MQ was in town recently for his A.D.I.D.A.S exhibition at The Last Gallery. Like anywhere good in Japan, their website doesn’t give away a lot of clues – but they are quite involved in the scene and often do legit street level shows. As per MQ himself!
The gallery is built into an old style Japanese house. Super slim, and an awkward place to document. However, this lends itself to street based shows as often you’re jammed right up against a piece, or having to stick your head around a corner to see something properly.
246 CITY
A bus shelter was purpose built into the space, complete with authentic scratchies and a nod to deceased writer, TIE 1.
The content itself was appropriate and how a graffiti writer of MQ’s status should interact with a gallery – rugged and uncompromising. Sounds wack to say it like that, but that’s how I feel, having run a gallery for quite a few years myself. A large part of the show is a portfolio sampled from US cities, and raw sticker style pieces.
Ending with a reworked still from Lost In Translation – a respectful memorandum to Fumihiro “Charlie Brown” Hayashi, who established The Last Gallery and Dune magazine (among other things) but sadly passed away in 2011.
FACTS:
MQ - http://mqism.com
THE LAST GALLERY – http://www.the-lastgallery.com
CHARLIE BROWN - http://www.papermag.com/arts_and_style/2011/07
DUNE MAGAZINE – http://buenobooks.shop.multilingualcart.com
