EL PASO MUSEUM OF ART AUGUST 24 – DECEMBER 2, 2017
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nitially a designer with modest dreams, Tadanori Yokoo evolved into one of Japan’s most renowned graphic designers and fine artists. He was born in 1936 in Nishigaki, Hyogo Prefecture, growing up as a witness to the traumatizing events of World War II
in Japan. According to the book 12 Japanese Masters, the images of his early life consisted of Japanese matchboxes designed in bold colors, Western-lettered textile labels, and the woodblock genre of ukiyo-e. Globalization had begun to run its course and there was a great deal of American influence across the world; Japan was constantly bombarded by American culture and products. The clashing influences of his homeland and the United States became concepts that Yokoo has captured time and time again in his work. While images of the Japanese flag and The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai are constantly present in his work, images of sexual women and American icons like Marilyn Monroe are just as common. Throughout his long and fruitful career, Tadanori Yokoo has blurred the line between art and design by using a variety of mediums, such as poster art, film, design for music, and painting.
Kikujiro Fukushima, Tadanori Yokoo, 1977
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Tadanori Yokoo is probably best known for his
majority of designers, however, Tadanori Yokoo
posters. Packed with symbolism, they represent
creates designs not only with the intent of fulfilling
the many motifs that Yokoo used throughout his ca-
the job, but also to satisfy his own artistic expres-
reer. A pivotal work is one that he created at the age
sion. In an interview for Tate Modern, he talked
of twenty nine in 1965; it is a screenprinted poster
about his need to do commercial art due to financial
titled Tadanori Yokoo. The poster illustrates a flat
necessity. Even without passion for the trade, Yokoo
image of himself holding a flower and hanging from a
created works that have been influential to many
golden arch that has his name written on it boldly. Col-
designers and artists alike. His poster design entitled M, created in 2000 for the Tokyo Ballet, is a great
ors, images, and techniques that he constantly repeats are found in this poster, such as the red rising sun back-
example of how to create a poster for a ballet without
ground referencing the Japanese Army flag used during
showing a single ballerina. Instead, it contains clues
World War II, halftone photographs of people, a bullet
as to the subject matter of the ballet, which is based
train, Mount Fuji, and bright hues of red, blue, and pink.
upon the life and works of Yukio Mishima, a prodigious
Yokoo created this work after finding himself obsessed
writer and a deceased friend of Yokoo’s. Although there
with death. In his autobiography, he wrote, “To confront
is a forty year time difference between the two post-
the fear, I had to become the fear itself”. This senti-
ers, the two overlap quite a bit and show the amount
ment and the work itself were shocking to his peers.
of consistency within Tadanori Yokoo’s poster style. A
Although this work was created for his own expres-
collage of American and Japanese culture with seem-
sion, Yokoo worked as a graphic designer for many
ingly random images and type have followed Yokoo
clients and for a great deal of his career. Unlike the
through his many years working as a designer and artist.
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Tadanori Yokoo, Tadanori Yokoo, 1965.
Tadanori Yokoo, M, 2000
“TO CONFRONT THE FEAR,
I HAD TO BECOME THE FEAR ITSELF”
Tadanori Yokoo worked in film as a poster designer, a set designer, an actor, and a filmmaker. He was offered the lead role in the film The Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, directed by Nagisa Oshima in 1969. The film took place in one of Tokyo’s main districts, Shinjuku, and was a “semi-documentary” that reflected the bewilderment surrounding the student protests at the time. Yokoo also created his own animations. His film KISS KISS KISS was created in response to a request by the Sogetsu Art Center, which at the time was holding an exhibition based around avant garde animation. Even in animation, his illustration style held strong as he used bright colors and images inspired by kissing scenes from American pop art. In this medium, sound comes into play and continues to reflect the American influence in Yokoo’s work with the song Kiss by Dean Martin playing in the beginning of the video.
Tadanori Yokoo, KISS KISS KISS, 1964
Nagisa Oshima, The Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, 1973
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As Tadanori Yokoo gained fame, he became acquainted with some of the most important names in music of the day and ended up designing album covers and posters for them. Yokoo was asked to design posters for: The Beatles, Cat Stevens, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and Tangerine Dream. These posters deviate from his more colorful style as they capture the musicians in various surreal landscapes and events. He went on to create covers for Santana’s Amigos and Lotus albums. The cover for Lotus clearly influenced Yokoo’s design for the cover of Miles Davis’ Agharta album. He was at this time very focused on psychedelia and mysticism, largely due to his travels through India. The influences of psychedelic art and spirituality are clear throughout these designs as they carry the intense colors and patterns of psychedelic art and images of gods and supernatural beings that are often interrelated with spirituality.
Tadanori Yokoo, The Beatles Star Club, 1977
Tadanori Yokoo, Amigos (front cover), 1976
Tadanori Yokoo, Amigos (back cover), 1976
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In 1980, Tadanori Yokoo saw an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that caused him to abandon his role as a designer and become a painter primarily. In an interview by Takayo Lida, Yokoo states that he knew he wanted to be a painter from the beginning, but due to financial need, he found himself working in the graphic arts until his renunciation of the profession. Although he was primarily a graphic designer for many years, he also created personal prints and paintings. During his early years in design, he created a series of “pink girls” which came from Yokoo’s curiosity of women and his desire to break the stereotypes of what women should look like and how they should behave, featuring pink ladies smiling widely by themselves. Yokoo’s painting style has shifted time and time again, contrasting his more stylistically consistent posters. His paintings have a wide range, from his pink ladies to paintings of urban landscapes to paintings of mystical skies with images of supernatural beings and everyday people. He explains that his change in style is in response to his change in subject and change in circumstances throughout his long life and extensive body of work.
Opposite (clockwise from left): Tadanori Yokoo, Luminous Path in the Darkness: City N. (V), 2000 Tadanori Yokoo, Maybe Someday..., 2001 Tadanori Yokoo, I Was Born on June 27th, Like Hellen Keller, 1996
Tadanori Yokoo, Razor, 1966
Tadanori Yokoo’s long career has resulted in a confidence that his work has created a change through the many fields he has approached, such as design, painting, film posters and appearances, album covers, and band posters. His collaging techniques, halftone photographs, bright colors, and playful compositions have influenced the work of international design today. His tendency to create bustling and chaotic compositions is an evident influence on Toru Morooka’s concert poster for the Japanese comedian Michiko Shimizu. Besides emulating Yokoo’s energetic compositions, this poster also uses the traditional Japanese imagery that is often found in his work. The album cover for Sumire Oesaka’s Better Than the Seven Seas is another contemporary example of his legacy. This album cover is influenced not only by Yokoo’s traditional imagery and compositional style, but also by his color choices, ukiyo-e style, and dynamic use of typography. Tadanori Yokoo’s legacy goes beyond graphic design, as shown in Marco de Vincenzo’s Ready to Wear Spring Summer 2016 collection. Vincenzo utilizes traditional symbols of Japanese culture, bright colors, and bold gradients in this collection. These three examples are only a part of the legacy that Tadanori Yokoo’s body of work has left behind. A true pioneer in Japanese and international design, Tadanori Yokoo’s humble beginnings led to a newfound understanding of how far art and design can travel as one.
Marco de Vincenzo, Ready to Wear Spring Summer 2016, 2015
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Toru Morooka, Michiko Shimizu One Person Budokan, 2014
Hariya TateJiro, Uesaka Sumire, 2013
Marco de Vincenzo, Ready to Wear Spring Summer 2016, 2015
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