Takashi Hiraide Author’s Talk: The life of a book….somewhere between the Cat and the Walnut.

Takashi Hiraide, celebrated author and book designer, will discuss his literary and artistic practice in relation to his published works and ongoing mail art experiment.  Hiraide contemplates the life of what we consider to be a “book” and its origins in the form of diaries and letters. Hiraide is involved in the complete process of bringing a book to life, including the book-binding, design and in some cases, even the shipping to an individual reader, as exhibited within “Takashi Hiraide —- Airpost Poetry Book Design for One from One.” His modern art influences and book design will be explored in relation to the current exhibition. The interplay of different literary forms and genres is a constant throughout Hiraide’s body of work. This will be discussed by exploring the principles of the Japanese “I novel” (a genre of confessional, fictionalized memoir), Dada and Surrealism found in The Guest Cat, and how poetics, autobiography and playful linguistics merge in For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut.

To register, please contact rsvp@jftor.org including your full name, phone number and total number of guests. You will receive a confirmation email. Thank you!