Sakuraba Gallery Artists, be warned! This is too good to be true! Internet
A colleague and myself believe that this website and 'gallery', Sakuraba Gallery, is scam site which aims to attract artists into paying an entrance fee for a fake art international exhibition. It claims that winners will be flown to Sendai, Japan with lodging and tour for free. Too good to be true? Indeed it is.
We haven't paid anything to the owner of the site due to what we know about the information posted below. The site in question is called "Sakuraba Gallery" (the website is sakurabagallery.info).
Our first red flag with the website is the fact that only one real contact is given: the e-mail address. We have contacted them a few times to ask for an artist listing, but no reply was ever returned. Suspicious.
Secondly, all pictures provided on the website are from other older websites (not related to this "Sakuraba Gallery"). The pictures are from the following sites (in Japanese)
http://ameblo.jp/planetsace/entry-11052048186.html?frm_src=thumb_module -- The 'artist' name is not what's listed on the website.
http://www.mori.co.jp/morinow/2010/03/20100317120000001890.html -- note that the images are from the MORI Arts Center Gallery from 2010.
(These are contradictory to what is shown on this page: http://www.sakurabagallery.info/2012-international-artist.html )
(After seeing this, they may change their website images to protect themselves, so if you need photographic proof, I have it on a blog to see.)
The last reason why this place is not legitimate is because of the location. It states that it's located at the address, 45 Kawauchi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, JAPAN 980-8576, which points to no gallery at all. It is in a very odd location and can be confirmed by anyone living in that area.
We only wish to inform artists of this scam site. However, it is protected by a private registration (oddly, from Nevada, US instead of anywhere in Japan). To many artists, this may be an obvious trap, but to those who still are questioning the legitimacy or are thinking of paying the entrance fee for a chance at a free trip... be warned!
Thank you.