General Yuzuru Chat

[Fay]

I have to say this isn’t the worst art I’ve seen. So I’m sorta ok with it.  

[dotsquare]

8 minutes ago, Fay said:

I have to say this isn’t the worst art I’ve seen. So I’m sorta ok with it.  

 

True, it could be way worse, like have you guys seen post modernism? Such a hot mess. It's not that bad but it doesn't capture Yuzu properly. The strokes are too harsh imo and the proportions are also off. 

[liv]

I would add that while Japan may not seem as powerful as the others... don't underestimate the influence of Mr. Orser... some clout there, I think.... 

 

I imagine yuzu will do everything he can to return to FaOI, asap. He loves the shows and performing at home... so I see him missing some of the tour but not all of it. 

[Fresca]

7 hours ago, monchan said:

The art upclose: 

I suppose all her paintings are in same style like this=)) 

 

Wow...on Art Basel's twitter feed and hanging in Gladstone NYC. That's a big deal. Art Basel is extremely prestigious and runs the world's top annual art fairs in Basel, Miami and HK. They attract the wealthiest, most influential art collectors and curators. Galleries therefore make it a point to save their best works for Art Basel and Gladstone Gallery is a power player in the contemporary art market. I wonder if that means "Yuzuru" might be making an appearance at Art Basel later this year...

 

More than her work depicting Yuzu (not some of her best in my opinion but I don't think you can make an honest judgement of art until you see it in person), I'm much more interested in why she chose him as a subject instead of the hundreds of other famous celebrities or atheletes she could have chosen. She says here that the kind of people that attract her attention as subjects are "artists and musicians—people who touch me, people who help me feel my feelings, that describe my feelings in a way" and she says across her body of work that "all of the paintings are about individuals—very extreme individuals with a vision for making something." I hope there's eventually an interview or article where she explains more about why she was inspired by Yuzu and what her paintings of him are trying to convey.

[Danibellerika]

19 minutes ago, liv said:

I would add that while Japan may not seem as powerful as the others... don't underestimate the influence of Mr. Orser... some clout there, I think.... 

 

I imagine yuzu will do everything he can to return to FaOI, asap. He loves the shows and performing at home... so I see him missing some of the tour but not all of it. 

I wonder if he would have possibly made the difference for Yuna in Sochi...and on the flip side, I wonder if Yuzu didn't have Orser in Sochi if that would have made a difference too, clout-wise...

 

 

 

[Moria Polonius]

53 minutes ago, Danibellerika said:

I wonder if he would have possibly made the difference for Yuna in Sochi...and on the flip side, I wonder if Yuzu didn't have Orser in Sochi if that would have made a difference too, clout-wise...

 

 

 

 

Yuna was already an Olympic Champion, I don't think the Orser clout would have made any difference. (What might have made difference, though, is that she might have had a higher tech content under Orser.)

 

With Yuzu, the what if is completely pointless to debate because without Orser and TCC Yuzu would have been a different skater. Orser might have provided some clout, but he and TCC also provided the skating skills and programs that helped Yuzu win.

[micaelis]

Some thoughts on a number of issues that have been discussed on this thread recently.  First, the painting.  I am by no means an expert but I do have an undergraduate minor in art history so I know something about it.  I would say that as a work of abstract figure art it is passable but it definitely is not Yuzu.  The only way you can see it's Yuzu is by the costume depicted.  Otherwise it could be anybody since it cuts off the legs above the feet so there's no way of knowing it's even a skater.  If an artist is doing a partial abstraction which is meant to depict somebody definite it's wise to have enough elements in the painting to enable that identification.  I'm thinking of that comic-book-style illustration a couple pages back which depicted a large number of skaters in a sort of selfie, Yuzu hauled up at the rear.  It's not great art but it does accomplish what it intends, namely, to get enough detail to allow the identification of those depicted.  It does it masterfully and on a scale of ten I'd give it a ten, since it accomplishes everything it seems to have set out to do.  I'd not even bother to rate the painting since it patently does not achieve what it intends.  That's my take on the situation.

 

Now, ice shows!  It's no secret that Yuzu loves ice shows, as also galas.  I think he does so because there are not many opportunities where he can be on the ice interacting with other skaters.  His is a world of solo skating.  He seems to particularly loosen up in the relatively unscripted finales and it's quite apparent how he loves these situations.  Any ice show on the planet will take him without hesitation should he make his availability known.  I remember a comment I read some time ago where a skating show organizer observed that Yuzu on the playbill is a guaranteed sellout.  There is, however, another aspect of the ice shows that has me thinking, and that's related to the show he is currently organizing for a number of skaters where he will be conspicuous by his absence as one of the skaters.  I'm seriously wondering if he is using this as a vehicle to display his ability to put together a show with a view to actually putting together a traveling show after his retirement.  With his status as the GOAT (there's no way to make such a position official but he is, even now, the de facto GOAT) he would have no difficulty in achieving the financial backing to launch such an enterprise and because of the worldwide nature of his reputation, it would be a show that could be taken on the road internationally.  I know that he is supposedly planning to coach after retirement but this would be a means to continue skating for the public immediately after his retirement until he decides to abandon even exhibition skating.

 

A third topic - the underscoring of Yuzu's performances by various judges as also the new rules going into effect.  I think the shorter program and one less jumping pass will work to Yuzu's advantage.  One less half-minute means that the non-jumping elements have to be jammed into a shorter span of time, but that's a challenge Yuzu can easily handle, considering how densely choreographed his programs usually are.  For lesser skaters there is still the time needed to set themselves up for a jump, but Yuzu is quite capable of finishing up, for instance, a step sequence by going immediately at its conclusion into a jump.  I challenge any other skater to do that.  The other skaters are handicapped by their evident inability to compress the time they need to enter a jump.  As for the new judging rules, the plus-5 potential GOEs are tailor-made for Yuzu (if the judge's judge by the rulebook rather than personal predilection).  Particularly in the first season of the new rules the judges themselves will be in the spotlight as others watch them to see how well they adapt to the new system.  I think next season might find much less discrimination against Yuzu since the judges will know they are being judged also.

 

A final thought - Yuzu's programs for next season.  Ideally there should be a pair of brand new programs, programs that are definitely different in style from the two he's used this season.  Practicality might dictate otherwise since his rehabilitation might cause problems as far as putting together two totally new programs.  So he might have to think of resurrecting one or both from the past.  One would be the much better option.  My first choice would be to resurrect Parisienne Walkways.  That was one of Yuzu's most successful programs.  He set four short program scoring records with it and also won his first GPF, his first Olympics, and first World Championship with it.  It also can be resurrected with minimal tinkering, basically upgrading the elements, particularly the jumps, but leaving the sequence of elements intact.  As for the long program, if he should choose that, I'd go with RJ1 or POTO.  Both of those choices will do since they are basically over-the-top dramatically, much different from Seimei and HL, both of which were strongly lyrical and restrained in mood, at least in contrast to those two earlier programs.  I think Yuzu needs something like that in the coming season, as a way of resetting himself as he prepares himself for a potential threepeat in 2022.

 

So that's it.  I've basically emptied my platter as far as things I want to say.  I'm sure there will be those who disagree but I won't mind that.  I love to see highly-reasoned well-presented responses to my little essays.  So read and refute.  I'm all eyes.

[wingman]

Spoiler

 

That booth at ShumatsuSendai has a hilarious caption:

Each customer please take only one copy of Shumatsu Sendai.

Yuzu's face on a magazine = guaranteed sell-out

Yuzu's face on a free magazine = guaranteed mob.

[SparkleSalad]

4 hours ago, tafattsbarn said:

 

I'll never understand art 

 

Understand capitalism, investment, and marketing and you'll be half-way there.

[Yolo3a]

Can we not talk about the art lady anymore? It's her vision and her canvas? May be that's how she sees Yuzu. Let her have it. 

As huge a fan of Yuzu that she seems to be, I fear she could be a regular lurkur or Anon here.

[Anony]

4 hours ago, Fresca said:

 

Wow...on Art Basel's twitter feed and hanging in Gladstone NYC. That's a big deal. Art Basel is extremely prestigious and runs the world's top annual art fairs in Basel, Miami and HK. They attract the wealthiest, most influential art collectors and curators. Galleries therefore make it a point to save their best works for Art Basel and Gladstone Gallery is a power player in the contemporary art market. I wonder if that means "Yuzuru" might be making an appearance at Art Basel later this year...

 

More than her work depicting Yuzu (not some of her best in my opinion but I don't think you can make an honest judgement of art until you see it in person), I'm much more interested in why she chose him as a subject instead of the hundreds of other famous celebrities or atheletes she could have chosen. She says here that the kind of people that attract her attention as subjects are "artists and musicians—people who touch me, people who help me feel my feelings, that describe my feelings in a way" and she says across her body of work that "all of the paintings are about individuals—very extreme individuals with a vision for making something." I hope there's eventually an interview or article where she explains more about why she was inspired by Yuzu and what her paintings of him are trying to convey.

Actually I wonder, I looked her up because of this and from what I've seen so far, it looks like the main draw and technique of her style is her use of negative space... or rather, the way she use positive space to draw attention to negative space. With this piece specifically, it looks to be composed around Yuzuru's contour which in this piece is the main area of negative space, which is different from her other pieces that revolve around adding in positive space into negative shape as opposed to around.

[ralucutzagy]

 

[Hydroblade]

8 minutes ago, ralucutzagy said:

 

The Pooh Rain of Justice 

 

About the art, i don't think it pretends to be an accurate representation of him. Some art is meant to let the person appreciating it fill in the blanks, I feel that this case is a bit like Japanese calligraphy: sometimes the character is pretty unrecognizable but it's more about what it transmits/represents rather than having a certain character written. Iirc the"energy" of the person writing it also matters or something like that (I'm sleepy so maybe I'm not making much sense). 

I could see a weird scribble across a painted sky in h&l colors titled Yuzu and it would make as much sense to me as this

[This is just a comment from a frustrated artist lmao]

[ralucutzagy]

OMG!  The horrendous costume! But his dance movements are so beautiful! 

 

[yumeaki]

5 hours ago, Fresca said:

More than her work depicting Yuzu (not some of her best in my opinion but I don't think you can make an honest judgement of art until you see it in person), I'm much more interested in why she chose him as a subject instead of the hundreds of other famous celebrities or atheletes she could have chosen. She says here that the kind of people that attract her attention as subjects are "artists and musicians—people who touch me, people who help me feel my feelings, that describe my feelings in a way" and she says across her body of work that "all of the paintings are about individuals—very extreme individuals with a vision for making something." I hope there's eventually an interview or article where she explains more about why she was inspired by Yuzu and what her paintings of him are trying to convey.

This definitely already explained why she chose Yuzu. 

 

18 minutes ago, ralucutzagy said:

 

Well, they looked happy to have a chance to throw the Pooh. They probably wanted but can't do it