The Work of Tadanori Yokoo

[yokoozuan]

Performed by an early incarnation of Flower Travellin Band, this is the psych meltdown center piece of experimental composer Toshi Ichiyanagi’s “Opera from the Works of Tadanori Yokoo.” The album is legendary in avant-garde circles for its strange mixture of tape music, Japanese folk, musique concrete, contemporary composition, and heavy psych. Toshi Ichiyanagi, a student of John Cage, and Yoko Ono’s first husband, mixed bits of sound from a multitude of sources, mediums, and genres in a way that echos how Yokoo created his post modern collages. The album features gorgeous artwork from Yokoo.

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Tadanori Yokoo from “Posthumous Works”, 1968.

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Tadanori Yokoo (横尾 忠則).

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Haruomi Hosono & Tadanori Yokoo. Cochin Moon. King Records. 1978.

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Landmark exotico synth weirdness courtesy of YMO founder Haruomi Hosono with engineering from early electronic programmer Hideki Matsutake. The UFO obsessed Tadanori Yokoo approached Hosono about visiting India and collaborating on a futuristic soundtrack for a Bollywood film that didn’t exist. Yokoo and Hosono both fell extremely ill on the trip and Hosono along with Matsutake completed the album without Yokoo, although Yokoo created the artwork.

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While perhaps in the art world best known for his pop posters which skewered the line between art and design, arguably Tadanori Yokoo’s greatest influence was in psychedelic art. While not formally a psychedelic artist (Yokoo’s work was bursting with symbolism and meaning, while classic psychedelic art is primarily concerned with translating pure, meta-physical drug induced experiences), Yokoo’s vibrant colors, off beat humor, and free form collage absurdity made him a huge influence on psychedelic art in the United States in the late 60s.

This cover of Zap Comix, a popular alternative comic in the late 60s psychedelic scene, by psych poster designer Victor Moscoso from 1968 shows a distinct Yokoo influence.

Yokoo’s post modern psychedelic aesthetic made him a highly sought after album and poster designer for musicians in the 70s and 80s. A trip to India in 1970 inspired a shift in his work towards the cosmic and spiritual, drawing inspiration from hinduism, buddhism, ufology, and alternate worlds and timelines. This inspired the posters Yokoo created for the Beatles, Earth Wind and Fire, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and Cat Stevens, and the artwork he created for albums by Santana, Miles Davis, and John Cale, not to mention dozens of obscure Japanese artists.

The Beatles, Star Club (1977)

Cat Stevens (1972)

Emerson Lake and Palmer (1972)

Earth Wind & Fire (1976)

The Beatles (1972)

Santana - Lotus (1974)

Miles Davis - Agharta (1975)

The artwork from Agharta was the first Yokoo art I encountered, and still remains one of my favorites. The album is titled after a mythical subterranean city, an version of the Hollow Earth myth, that a purports an advanced supernatural race was forced to flee earth because of some political or geological catastrophe, and from time to time would visit Earth to impart upon great spiritual knowledge. The story has both eastern and afrocentric routes. Davis was familiar with Yokoo’s work with Santana and hired him to create the art for the album. From the wikipedia: 

“Before designing the cover, Yokoo listened to a preliminary tape of the concert, meditated, and reflected on his reading of Raymond W. Bernard's 1969 book The Hollow Earth.[62] Bernard had written that the city existed in a large cavern in the center of the Earth, while Yokoo said he believed "Agharta could be down there under the sea like Atlantis or even hidden in the jungle like the lost city of El Dorado."[63] He also drew on elements from other Eastern subterranean myths and Afrofuturism in his design.”

The cover depicts a vast metropolis with crimson red fire shooting from its center, symbolizing Agharta’s power. The city is framed by a jungle scene with two scantily clad women perched along a cliff, as if this city lies in the bush. The back cover is a similar scene, this time underwater. A UFO beams a light down the cities center, and brightly colored fish and coral reefs decorate the image. Explaining the allusion to UFOs, an insert with the albums reads, 

“During various periods in history the supermen of Agharta came to the surface of Earth to teach the human race how to live together in peace and save us from wars, catastrophe, and destruction. The apparent sighting of several flying saucers soon after the bombing of Hiroshima may represent one visitation. The UFO shown here symbolizes a similar connection.”

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“ROCKETMAN, Burning out His Fuse” by Darren Mabee

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These three experimental animations films were made by Yokoo in 1964 and 1965. Each shows the influence of Pop Art on Yokoo’s work at the time and in some ways feel like his posters come to life. 

“KISS KISS KISS” is pretty standard pop art. It mines the same romance comics Lichtenstein famously used, but also shows some Dada influence in its construction. The music really works though and gives the short a cheeky, pop art rythym. A woozy Dean Martin is deconstructed into the twisted noises from a theremin as comic book images of people kissing (complete with “kiss” speech bubbles) are torn from lips to reveal each successive image. 

“Tokuten Eizou Anthology Vol 1″ is a montage of Yokoo’s illustrations with a few photographs. Many of the images are recycled from his early designs and exhibit an Art Nouveau influence, in addition to comic books and Pop Art. The film seems to loosely trace a history of the universe from the big bang until its death by execution (this was the cold war after all). Along the way images are organized into motifs that zip across the screen in unusual, but engaging ways: birds, castles, hills, zoomorphs, human faces, mouths and language, music and performance, guns, and religion. 

“Kachi Kachi Yama” is my favorite of the three, and the most successful creatively and thematically. It shares a name with a Japanese folktale, which translates to “Fire Crackling Mountain,” (Kachi Kachi is an onomatopoeia fire the sound of fire). The title puts the films images of nuclear destruction and violent scenes from Westerns juxtaposed with celebrities in a unique context. Yokoo seems to revel in subverting these western pop culture tropes while also highlighting how they were changing Japanese culture, which are themes he explores throughout his famous posters in the mid 60s. The film has a proto-psychedelic feel and shares some creative DNA with films like Yellow Submarine that would come later. 

Its a shame he made only three short films at the time, as he’s stated interviews he had many other ideas for the medium, but film was too expensive to work in in the mid 60s. Anyway, I’ll be back later with a look Yokoo’s work in music. Thanks!

[yokoozuan]

A selection of Commercial Art

As he gained worldwide notoriety in the art world in the late 1960s for his innovative posters, Tadanori Yokoo continued to work commercially as a graphic designer. He applied the same aesthetics from his poster designs - bright colors, flat images, pop iconography - to his graphic design work. Much like Warhol, Yokoo’s work blurs the line between fine art and mass advertisement.

A particularly well known example of his work in advertising in the late 60s is a series of designs he created for Asahi Beer. Without speaking a word of Japanese, the message is clear: drinking Asahi Beer is perfect during any summertime activity. Over a dozen scenes of summertime fun are depicted in an lively, extremely flat mosaic. Swimming, camping, dinners, dancing, beach going, concerts, picnics and tons more swirl around the canvas. The ads also showcase Yokoo’s talent as an illustrator. The only thing not illustrated are the hands holding the beer, which leap off the page. Its a playful, effective work.

Here is another design for Asahi, this time a print ad from a magazine. 

And here is a label Yokoo designed as well (sorry for the poor image quality)

Yokoo’s work for Asahi was fun, but pretty conventional. By the early 70s, his approach to commercial design became much more unorthodox. A press release for a Moma exhibition of his graphics in 1972 comments on Yokoo’s approach to commercial design at the time, saying “the client' s message is often minimized or even satirized by its presentation within an incongruous context. In a poster advertising an electric razor, (Sol Blackee, 1969. Shown below) the shaver is barely visible in a decorative border which itself surrounds a profusion of imagery unrelated to the product.”

Similarly, this advertisement for a printing company, titled “Greeting,” and displayed  below, was shown at the same Moma showcase in 1972. Its mixture of surrealism, eastern and western religious imagery, classical Art, and scientific realism composed on an expansive black canvas evokes feelings universal spiritualism, and a rejection of modernity and modern culture in favor of globalism and interconnectedness. What is has to do with print company, I’m just not sure.

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Having reached a climax at the age of 29...

In 1965, Tadanori Yokoo emerges in Tokyo as a distinct artistic voice. By 1968, he’s an international sensation. His posters shocked and inspired a generation of graphic designers, psychedelic artists, and pop provocateurs. His explosive early work helped define the sensibilities of postmodern graphic design, but today at least outside of Japan, he’s often overlooked.

Yokoo’s creative pace in the late 60s and early 70s was staggering. He created commercial ad campaigns and caused sensations at his gallery shows.  He designed covers for magazines, books, and albums. He created sets and programs for avant garde theater productions. He acted in films and collaborated with experimental musicians.  But through this eclectic body of work certain distinct characteristics emerged: bright colors, flatten perspective, irreverent humor, recognizable pop culture images re-contextualized as psychedelic absurdity.

First, much of his early work was done on silk screens, which when combined with bright, bold, newly available inks gave his work a vibrant saturation of color. (Yokoo used aniline-dye, an 19th century synthetic dye mass produced post WWII. This article explores its influence on 19th century Japanese art, which in turn influenced Yokoo).

“Koshimaki Osen” (1966) Silkscreen A poster advertising a happening.

His posters consisted of a multitude of images and wide variety of compositional elements. Japanese flags, kimono labels, family crests, motifs from ukiyo-e (japanese wood block art), mix on his frenzied, proto-psychedelic canvas with images from comics, American advertising, classical Art, newspapers, and film to fill Yokoo’s posters with feelings of post-nationalist, post-modernist absurdity.

“The City and Design” (1966) Silkscreen A poster for a book by Isamu Kurita

Much of Yokoo’s work is politicized. His juxtaposition of Japanese and Western imagery, coupled with his sardonic approach to religion, traditional values, sexuality and violence, seeks to explore the personal and cultural effects of westernization on post-war Japan.

“This is America” (1968) Off-set Lithograph Poster for a newspaper

“Marilyn Monroe” (1969) Poster

The 1960s in Japan were a time of widening cultural divisions. Rigid conservative values towards sexuality and art and the conflation of Japanese nationalism with western style capitalism created a society hostile towards artists and new ways of thinking. Yokoo’s work confronts these tensions head on, embracing Japanese imagery and symbolism to subvert and comment on the orthodoxy of both traditional values and the austerity of modern art.

“The Rose-Colored Dance” (1966) Silk Screen A poster advertising an avant garde dance recital.

“The Nude of Ruriko Asaoka” (1970) Offset Lithograph Poster

Youth movements marched in the streets in protest of Japanese economic and security agreements with the United States. Avant garde artists, underground filmmakers, and protest singers emerged to challenge the establishment and status quo. New voices like writer Yukio Mishima and filmmaker Nagasa Oshima explored the shifting identity of Japan as it confronted capitalism, globalism, and Americanization. Yokoo’s voice shines from within this movement, distinguished by its humor, endogeny, and absurdness.

“Yukio Mishima, The Aesthetics of End” (1966) Silkscreen Poster for author Yukio Mishima 

“Ballad Dedicated to an Amputated Little Finger” (1967) Offset Lithograph Poster for a book

“Diary of Shinjuku Thief” 1968 Offset Lithograph Poster for a film directed by Nagasa Oshima and starring Tadanori Yokoo

Critics usually label Tadanori Yokoo as “pop art”, but I think his work coincides with, rather than emerges from, the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. Its easy to see why his work is classified as Pop Art. He had a background in advertising like Andy Warhol. And he was inspired by cartoons and images of his youth like Roy Lichtenstein. But what separates Yokoo from his contemporaries, and makes his work distinguishable, is his subjectivity. Yokoo demonstrates the ability to reach into his memories, his experiences, and his emotions for inspiration in his design.  Unlike the cool detachment of pop art, and the “cold rationalism” of Modern design, Yokoo’s work radiates energy, personality, and irreverence. Yokoo uses graphic design as a form of post-modern self expression. Often his posters advertise nothing, and are meant solely to be appreciated as art objects.

“Having Reached a Climax at Age 29 I Was Dead” 1965 Silkscreen Poster, self portrait.

Maybe the best example of Yokoo’s unique style is his explosive self portrait, “Having Reached a Climax at Age 29 I Was Dead,” from his first gallery show in 1965 The rays of the Japanese rising sun are cooled with blues as opposed to the harsh red and white.  Mt Fiji erupting and the subway train barreling forward symbolize the economic boom of modern, westernized japan. The image of Yokoo as a baby juxtaposed with the Japanese hand signal for sex laid over a photo of a Yokoo’s military looking elementary school class photo is meant to challenge orthodoxy and tradition. At the center is Yokoo himself, the artist as a cartoon dangling from a noose holding a black rose. The idea that a graphic designer could insert themselves into the piece itself, and comment on heavy subjects like geopolitics, sex, and suicide suicide, and transform design into a medium of intense self expression was revolutionary at the time.

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Sayonara Amerika Sayonara Nippon: The Global Roots of Tadanori Yokoo’s Visual Language

Just a quick note before we get going: I can not speak or read Japanese. While Tadanori Yokoo was infamous and influential in 60s and 70s art and design circles, very little has been written about him in English. Much of my research consists of googling the kanji spelling of his name, 横尾 忠則, combing through Japanese internet archives, and translating as best I can. There are a few online translation tools I use. For a no frills Japanese-english dictionary, I use Weblio. To translate sentences and phrases, I use JIsho.org. And to translate the text within Yokoo’s work itself, I use Google Translate’s “word lens” feature on my phone. When I point my camera at Japanese text, the app translates it as best it can. None of these methods are perfect, but with a proper fact checking, they do offer a glimpse into Yokoo’s work I wouldn’t otherwise have.

For the sake of context, I’d like to discuss Yokoo’s background, his early influences, and his nondescript career as a graphic designer before he took the contemporary art world by storm in the mid 1960s.

Tadanori Yokoo was born in 1936 and grew up in Nishiwaki, Hyōgo Profecture, a modest working class town in south central Japan. As an infant, he was adopted by relatives, an elderly, working class couple who owned and operated a kimono silk wholesaler.

Yokoo began drawing almost immediately, first copying illustrations from children’s books, similar to the ones below:

Growing up in, as Yokoo remembered later, “premodern” Nishiwaki,  a place of simple, old world, “nativist” values, had a profound effect on his pop-art aesthetic. Similar to Lichtenstein's comic strips, and Warhol’s soup cans, Yokoo found endless inspiration from the everyday images of his Showa-era youth.

Yokoo loved kitsch, and specifically remembered the labels his parents attached to the wholesale silk they sold. The charming designs on these labels blended traditional Japanese design, with Western themes and motifs. Yokoo’s work would do much the same, elevating the quaint and benevolent to the outer reaches of the avant garde.

Another influence from Yokoo’s childhood were Menko cards. Menko was a children’s game where cards made of thick paper or wood were slapped down to flip over an opponent’s card. Menko cards featured famous samurai, sports heros, and movie stars, and also display a growing western influence on Japanese culture post WWII.

Yokoo had no formal artistic training. Yet, needing money to support himself after high school, he landed work as a graphic designer. He learned design principles and printmaking techniques on the job, first working for a printing company, then a newspaper, and  finally an advertising firm.

During these years, Yokoo absorbed the aeshetics of modern design. He gravitated towards the bold, playful, and innovative work churned out NYC’s Push Pin studios. Yokoo was especially influenced by the work of Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser.

Here’s a Selection of Seymour Chwast’s work in the late 50s and early 60s:

And a election of Milton Glaser’s designs from the same period, pre-1965:

Later, when his prints were displayed in America, Yokoo in turn inspired the designers at Push Pin, as seen in Push Pin’s 1969 anti-war ad. 

Regional success in graphic design led Yokoo to move to Tokyo in 1960, where he was hired by the premier design firm in Japan, Nippon Design Company, or NDC. Tokyo at the time was experiencing a youth revolution in politics, arts, and music, similar to the hippie counterculture in the United States. The forward thinking ideas Yokoo encountered in Tokyo would inspire him to rebel against the forms of modern design and empower his transformation from respected graphic designer to ground breaking contemporary artist.

But before his emergence as a singular artistic voice following his first gallery showing in 1965, Yokoo capped his pre-fame graphic design career at NDC with his work on a design campaign for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Yokoo was one of nearly a dozen of Japan’s top designers to work on the seminal graphics for the games, which was a seen at the time as symbolizing Japan’s resurgence and modernization following WWII. The graphics were quirky, and sleek, and hugely influential around the world. Most notably, the design campaign was the first time simple male and female pictograms were used designate gendered bathrooms. These graphics were soon adopted by the British Rail in the UK as part of a major modernization program and corporate re-branding, which soon became universal symbols

“Facilities label” as part of Tokyo Olympics design campaign:

Typical symbols of Male and female bathrooms:

More on that can be found here: https://lookingfortokyo.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/graphic-design-and-the-64-tokyo-olympics-just-look/

Thanks for reading. In my next blog, I’ll be looking at Tadanori Yokoo’s seminal prints from the late 60s. Until then!

[yokoozuan]

Welcome!

Welcome to Yokoozuan, my art blog dedicated to the work of Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo. I chose the name Yokoozuan for two reasons. First its an anagram of the word yokozuna, which means “grand champion” in Japanese Sumo. But also, it combines Yokoo with zuan, the traditional Japanese word for “design” or “sketch.”  I thought it was fitting because Yokoo’s art, even at its most psychedelic and Avant-garde, is so firmly rooted in classic Japanese design (more on that later).  Anyway, I’m excited to use this opportunity to learn more about one of my favorite artists, and share that knowledge with the world. So here goes:

Tadanori Yokoo came to prominence in the Japanese art world in the 1960s where he is most famous as a graphic designer, illustrator, painter, and printmaker. He’s been called the “Japanese Andy Warhol” for his Pop art leanings, but his approach was wholly unique and steeped in Japanese art tradition. His aesthetic, a surrealist amalgamation of traditional Japanese styles, western commercialism, and pop globalism was world renowned in the late 60s and early 70s with Moma showcasing an exhibit of his work in 1972. In the early 80s, Yokoo quit graphic design, and devoted himself purely to painting. He still is active in japan at 81 years old, and maintains a gallery with 3000 of works in Kobo, Japan.

Yokoozuan is interested in two things; first exploring the prolific Yokoo’s vast multidisciplinary work, and then using that as a gateway to a deeper understanding of Japanese culture, specifically Japan’s counter culture of the 60s and 70s. Not only would I like to explore his work, i think its important to put that work in its proper context, both culturally, aesthetically, and historically. 

Whats so fun about Yokoo is he had universal appeal as an artist. He was lauded in avant garde circles, but also highly sought after in the corporate world for commercial ad campaigns. How his art excels as both highly respected, big-deal, “art world” art and commercialized corporate branding echoes Warhol, but Yokoo’s approach feels more organic, soulful, and exotic. But like Warhol, Yokoo worked across mediums. He experimented with animation, designed album and book covers, created memorable rock posters, collaborated with musicians, theater directors, and filmmakers. Some posts I’m especially looking forward to on Yokoozuan are:

his wide array of influences including western style advertising, psychedelia, mysticism, ukiyo-e (18th century japanese woodblock art), and the films of Akira Kurosawa.

His trip to india in the 1970s to collaborate on possibly the first bollywood album ever composed and produced on synthesizers.

his lesser known works, including his experimental animation.

his peers and contemporaries in the Japanese Avant-garde. 

Thanks for reading!