BUS126: Yaro Jaro

The well known Berlin writer BUS126 just released “Yaro Jaro”. A 88-paged book which shows a lot of paintings by him, collaborations with AKIM, ROY1st, HAMS, ROZER, SENOR, PRALL or others. Some great night shots give the reader the same point of view like the artist had while his painting process. A special aspect of “Yaro Jaro” is that it is published entirely in Japanese (with a supplement with English translations). That made us curious about what more is behind BUS126s latest publication and asked for an interview.

What is your new book “Yaro Jaro” about?
I’m actually still discovering a lot and I want to see the context in which I work, I’m still very interested in taking things apart in order to understand the individual functions, how everything relates to each other and then works as a whole. I still see myself as a writer, those are my roots and that’s the whole way writing, bombing has always taken place outside and in that respect it’s also a kind of inner world out there, or at least this research out there allows me insights into my own inner world, lets me understand things that would have taken me much longer elsewhere, clearly the whole thing is visually far removed from the old school letter writing that you might be used to, but from my point of view it comes from the same tune.
Music is a good example of classic style writing, which is based on Outline’s background and so on, the whole style subdivisions would then be folklore, gospel, blues and so on. I’m more interested in the composition of these sections, why these categories came about, the basic things about them, the individual tones or, for example, how this tone is created and this research then drives further stylistic blossoms. Abstract pieces of music or rather compositions then arise from this dismantling.
But I also notice how everything is slowly calming down, how the research turns into a kind of knowledge, i.e. how I feel certain things are saturated and I at least no longer have to question certain areas. In recent years I have concentrated more on painting again and there is still a lot to understand, it is also the area that I enjoy the most. My painting is rather slow or at least I need a lot of time to understand things, of course that can always happen in retrospect and in this respect it is doing and reflecting, working and looking at things.

Why did you publish the book in Japanese?
The culture of Japan has fascinated me for a long time. The formal language of the Japanese script, the old woodblock prints, poetry, the way books are bound and so on, all had a strong influence on me. Without ever having been there, I absorbed the culture through films, documentaries and books and that inspired me insofar as I deliberately included quotations in my pictures or let myself be influenced by the composition of the picture, for example. Especially in calligraphy there are many parallels to style writing, that’s where it started with me. The fact that I have never visited Japan is of course special, I have travelled to a kind of ideal Japan in my imagination.

This time there are a more texts in the book, right?
Yes, writing is visual poetry and the step of accompanying the images with texts, i.e. poetry and prose, is an obvious step. I had also played with this kind of storytelling in the past, that is, accompanying the pieces or works with other texts, thoughts or comments and actually continuing to paint on the picture. Actually, the act of making a book is also a kind of painting, it has composition, drama, all things are connected to each other.

“Yaro Jaro” by BUS126 is exclusivly availabe Hitzerot. Save your copy until it is sold out.

88 pages, 15,4 x 21,6 cm, edition of 250, signed and numbered
Language: Japanese text, supplement with Englisch text (8 pages)
Release date: April 2022
Publisher: BUS126