Last week I was at the Shin-Marunouchi Building to have lunch at Rigoletto with my wife, and checked out Nagi Noda, Shinji Konishi, and Asami Nemoto’s “Animal Behavior” hair hat exhibition (it’s on the Marunouchi House floor). It runs until May 6.

Pictured above, a tote bag being sold featuring Nagi Noda’s Hanpanda.

• The end of May brings the Thai Film Festival (May 31 - July 11) to Tokyo at Cinemart Roppongi. Two of the films will be shown with English subtitles: MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON and TOTAL BANGKOK. Tickets for the screenings are already on sale at the theater, and through PIA.
• Gelman’s “Minimal Tokyo” series returns May 10 (from 23:55) at Liquid Room. This 9th edition, “Collision,” will include live visuals by UK and German artists Max Hattler and Robert Seidel.

It’s been very late in coming, and I apologize for that, but here’s the list of participants from the April edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 20). I’m missing a few names from some new people, so if you don’t see your name there, please let me know. It was probably the biggest PauseTalk to date (not counting the Swedish Style edition we did last year) with around 22-23 participants (not bad for a cafe that has 24 seats). You can see a few photos from the event taken by Rafael de Lima here. Also, please note that because of the Golden Week holiday, the next PauseTalk (Vol. 21) will take place on the second Monday of next month, so May 12.

Andrew Lee (Art Director)
Anna Antoniades (Fashion Designer)
Cameron Eeles (Writer)
Craig Mod (Designer)
Gen Higashikawa (Writer)
James Bowskill (Web Designer)
Jean Snow (Writer)
Joe Keenan (Graphic Designer)
Jose Luis Olivares (Illustrator)
Josh McKible (Illustrator)
Kristina Dryza (Strategic Insight)
Masao Tamaoki (Online Retail)
Max Hodges (Publisher)
Rafael de Lima (Photographer)
Ronnie Kattan (Online Retail)
Samson Adjei (Architect)
Shantell Martin (Illustrator)
Shige (Online Retail)

Digiki posts a 101TOKYO round-up, including links to coverage, and quite a few photos.

Earlier this week I went to the opening for the “Light Construction” exhibition at Center for Cosmic Wonder in Aoyama.

The show brings together Mike Mills, Elein Fleiss, Yoshimio, and Yukinori Maeda, and runs until June 30.

Hanging out inside this installation was quite nice.

I wanted to go and chat with Mike Mills — I quite like his work — but was too shy. I ended up having a good time with Liliyo though, OK Fredders Ay2 and Yoshi’s daughter.

Congrats to the Chin Music Press crew for the crowded book launch of ART SPACE TOKYO this past Tuesday. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, then it’s off to the AST site you go. I predict this will become their best-selling book. Yeah, it’s that good.

• After a successful launch last month — there were 30 participants in attendance — the Tokyo edition of Likemind returns tomorrow (April 18, 11:30), but with a change in venue: the Rhythm Cafe in Shibuya.

• Check out the artshow/toy release/sneak attack of “Tentacles, Horns, and Scales” over at Thrash Out (the flagship store of vinyl pioneers Gargamel) in Koenji this Saturday (April 19). More info on the show and the participants here.
• This Friday (April 18) sees a launch party for the NO MORE HEROES remix soundtrack album, of which Jason DeGroot is a contributor. It happens at the retro game bar 8-bit Cafe in Shinjuku (18:00-23:00).
• Also on Friday, OK FRED presents its “OK FRED GORILLA STORE #1” temporary shop at their HQ, from 19:00 to 22:00. Here’s a link to the map.

Update
It seems that the NO MORE HEROES event is invitation-only.

I’ll post the participant list for PauseTalk Vol. 20 later this week — 22 participants, pretty good considering the entire cafe has 24 seats! For now I’ll point you to a Flickr photoset by Rafael de Lima, who attended last night’s edition.

Just a reminder that following last week’s cancellation, tonight (April 14) marks this month’s edition of PauseTalk at Cafe Pause in Ikebukuro. Start time is 20:00, and for those interested, a few PauseTalkers will again meet in front of the cafe at 19:00 and then get ramen together.

PingMag presents a report of last week’s 101TOKYO contemporary art fair.

• Tokyo-based artist Scott Silvey presents his first solo painting exhibition in Tokyo at the Zuisho-ji Darumadou Gallery in Shirokanedai (3-2-19 Shirokanedai). “Civic Remedies” starts today and runs until April 17. The reception takes place tomorrow night (April 12), 18:00-20:30.
• Taku Anekawa’s “Secret Allegory” starts at the Nanzuka Underground gallery tomorrow, and runs until May 11.
• The Speakerdog exhibition is now on at Cafe Pause, and runs until April 20. If you’re a Japanese illustrator/designer and would like to create a Speakerdog design, you could be part of the planned Japan series!

The Speakerdog exhibition isn’t enough paper toy for ya? Then head over to the SO+BA Hybrid Gallery this weekend for the “Sho Seibert (7) Paper Work Exhibition.” The opening party is tomorrow night (April 11), 20:00-22:30, and runs until April 13.

The Speakerdog paper toy exhibition at Cafe Pause is now on! Even better, it will be running for two weeks, until April 20.

The exhibition includes 60 designs, which make up a collection of favorites from all 5 series of Speakerdog paper toys that have been released so far.

If you love what you’re seeing in these photos, go here and download any template and make one yourself!

Ben and Fiona, the fine folks behind Speakerdog, are actively looking to get submission from Japanese artists, illustrators, and designers in order to release a Japan Series later this year. You can contact them directly for more details.

As part of the exhibition, I also invited Josh McKible to bring in his first series of NaniBird paper toys, and it even includes a collaboration between Josh and Ben (pictured below).

I’ve added a few more photos in the following Flickr photoset, and will add some more over the next week.

Yuki has put up a big blog post on her recent photo exhibition that took place at Cafe Pause. Lots of photos to see, in case you couldn’t make it in person.