Tadanori Yokoo is known for his vibrant and provocative works. Taking inspiration from the psychedelic and counterculture movement, he creates unique collage-like posters.
Most of his work challenges the modernist Japanese designs of the time, pushing for more avant-garde and psychedelic styles while combining traditional motifs with contemporary methods. His process often includes reappropriating historical art imagery and combining Western and Eastern aesthetics for content. He usually traces scenes from past prints and repurposes them, adjusting saturation, color, and illustration to fit the psychedelic/ counterculture approach he often pushes for. In this poster in particular, he combines different scenes from an original story based on historical Japanese figures (originally written by Takizawa Bakin) as well as prints and imagery from Katsushika Hokusa's iconic wave pieces. His use of these works helps to revitalize Bakin’s and Hokusai’s pieces in a new way, in turn, helping keep Japan's cultural artworks popular while also commenting on the expansion of aesthetics and styles away from corporate modernism.
Yokoo helped redefine Japanese culture during the transformative post-war and demilitarized era, during a time when Japan was growing in population and financially. During this time, Japan was undergoing immense anxiety about the erasure of heritage and tradition in a growing modernist society. Yokoo addresses these tensions in his works, focusing on the combination of past, present, and east and western aesthetics.
Contextual Information Provided by: MOMA, ArtNet and Letterform Archive
[https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Tadanori_Yokoo/?utm_source=chatgpt.com]
