Mandy's E-mails

I finally got an answer to my e-mail inquiry regarding Hideki's whereabouts. It was from a woman in Toronto named Mandy. This was her response:

Sorry but there's no one living here by that name. Good luck in your search.

Sincerely,

Mandy Winters

We journalists are taught to be persistent, so this morning I sent her a jpeg of Hideki. Here's the e-mail I just received back:

Where did you get this picture? That's my son, Samuel. He's been missing for over a year now. He looks kind of grown up here. I don't know what to think. If you're trying to scare me or scam me, you're barking up the wrong tree. Are you a friend of Samuel's from school? Or one of the bullies who made his life so miserable? If this is some prank, you better leave me alone! I've had enough of you bullies bothering me and my son!

Mandy

So I seem to have located not only Hideki, whose real name appears to be Samuel, but also his mother. I suppose it's possible he has a twin. And he's apparently been missing for more than a year, which is how long Hideki's brief career in the art world lasted. So just who is this Mandy Winters? And why would 40-something 'Samuel' still be in high school? Is he really a teacher? Maybe he teaches art?

A new clue?

It is now about three months since Hideki vanished but I received a most interesting e-mail today. It was from someone named "Amos" and he had this to say:

"If you want to find Hideki email the following address."

I will withhold the email address from public view, of course, but I have sent an inquiry regarding Hideki's whereabouts and will wait to see if anyone responds. Will keep you posted.

Into Thin Air

Now that quite some time has passed with no sign of Hideki’s whereabouts and little evidence he was ever here, apart from his now-flaccid balloon art, it’s as if he never existed. He left behind a mountain of personal debt, several puzzled friends (at least, those he didn’t completely alienate) and disappointed fans.

One question lingers in the minds of those whose lives he touched (and those to whom he owes money): where the hell is Hideki?

Mystery Deepens

In a last-ditch bid to track the artist down, I telephoned the BC College of Art and Design to see if he might have left a forwarding address. When I spoke to the college registrar to inquire about Hideki’s time there as a student, she claimed not to be able to locate any records under his name. It was possible that so great was the art college’s embarrassment about once having had him there as a student, not to mention a graduate, that they had destroyed his records; however, I had never heard of an educational institution doing such a thing, so this could only mean one thing: Hideki had never been a student at BCCAD. This made me wonder just how many tall tales he had told, and were any of them true?

If I Had 1,000 Dollars

In addition to his unseemly coke habit, Hideki had started borrowing increasingly large sums of money, first from the bank, then from his patrons and hangers-on, and then from his friends and some die-hard fans. He even convinced me to lend him $1,000, opining that he needed it to store the remnants of his balloon installations, now that his various exhibits around town were closing down, plus to help him make that month’s rent. He’d been evicted from his toney, Yaletown penthouse apartment overlooking the marina in False Creek and was renting a basement suite from a fan who had given him a break on the rent in exchange for a few of his balloon pieces. Hideki looked so forlorn at the time that I took pity and cut him a cheque, which I now regret. He had that way with people; always knowing which buttons to push when the circumstances called for it.

I fully intend to get my money back.

Publicity stunt

There is also the theory that Hideki’s disappearance was nothing more than an elaborate publicity stunt, which I will concede is quite possible. However, in order for this to be a publicity stunt, Hideki will have to resurface again, somewhere, sometime. I, along with many others, will be waiting for that day.

Smelly art

However, after doing some research online and at the public library, I created a list of all of the people in Japan with the surname “Sato”, found their phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses and contacted each and every one of them. Believe me, this was a long list, as the surname “Sato” is kind of like “Smith” in Japanese, so you can imagine.

I inquired of each contact as to whether or not any of them had a relative named Hideki. 15 of them did, but none of them were balloon artists nor, in fact, artists at all. The closest I got was a 75-year-old man named Hideki Kato who made sculptures from fish bones, and it sounded like he, too, had been shunned by his family and by Japanese society in general; another “odu-daku”. He responded personally and said that he would like to deliver one of his sculptures to me but that no courier would handle it due to the odour. Is it just me, or is Japan a global leader when it comes to bizarre and sometimes smelly art? I can attest to the fact that it is the land of smelly food; if you’ve ever been in the same room with a dish of daikon (pickled radish) you’ll know what I mean.

Jumper?

It has been several months since Hideki had vanished mysteriously from the art scene. If it weren’t for my photographs, the persistent rumours of him having jumped off the Lions Gate Bridge might have held some water, so to speak. But where was Hideki? Many think he retreated back to his loft in Europe, yet my contacts in Paris who have been staking it out report they haven’t seen anyone remotely resembling the legendary, eccentric balloon artist. At this point I thought he could be anywhere; perhaps even in his native Japan.

Global cussing

Not buying any of it, I tucked all of the Polaroid shots into my purse and hastily left. I believe Hideki tried to run after me but failed because, as I departed, I heard the sound of IKEA furniture being collided with, a body thumping heavily onto the hardwood floor and Hideki swearing his head off, in French this time. To his credit, the man speaks at least five languages, or, at least, knows how to swear in them.

With Hideki now babbling incoherently, yet convincingly, in high German (I know it was high because I studied a bit in university), I ran out of the house and into the cool night outside with the rare photographs of the reclusive Hideki safely tucked away.

Nixon n' Me

He then struck a strange, Nixon-like, “I am not a crook” pose and pleaded his innocence, insisting he was being unfairly persecuted by media types like me, that the white powder under his nose was really just the icing-sugar coating from his favourite French bonbons, and that he just wanted to be left alone.

Cajoling

After putting his glasses back on, and after exhausting all of the cuss words in both the English and probably Italian languages, Hideki resorted to cajoling and deal-making in an attempt to get me to hand the Polaroids over.

It didn’t work.

Punch

In his agitated state, he again removed his eyeglasses and, in desperation, after having missed grabbing my camera, tried to take a punch at me, which might have worked if he’d been sober, as he seemed to have forgotten how to make a proper fist, plus he now couldn’t see very well because he’d removed his eyeglasses again.

Swearing in Italian

Realizing that he couldn’t see me very well, he started looking for his misplaced eyeglasses which, I kindly pointed out, were situated on top of his head. After replacing his glasses, he resorted to uttering expletives in Italian (at least, I think it was Italian) and gesticulating wildly in my general direction. He even tried to take my camera away but, given his obviously altered state, missed by a mile and grabbed nothing more than a handful of cigarette-smoke-laden air.

Prying camera

When that didn’t work, he tried to shield his face from my prying camera lens.

Incriminating powder

Then, after staggering slightly, he removed his eyeglasses and, in vain, tried to wipe the incriminating powder from beneath his nose.

Sniffy

After hearing the toilet flush twice, and some loud sniffing noises, I caught Hideki exiting the washroom with some suspicious-looking white powder under his nostrils. As you can see, he wasn’t too happy having his picture taken at that particular moment.

Polaroids-remember those?

I posted myself patiently outside the closed washroom door and dug my trusty Polaroid camera out from my purse. Why use a Polaroid? My digital camera was being fixed at the time, plus I like to momentarily befuddle my photographic subjects, many of whom have never laid eyes on a Polaroid camera before. It throws them off guard just a little and allows me to get some choice shots.

Where's the head?

Upon arriving, I immediately asked if Hideki was at the party and was pointed in the direction of the men’s washroom, which, in this case, was just the general washroom for the downstairs of the house, which looked to have been built circa 1970. If it was true that he really was inside that bathroom, I would be the first journalist to see Hideki in six months.

The sweet-potato sculpturist

Hoping to find the reclusive Hideki, and in the hopes of scoring some photographs of him, I attended an invitation-only, post-bas-couture fashion-show party in the home of a sweet-potato sculpturist with whom I had a passing acquaintance. It turned out she and Hideki had attended the same vegetable sculpture class in art school, just before his rise to fame in the art world.

Attention whore

These photographs were taken during Hideki’s artistic seclusion and are very rare, indeed. I didn’t bother to ask Hideki if it was OK to publish them, as 1) he doesn't respond to my e-mails or phone calls anymore, and 2) I didn’t think he’d say yes. Then again, given the fact he had become such an attention-whore at the end of his art career, I may have been wrong in this regard.

Train Wreck

I thought carefully about Mr. Massey’s words about his treasured friend. Then, true to my OSIJ training, I decided to go ahead and write a no-holds-barred, investigative piece anyway, exposing whatever sordid details I uncovered. If Hideki's life had, indeed, become a train wreck, then it was my job to show that train wreck to the world.

To that end, I decided to include with this article several controversial photographs of Hideki in the midst of his downfall. I say controversial mostly because Hideki’s “people”, of which I suspect there is now only one, have threatened to sue me if these photographs are made public, but as I know full well, this is to be expected in the world of investigative journalism. Besides, it will provide a budding investigative journalist like me, not to mention Hideki himself, with some extra publicity, which certainly couldn’t hurt either of us. As they say, bad news is good news in the world of news.

Beginning of the end

There are those who believe it’s wrong to show others at their worst. In my view, celebrities of Hideki’s caliber must accept that their lives are public because they are, after all, a public commodity. When you live a life as flashy, overindulgent and soaked in illicit substances as Hideki has, not to mention six failed marriages, one to a Hollywood starlet, you have to expect some negative publicity at some point. Besides, as they say, bad publicity is good publicity.

To be fair, Hideki was encountering the same things that many creative artists who achieve commercial success do. The noted art critic and close, personal friend of Hideki’s, Sheldon Massey, stated in an e-mail interview:

“His fans started complaining that they had bought one of Hideki’s balloon pieces only to realize that it was starting to deflate and shrivel up. He tried to explain that was the point; that all things in life, including art, do not last, but they wouldn’t listen. His agent put pressure on him to start papier mache-ing his work so that it would last, so that his fans would be happy and keep buying his works, but he refused, initially. The worst of it is that he then heeded his agent’s advice and started designing papier mache versions of his most famous designs. That is death to a true artiste like Hideki. It is what is called ‘selling out.’ So if you do write about him, go easy, would you?”

Rumours

It was around this time that rumours of a cocaine addiction and binge drinking began to spread throughout the art world. At first, arts patrons ignored the rumours, preferring instead to focus on Hideki’s ongoing output, mostly displayed and sold in Europe. By then, his popularity in North America had waned considerably. His previously best-selling papier-mache Puppy Poodle in a Doodle Dolls were flagging in sales, as well as the DIY Hideki Balloon Zoo Kits.

In an attempt to either confirm or rebuke these allegations of Hideki’s abuse of illicit substances, I went undercover as just another avant-garde art scene hanger-on in the hopes of spotting Hideki. I wasn’t disappointed.

Hideki and the Contessa

His other ex-wives include a beauty queen from Delhi (their union producing two daughters), an Afrikaans attorney from Soweto (yielding a son named Henry), and an adult film star from Italy named Contessa Sophia (though I seriously doubt that she really was a noblewoman; I believe this to be a screen name. For a brief time, there was a rumour that Hideki and the 'Contessa' had a “home movie” floating around on the internet, yet none was ever found. There is some debate as to who started this rumour. Yet another rumour is that it was Hideki himself, in a shameless bid at self promotion).

Verna von

While marriage #2 was being fought out publicly, and in court, Hideki was photographed enjoying Berlin night life with German countess, Verna von Stadt, a well-known avant garde artist in her own right and rumoured niece of a high-ranking Nazi SS officer. Once his marriage to Monica Fields had been dissolved, he immediately married Verna and went to live in her German estate just outside of Braunschweig. This union was a little more successful, lasting three years, and producing a son named Claus (of whom Verna has custody) but, in the end, they amicably parted and went their separate ways, Hideki taking up residence in his Paris loft.

Lashing Out

Wife #2 was his most famous one; Hollywood starlet Monica Fields. Their union was brief, passionate, and rather bloody, according to Hideki, who filed suit against the Academy-Award-nominated actress for attacking him with a pearl-handled fondue fork in the kitchen of their 6.3 million dollar Beverly Hills mansion. Everyone has seen the photograph of Hideki waiting in the Beverly Hills Hospital emergency room in his trademark ripped studio blouse, with tiny puncture wounds all over his arms and face. The couple divorced after only two months of marriage. As stated previously, tragedy had befallen the doomed pair, as Monica’s toy poodle, Daisy, was found dead, floating muzzle down in their Olympic-size swimming pool. Monica publicly accused Hideki of bringing about Daisy’s demise, but Hideki flatly denied the accusation.

“She was in a bad place because her latest movie had flopped at the box office. She was lashing out at whoever was close by. That was me.”

Sex, Lies & More Rumours

Much has been made of Hideki’s adventures in the world of love. It is true he has been married several times, most ending in a bitter divorce, not to mention several children of varying ethnicity, yet he told me that each union, in the end, taught him more about himself than any work of balloon art ever could.

His first wife was Maggie, a talent agent who discovered Hideki tying his balloons on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver. He still speaks of her with fondness.

“She was my first love, and she taught me to believe in myself and my art, which is a lot more than my parents ever gave me.”

He said these words with obvious bitterness. When I asked him when the last time was that he’d spoken with his parents, he replied, “It has been so long I cannot even remember. Of course, when I became famous and rich, they tried to get a hold of me, but I did not bother to call them back. What is done is done.” Such is part of Hideki’s character: quick to forget but not to forgive, very much in keeping with many of the temperamental, misunderstood artistes I have personally known.

Daisy?

Hideki told me Poodle in a Doodle was an homage to his second wife’s drowned pet poodle, Daisy. Others have speculated that it is a therapeutic piece for Hideki, helping him cope with the trauma of having found Daisy in the swimming pool, or, alternatively and more controversially, an expression of his guilt over having drowned Daisy himself for destroying his work in progress, as he reportedly entered his work studio to find her lying asleep on the floor amidst a pile of shredded latex. Regardless of its origins, Poodle in a Doodle was hailed as marking the nadir of Hideki’s artistic and professional career.

Doodle Poodle

What is, perhaps, Hideki's piece-de-resistance is the controversial work that famously sold for 1.4 million dollars to a Japanese investment banker:

Poodle in a Doodle. 7” x 12”, Swiss latex, 2008.

(photo: Yoshi Arima)

Googly Eyes Phase

Chester. 6” x 6”, Austrian latex, 2007.

(photo: Yoshi Arima)

Blue Phase

She-wolf. 6” x 5”, Italian latex, 2005.

(photo: Yoshi Arima)

Red Phase

Here is a sampling of some of Hideki’s most celebrated works from his traveling European exhibit:

Naked, Running man. 6” x 7”, Italian latex, 2007.

(photo: Yoshi Arima)

Street cred

It was clear that Hideki's stint in a mental hospital only added to his credibility as an avant-garde artist; he had suffered for his art.

As a newly minted graduate of BCCAD, it didn’t take long before the Canadian art world began to recognize and promote Hideki’s work. His balloon pieces were on display in the most toney art galleries across the country, and were starting to sell, too, for increasingly high prices. However, success in his adopted home country could not rival the heights of fame he achieved in the European Art World. Hideki’s European debut was in a tiny, avant-garde art gallery in London, attended by an exclusive clientele of art collectors. Word soon spread, and, before long, his works were being displayed in Stockholm, Munich, Paris and Rome.

Odu Daku

He started by saying, in his thick and unusual Japanese accent, “I was always considered an odu daku (odd duck).” It occurred to me that this might have inspired one of his earlier works titled “Plucky Duck”, but I forgot to ask if this was the case. He went on to explain that he was trying to stage a performance piece on the Tokyo subway titled “Moon Over a Speeding Bullet Train”. After nearly being run over by said train, Hideki was arrested by Tokyo police and thrown into a psychiatric hospital, this being just the latest in a string of unconventional public behaviour on his part. His family refused to acknowledge that he was, indeed, a relative of theirs. So great is the shame of nonconformity in Japanese culture that I can’t say their response surprises me. It explains why Hideki fled Japan for a country more accepting of eccentricity, or, at least, one that tolerates it to some degree. Upon reflection, it makes sense that Hideki's fringe art was a hit first and foremost in Europe, where they seem to appreciate off-the-wall artists more than North Americans do.

Outsider Artist

At first, he stood out because other artists did not take his use of latex seriously, and his works were often dismissed as juvenile. Nonetheless, he persisted, exhibiting his work at every art show that would accept his unconventional works, and, along the way, earned a reputation as an avant-garde, even Outsider, artist. True to the origins of those considered Outsider artists, Hideki claimed to have once spent time in a psychiatric hospital in Japan, after having been placed there by his parents, where he taught some of the other patients how to tie balloon animals. In fact, he claimed that Junji Sakamoto, famous creator of the Shiva elephant balloon series, was one of his students.

I asked Hideki why his family had placed him in a psychiatric hospital. He responded that normally he refused to talk about this time in his life but that, due to my frankness, which he claimed to admire, he would tell me and that I could write about it.

Art of the Transitory

While a student at BCCAD, Hideki distinguished himself by focusing on “the art of the transitory.” Like the impermanence of the Tibetan Buddhist mandala, Hideki said he focused upon making art pieces utilizing balloons, while his classmates sculpted figures from conventional clay, because he wanted to make a statement about the ever-changing nature of life. His use of latex balloons was a commentary on the throwaway nature of the items we use every day.

ARS

Prior to his art school admission, when he was a starving, newly arrived artist, Hideki enjoyed performing on the streets of Vancouver, selling his balloon creations for as little as 25 cents, as well as performing at children’s birthday parties. One can only speculate what these early works are now worth, that is, if they haven’t yet popped or deflated, which is unlikely given the fragility of the medium.

A while back, I did spot one of his early works (In the Gloaming) on an episode of Antiques Road Show where it was appraised at $25,000 US, much to the delight of the married couple from Baltimore who’d purchased it at a yard sale for $1. (I have since read on the art-world gossip website, Parallax View, that shortly after the show aired, their dog mistook their art investment for sausage links and did what any hungry dog would do.)

TV English

Upon first meeting Hideki I was struck by two things: his thick, yet rather unusual, Japanese accent, and his perfect English, which was also tinged with what I quickly discerned was a British accent. When I pointed this out to him, he explained that it was due to his many years spent in England and Canada.

As for the perfect English, he thanked me and said he’d learned it from watching reruns of TV shows like ER;thus his knowledge of medical terminology is rather impressive, as well. This, if nothing else, might please his physician father to some degree.

Hideki's family

According to his website, the enigmatic Hideki was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1972. His father was the chief of cardiac surgery at Koto Hospital in Tokyo, and his brother is also a doctor; an otorhinolaryngologist. Hideki was expected to follow in their footsteps but greatly disappointed his family by leaving Japan and attending art school instead, namely the BC College of Art and Design, after having relocated to Vancouver, Canada. In a translated interview posted on Hideki’s website, his father, Dr. Ichiro Sato, quipped, “He didn’t even become a painter, like Picasso or Rembrandt. He became...uh...whatever it is that he became.”

One gets the impression that his family still does not understand exactly what it is that Hideki does. This is the struggle of the misunderstood, avant-garde artist and, in Hideki’s case, his art is on the fringes of fringe art, treading a fine line between the commerciality of balloonery and what is now recognized, thanks to him, as “ILA” - Inflatable Latex Art.

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The Unanticipated Rise and Spectacular Fall of Hideki

While completing an online certificate in journalism from the OSIJ (Online School of Investigative Journalism), I was also working as a receptionist for a now-defunct, avant-garde art magazine called Art-Z.

They did a feature article on a hot new artist from Japan who was to later become famous as the world-renowned balloon artiste, “Hideki”. In the beginning, he was a completely unknown and unrecognized fringe artist who had once dabbled in clothing design, apprenticing with the likes of Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto. If it weren’t for a Canada Council Arts grant, he would never have achieved the heights of fame and fortune that he did, despite what came afterwards.

You may notice that the sleeve of Hideki's shirt in the Art-Z cover photo is torn. He once explained to me that sometimes during one of his temperamental flare-ups, which happened from time to time when he was in the heat of creation inside his studio, he went into a frenzy and tore at his clothing, which he then wore to the corresponding exhibit of whatever balloon art he was working on at the time. This became a trademark of his, with some budding artistes tearing the sleeves of their own blouses in a frank impersonation of Hideki.

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