slow ending by Yosuke Yamaguchi

Triumphant Wednesday greetings, collector friends! Today's edition—slow ending, by Tokyo-based painter Yosuke Yamaguchi—is one I've been looking forward to releasing for quite a while, and it's such a joy to be able to do it. How its release evolved is a testament to what makes me love my job so very much, and also, in a weird way, why I love the internet as much as I do. (Which is to say: A WHOLE LOT.) 20x200 is all about connecting collectors like you to amazing artists like Yosuke, but it's also a thriving ecosystem of artists connecting with each other, and all the wonderful things that hatch from such intersections. I daresay that none of it would be possible without this here interwebs, and for that (among other things!) it gets my undying gratitude.

I discovered Yosuke's slow ending on the internet back in February and was captivated by it (and his other work as well). My pursuit of doing an edition of it was fueled, as things so often are with me, by the challenge of Getting It Done. Unlike many people, Yosuke was something of an enigmatic person when it came to internet presence,* and the mystery of who/what/where was further heightened by the bulk of that presence being written in Japanese. (This charming interview with the photographer Patrick Tsai sheds more light on Yosuke himself and his lovely work.) Anyhow, flush with fervor to conquer this challenge, I set about finding this mystery artist. I knew immediately that I wanted to do an edition with this particular image, and was also hoping to buy the original painting itself. (SOLD, unsurprisingly and alas, by the time we connected.)

Here's where that interconnected artist ecosystem comes into play, with Hot Shot, 20x200 edition-maker and now JBG-represented photographer Chikara Umihara playing a pivotal role in Getting It Done. I reached out to Chikara (via The Facebook, natch) asking him to serve as both emissary and translator in my quest to connect with my new favorite Japanese painter. He went above and beyond a mere email introduction, meeting up with Yosuke in person in Tokyo to talk about 20x200, the gallery and his experiences working with our whole team.

Thankfully, things proceeded swimmingly from there on out, with emails and files and certs making their way across ether and ocean at a most pleasing clip. Part of what's so heartening about this whole experience is how the tragic circumstances of the tsunami and its aftermath (the Proverbial Elephant in the Room, if you will!) did little to deter our progress. Patrick, our aforementioned photographer and interviewer explains why in a way better than I can possibly explain myself, so I'll let a quote from him close out today's missive:

A couple weeks before the quake, my friend and I... had started a blog called Talking Barnacles to introduce Japanese artists abroad, but then one day Japan got torn into pieces. Immediately afterwards I noticed a lot of little things amongst the big things that everyone was talking about; and I thought that those little things should be mentioned as well before they were forgotten, so my friend let me take over this site, and now it is what it is… an ongoing diary about disaster, family, friendships, love, pain, loneliness and everything else that goes along with living.

*It's worth noting that his online presence has evolved considerably since then—his work has gotten on the radar of several notable blogs.