SOHO MEETS SHOJO

So Feivel decided to hook me up with a young Japanese American artist named Janie Wu for a group exhibition. The gimmick was simple, “the bad boy from Soho meets the little girl who loves Shōjo.” The last one is a general term they use in Japan to label art dedicated to teenage girls. I haven´t seen her yet but she said she loved my work.

In the past it used to be very odd to find talented people from the Orient. I recall one time when I was in college that I went down to a local museum to check out what the Chinese and Japanese artists were up to in this era. And it turns out that they had lots of interesting tricks to show. There was an installation with many diaries containing the same word (don´t ask me which one it was, it was written in kanji) the objective was that the concept of repetition guaranteed eternity. I guess some of that rubbed off with me and the rabbit. Nowadays the Japanese invasion in modern art has become more evident; their execution scares me sometimes. Janie´s style was sweeter and more sophisticated for massive consumption, kind of like those Hello Kitty images from a long time ago but with a futuristic twist.

Coincidentally Janie did some pieces with rabbits however these were tremendously abstract and disgustingly cute. She managed to minimize her subjects to fancy, voluptuous shapes and enhanced them with pastel tones accented with fine gold leaf. And she was only 21 and her work was indeed trendy. In her hometown a team of street artists helped promote her inviting vignettes on a bigger scale. That´s the beauty of it; she wasn´t just limited to galleries and in a way it´s true, art should be seen everywhere but at some point you have to realize it´s going to become a piece of merchandise.

For this show I was already prepared, that´s why I couldn´t go with Edith, also it was overdue. It was supposed to take place two weeks ago. But apparently my name had more weight in America than Janie´s.

I opened a series of files Fievel sent me about two days ago. I thought of this gallery as a lair for my wicked art. As I kept looking through the slides I noticed these images of a guy who gladly offered to dress in a sort of vintage bunny outfit on my opening night. This situation was getting sort of eccentric, but I was used to it.

I was far too busy to even think about what happened last night. Another friend of mine came along, James. I care about his friendship because he takes me bar hopping in New York, and after these incredibly painful weeks where I almost heard the voice of God talking to me I really needed some distraction. Screw the rain; it never stopped me.

“Hey, Bunny Man? You shouldn´t be all alone tonight, if you know what I mean,” said James. He was shorter than me, ironically he looked like one of those old school Goths who still worshipped bands like Bauhaus, Joy Division and The Sisters of Mercy. We used to frequent this place called The Hideout and swim into an ocean of depression for about three hours until we realized it was time to go back to art school. I did meet some interesting women over there. But they had this crazy idea, like most naïve girls that they could pose for a nude painting and I went like, “you´re gonna have to earn your place in that canvas.” I wasn´t very recognized back then and I´m talking about seven years ago.

“I heard you tried to commit suicide, izz that true?” asked James so cynically.

“Sure, but then again I was too fucking drunk that night, who the Hell told you that?” I said as I threw on a black sweater.

“Bad news runs around quicker than jizz, man…Anyways, so good you´re not dead.”

James looked at me in a very odd way, “Are you sure you´re OK? Sure, you look like you could use a tan but there´s still something different and can´t put my freaking finger on it.”

“Well…” I said in a very fake tone, “you could say that I was born again…”

My short friend was on fire laughing, “Fuck that shit man, c´mon let´s get out of here…”

It was gonna take a miracle for someone like James to understand my supernatural experiences; this meant that I was about to develop a second life and I´d already thought of the best place to hide it; deep within the canvas, the doomed canvas that is.

I took one last look in the mirror; I was wearing a leather jacket and black beanie that had the words “mauvais garçon” embroidered on it, “vous passez un bon soir, mauvais garçon. Have a good night, bad boy…”