Pirates, I’m having an impromptu fundraiser to help Japan’s animals! If my Facebook Page post reaches 200 Likes, I’ll donate $200 to Animal Rescue Kansai (I’ll take a pic of Basil Farrow making the donation as proof). Let’s lend a paw: please visit my Page and Like the link to make it happen — or just click the button below (until it hits 1200)!

Let’s talk about Tokyo art with my friend Cotton Bale, who you met in the Death Cookbook Cupcake Battle. The only thing more ghastly than her makeup is this drawing of her by Madame le Creep. (If you have fanart of me or friends, please submit them for my blog.)

Cotton Bale often visits art exhibitions in Tokyo. In this guest post, she walks us through the Henry Darger gallery at Laforet Museum.

This week is Golden Week in Japan, so I have a few days off work. Yesterday, I went shopping in Harajuku, and I noticed that there was a Henry Darger exhibition called American Innocence: Welcome to the Realms of the Unreal at the Laforet Museum on the 6th floor of the department store. I hadn’t even known that there was a Laforet museum! I was very excited because Darger is one of my favorite artists, and I missed his exhibition at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in 2007.

Arguably the most famous outsider artist, Darger spent most of his life as a janitor in Chicago, rarely leaving the neighborhood where he lived and worked. He wrote a 15,145 page manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion accompanied by hundreds of drawings and watercolors. The story is a religious war epic, set on a fantasy planet, and the protagonists are seven child princesses called the Vivian Girls, who lead a rebellion against child slavery.

(Images of the paintings above and below courtesy the Folk Art Museum.)

Darger’s paintings are populated with little girls, often naked and sometimes with male genetalia or wings and curved horns. There are frequent representations of little girls being strangled, crucified or disemboweled. However, since Darger was an untrained artist and copied many of his drawings from advertisements, which he collected obsessively, the paintings also have a wholesome, optimistic quality to them that is clearly at odds with their content. Likewise, the watercolor medium and mainly pastel color palette give the work a light, ethereal feeling.

American Innocence features 64 prints from In the Realm of the Unreal as well as 6 other works. Aside from battle scenes, there were pictures of flags and mythological creatures from the imaginary planet. There were also photographs and artifacts from Darger’s apartment and several rooms of exhibition literature, entirely in Japanese.

Visitor info: American Innocence is open daily at Laforet Museum until May 15th from 11am to 8pm, except on the 15th, when it closes at 6pm. Entrance is 800 yen for adults and 600 yen for students. I also recommend the PBS documentary In the Realms of the Unreal for more information about Darger’s life and work.

Tokyo is a terrific place for art. Twice a year, Gothic Lolita designers set up tables at Alamode Market to sell their handmade crafts. When I visited in 2008, I saw lace-up gloves and Rococo bonnets dotted with flowers.

† Spy on more handmade DIY Gothic and Sweet Lolita fashion…

The Tokyomade crafts market is an opportunity for DIY designers with an electro-cute aesthetic to sell their wares.

† Full story of the Shibuya art market…

At Tokyo Design Festa, close to 10,000 artists and indie designers converge for this international art exhibition. Yukiro took part in a Gothic body painting performance, and cybergoth band Psydoll performed.

† More colorful photos from Design Festa…

Who are your favorite artists? Do you enjoy visiting art events with your friends? Sebastiano and I will be roving the Hong Kong Art Fair as press in late May!

Song of the Day: Videograve – Mating Season (they just put out their first album on Living Tapes)