One of the few surviving members of the first generation of Pop international artists, Tadanori Yokoo [b, , Japan] has left an indelible mark on the aesthetic and cultural exchanges between Japan, Europe, and the U.S. since the s. Appropriating and intermixing Western and traditional symbols, Yokoo’s subversive poster designs were instrumental in the development and dissemination of a new iconography for post-war Japan.
Moving to Tokyo in to pursue his passion for painting and a career in graphic design, Yokoo quickly became a rising figure within the Japanese avant-garde. Working across disciplines and continents, Yokoo counted many renowned creative minds –– within Japan, such as the poet Yukio Mishima, and in his visits to New York, figures such as the artist Jasper Johns –– among his many points of connection.
By , Yokoo had achieved widespread international recognition and was exhibiting widely at a number of prestigious institutions including a solo exhibition, Graphics of Tadanori Yokoo, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. During this time, his commercial work included designin
Tadanori Yokoo
Tadanori Yokoo was born in Nishiwaki, Japan in As a teenager, his modest dreams were to work at a post office and to paint. He entered the profession by replicating paintings, designing store wrapping paper, and drawing posters for the Chamber of Commerce. His first notable work, a self-titled poster at the Persona group&#;s joint exhibition, attracted attention because it diverged from contemporary graphic styles. This shocking poster featured a hanged man against a blue sky with red rays emanating from a rising sun. His name appeared at the top; the bottom corners held childhood photographs and the simple ironic statement, &#;having reached a climax at the age of 29, I was dead.&#; The rising sun motif, considered old-fashioned at the time, recurs throughout his body of work and has become emblematic of &#;Yokoo style&#; and an international symbol of Japanese pop art.
Following this success, Yokoo participated in the Brno Biennial and collaborated with
Tadanori Yokoo, the ‘Japanese Andy Warhol’
© Tadanori Yokoo
Tadanori Yokoo is considered as one of the pioneers of graphic design in Japan. He started out as a stage designer, but it his posters that won him recognition and success in both Japan and on the international stage.
Complete Book Designs, published by PIE Books in , is the first compilation of the body of graphic art produced by the artist, born in It contains over posters and book covers created by Tadanori Yokoo between and
Daring presentation of social themes
These pieces are heavily influenced by Dadaism, Pop art (the artist is often nicknamed the Japanese Andy Warhol), and surrealism, but also traditional Japanese art like ukiyo-e. They address recurring themes like religion, war, sex, and women, presented in creations where fine art and commercial art combine, with extensive use of vibrant colours.
Barely ten years into his career, Tadanori Yokoo’s work entered MoMA for the exhibition Word & Image, before the museum dedicated a personal exhibition to him in Tadanori Yokoo collaborated with renowned designers like Issey Miyake but, from the s onwards, devoted himself mainly to painting
TADANORI YOKOO: BETWEEN PAINTING AND GRAPHIC ART
TADANORI YOKOO HAS OFTEN STUNNED his public by making unexpected and seemingly scandalous declarations. In he did a poster, Tadanori Yokoo, his first to attract attention, that shows the artist as a man who hanged himself. In one comer is Yokoo’s photograph at age one and a half; an English caption reads, “Having reached a climax at the age of 29, I was dead.” Thus Yokoo’s first popular work was a “death announcement.” What he was in fact pronouncing dead was the rational, abstract design in the Bauhaus style that dominated the Japanese design world of the time. Yokoo, new to the graphics scene, wanted to consign to the grave (together with his own past) the Western Modernism that postwar Japanese design had nurtured parallel to Japan’s rapid economic growth. This was strongly indicated by his blatant use in the poster of the “morning sun” design with its stylized rays, a kitsch and patently “pre-Modern” image which was used in a beer label, a textile label, and on a matchbox before the war.1 In his “death announcement” Yokoo made clear his inte
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