaBlue/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/ithaka/69363540
https://store.cdbaby.com/artist/Ithaka2
https://www.instagram.com/_ithaka_/?hl=en
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5225987/
https://thehundreds.com/blogs/content/ithaka-interview
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaka
http://upmagazine-tap.com/en/pt_artigos/ithaka-2/
L