ArtsBeat/Visual Arts
Kenji Yanobe's Futuristic Art Opens New Berkeley Gallery
January 5- January 11 By Kristianna Bertelsen

ATOM BOY, PHONE HOME!
Fans of pop surrealism, global awareness, and found art have a new outpost in the
East Bay gallery scene. Tucked amid Fourth Street's bustling shops and Internet upstarts,
Babilonia 1808 launched itself this November inside a newly restored Victorian on 5th Street in
West Berkeley. As if setting the scene for the true millennium, the gallery's first exhibit features the
futuristic work of Japanese artist Kanji Yanobe, whose darkly whimsical creations address ecological
issues and fantastical visions of the post-apocalypse.

While Yanobe's "Atom Boy Returns to Save the World!?" is a premonition of destruction and grim survival.
It is also an indication that Babilonia's exhibits will address large-scale visions. The not-for-profit gallery, which
owes its existence to the success of a founder's software company, aims to bridge environmentalism with the
international art world. Upcoming exhibits, culled from the collection of Malou Babilonia, will involve artists from
the Philippines, Mexico, and Costa Rica, as well as Bay Area residents.

SALVAGED CULTURE
The finishing touches on the 1878 landmark are still underway, but the gallery's once-decrepit home will soon
display revamped eco-features in addition to art. Ground-floor beams open up the space with their recycled
textures, and cast-iron columns hail from a demolished department store. Compressed hay from old barns
figures into wall panels, hardwood trim, and wainscoting. And roof runoff will be stored in a large cistern for
summer irrigation of outdoor plants.

In keeping with the environmental ideals of the gallery's founders, Yanobe's inaugural residence incorporates
salvaged objects in novel ways. His Dr. O, a "survival racing car" for the elderly, is made from an encaged
wheelchair with a cruising speed of approximately six kilometers per hour. It hides a gas mask in a side
compartment, a hot-water bag in its backrest, a foot-warming system in its footrest, and a compass and a
flask inside its walking stick. Nearby, a larger-than-life bubble-gum machine contains emergency capsules
filled with survival goods: a tea bag, a Band-Aid, a condom, a cookie.
Yanobe's fiberglass Atom Car sits like an enclosed anime'-style bumper toy in the center of the gallery. It
starts up as soon as three hundred-yen coins slide into the slot. Then the electric motor is drowned out by
music from tinny speakers. ""Duck and cover" warns the song, sampled from and old psa. The same song
plays again when viewers peer into the Last Film Theatre of the World, a huge blue bust with reels for ears
and a dollhouse-sized red-velvet movie theatre in the back of its head.

ATOMIC FALLOUT
In wall-mounted light boxes, photographs of desolate settings-some in Chernobyl-depict old playlands
and abandoned fairgrounds with Yanobe himself standing amid ruins. He is clad in his Atom Suit, a yellow
space suit that's not only his signature garb but his personal survival gear. Unmindful of exposure to
radiation, Yanobe is the brightly colored Ultraman come alive-ready to face the future with his built-in
Geiger counter for measuring radiation and cosmic rays.

Everywhere, the vocabulary of Japanese pop culture permeates Yanobe's work, but the humor is very dry.
For now, the gallery's basement serves as exhibition hall, an appropriate setting for Yanobe's disaster-minded
work. But once restoration is complete, Babilonia 1808's high-ceilinged upstairs will function as the main
showroom, also housin artists-in-residence from time to time. The next exhibition, starting sometime in
February, features the work of Georganne Deen, Manuel Ocampo, and Ray Smith.

BABILONIA 1808 is open from 11 a.m. to 6p.m.
Wednesday through Saturday, at 1808 5th Street,
Berkeley. 549-1808 or www.bwf.org/b1808.