Takahiko Iimura – Seeing Through the Body

"While I was staying in New York in the 1960s during the rise of the hippie movement, I filmed performances of body painting by the artist, Kusama Yayoi, together with the performers. As I wasn't satisfied with merely documenting her performance, made super-impositions of flowers over the performance, more as a film poem than a documentary, since flowers was the symbol of the hippie movement as given the name "flower children." The performance, however, is not always in the foreground, but is woven like fabric among the superimposed flowers. Furthermore another female figure (Akiko Iimura) is inserted with her kimono contrasting to the scenes of Kusama's. The film ends symbolically in long shots a flower patterned dress with no body is suspended over the Empire State Building behind. Nearly 40 years later Tomomi Adachi composed a music for the film." (T.I)

Contents

Flowers (1968-69) 11 mins, Colour. Music by Tomomi Adachi (2007) With Yayoi Kusama (Body Painting) with performers Akiko iimura

Face (1968-69) 19 mins, Colour. With Mario Montez, Donna Kerness, Linda / Voice over by Akiko iimura