‘Dog Named Jimmy’ turned owner’s life around
Rafael Mantesso turned 30 in an empty Brazilian apartment after divorce left every wall, floor, closet and shelf bare. The only things he had left were his cellphone and a pit bull named Jimmy Choo that his neighbors went out of their way to avoid. When he turned 33 on Jan 14, Mantesso still owned that apartment and it’s still vacant. But it’s for sale now. And people can’t get enough of his 6-year-old bull terrier - from the Instagram sketchesplus-photos of Jimmy that went viral, the book “A Dog Named Jimmy” and a collection of Jimmy-inspired bags and purses for the high-end fashion brand Jimmy Choo. (Mantesso’s ex-wife had named the dog for her favorite shoes.)
There are future plans too: a calendar, endorsements and launching the charitable Jimmy Foundation. Meanwhile, Mantesso is working at an advertising agency in Sao Paulo in his native Brazil, and doing the occasional photo shoot. The first night they were alone in the “naked” apartment three years ago, Jimmy did a happy dance through all the rooms. Mantesso picked up his phone and started shooting photos of Jimmy’s contagious dance of joy.
“When I sat in my empty living room, Jimmy was happy, running from one side to the other side, in circles, crazy. The apartment was a playground to him. He was loving that empty place. That energy was amazing. I looked at him and said to myself, ‘Oh my God, I was thinking everything was lost and I had the most important thing in the house - Jimmy,’” Mantesso said in his
IMurakami’s aged men show Japan’s post-disaster spirituality
n the gentrified kitsch landscape Takashi Murakami depicts, 500 grotesque priests parade along dazzlingly colorful giant panels. The artist’s zany ukiyoe-turned-manga world takes a spiritual, but uncompromising pop art, turn in addressing the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster. But the old men in “The 500 Arhats” installation at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo also show reality in the world’s fastest aging society. “This is a self-portrait of Japan,” Murakami told The Associated Press this week. Dubbed the “Andy Warhol of Japan,” Murakami is showing his first major retrospective in Japan in 14 years. After the Fukushima Portuguese accented-English. Jimmy is a white dog but his ginger and red ears contrasted with the white walls, floors and ceilings. At some point, Mantesso picked up a piece of white cardboard, drew a skeleton with a red heart on it, put it in front of Jimmy and took a photo. He liked it, put it on Instagram (@rafaelmantesso) and they were in business.
Crazy dog The ideas came fast. Mantesso would put Jimmy in a pose and the dog would freeze while he took photos. “Everyone ask, ‘How do you make a
disaster, Murakami felt a need to express the sense of desperation and catastrophe, and to try to contribute to healing. The motif of Buddha’s disciples is common in traditional Japanese art. But Murakami’s arhat figures leer back at the world, some with toothless grins, as though stuck in half-crazed greed rather than seeking enlightenment. The giant panels, 100 meters (328 feet) long in total, are covered with raging fire and glitter-speckled cosmic skies. Dragons strike contorted poses, next to elephants and a white tiger. And there are lots and lots of aging men, of various sizes and shapes, with pot bellies, bald heads crazy dog freeze in position you want?’ I think Jimmy knows that I want him in that position and he just stay,” Mantesso said. Mantesso credits a tweet by actor Ashton Kutcher for putting focus on his early Jimmy art. Kutcher retweeted a drawing depicting the spaghetti scene from “Lady and the Tramp,” where the dogs are slurping strands of spaghetti. Views went from 10,000 to 100,000 that night, Mantesso said.
Jimmy also kept Mantesso going at a time when he was feeling down. Because of Jimmy, Mantesso had to take a walk twice a day. Because he had
and wrinkled foreheads.
Edo-period artists “In another era, I’d be a grandpa,” said Murakami, 53. “My art has always been about exaggerating the weird characteristics of Japanese society.” Art historian Nobuo Tsuji, who encouraged Murakami to tackle the arhats theme, says the work pays homage to Edo-period artists like Jakuchu Ito, Shohaku Soga and Kazunobu Kano. But ultimately the images of the old men are nothing other than “unadorned self-portraits of Murakami himself,” Tsuji said. The pony-tailed bespectacled Murakami has exhibited at the Rockefeller Center in New York, the Palace of Versailles in France and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. He uses dozens of assistants to create large-scale artworks - often with repetitive themes, be it laughing flowers, psychedelic skulls or deformed old men. They work in his version of Warhol’s Factory, though he stresses gorgeous celebrities don’t frequent the studio that’s run more like a humble Japanese manufacturing company. His signature icon is the Mickey Mouse-like Mr. DOB. Murakami has also created huge erotic sculptures of animation-inspired female figures that have fetched enormous auction prices. In recent years, he has become a filmmaker.
Sense of perspective Murakami has won both praise and to buy Jimmy food, he bought food for himself. And because of Jimmy, he was motivated to keep taking pictures. He liked what he was doing so much that they worked side by side for 90 uninterrupted days, he said. Eventually “A Dog Named Jimmy” was ready for the publisher, and there is also a Jimmy deck of cards. Some of Mantesso’s images show the dog’s paws or his pink-and-black spotted mouth. Others show him posed with a human hand, while others feature Jimmy with black-and-white sketches of simple objects or scenes - a piano keyboard, antlers, cartoon characters. They’ve come a long way since
criticism for his unabashed commercialism, starting his own brand Kaikai Kiki Co, which sells not just the usual postcards and art books, but also mugs, cushions, cell-phone cases and T-shirts emblazoned with his designs, as well as figures and dolls. In his typically defiance, Murakami recommends exhibit viewers keep their serious spirituality to about 30 percent of their energy, and revel in tourism, splurging and fun for the rest. The official shop that’s part of the exhibit is taking orders for a 486,000 yen ($4,000) tote bag with Murakami’s skull design, complete with a certificate. Murakami designed Louis Vuitton bags about a people demanded that Mantesso muzzle the pit bull. “People still cross the street when they see Jimmy, but now it’s to ask if they can take pictures with him,” he said, adding that Jimmy’s received fan mail from over 100 countries. His planned Jimmy Foundation will fund pet food drives, spay and neuter clinics and adoption campaigns at shelters throughout Brazil. He doesn’t accept every endorsement offer, but he did say yes to Netflix, the Jimmy Choo fashion house and Porsche. “They want my dog to drive a Porsche convertible. I said, ‘Come on, I want to drive it too.’”—AP
decade ago that sold for similarly exorbitant prices, although Murakami acknowledged at the time he had never owned such an expensive bag in his life. At the museum coffee shop, where walls are splashed with Murakami flowers and his balloon figures hang from the ceiling, visitors enjoy a selection of cakes and omelets in flower shapes. At the entrance stands a striking life-size likeness of Murakami, with rolling eyes and moving lips - except the top face is peeling off to reveal yet another face - an eerie reminder that art, like life and truth, can be illusory.—AP