Keiichi Tanaami Exhibition: Giving Order to the Madness of Primary Colors [The National Art Center, Tokyo]
I saw something incredibly strange.
As someone who makes a hobby of visiting exhibitions, I thought I had a high tolerance for erotic, grotesque, and shocking expressions at the level of art that is printable and public-facing, but I ended up colliding with an art exhibition that shattered that confidence.
Even calling it erotic, there is nothing so explicit that it cannot be shown.
Even calling it grotesque, it is far less intense than what you find when you fail a Google search.
While bizarre monsters run rampant, I have seen similar things in classics like the Hyakki Yagyō Emaki (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) or in the works of Shigeru Mizuki.
The level of detail is impressive, but it is not the most detailed in the world.
And yet, as a result of the fusion of eroticism, grotesquerie, kitsch, fantasy, primary colors, miniature painting, and creepy-cute, a supernova explosion occurred through synergy, and an art world of tremendous impact was born.
Swept away by the torrent of volume and information, I spent two and a half hours gasping for air in a nightmare-like venue. It has been a long time since I visited an exhibition that actually made me feel nauseous after seeing it.
Even so, "I'm glad I saw it!"
I would like to review the Keiichi Tanaami exhibition, which was incredibly strange but absolutely worth seeing.
Exhibition Overview
Basically, photography is allowed in the exhibition rooms! The most madness-filled exhibition in the history of The National Art Center, Tokyo (a biased opinion), and as I took photos to remember it, looking back at them brought back memories of chaos, leaving me feeling quite surreal.
The exhibition consists of 11 chapters, with a total of over 500 works! This alone is enough to convey how crazy it is!
Keiichi Tanaami was an illustrator, graphic designer, and artist born in 1936. It seems he passed away at the age of 88 just a few days after this exhibition started, but the venue is lined with a massive number of works produced last year and this year, and I am left both impressed and stunned by his overflowing vitality.
His activities have repeatedly undergone complex changes and returns, and because they were filled with a chaos that made it unclear whether they were commercial or artistic, or even whether they were "kitsch" (trivial things) or sublime, it seems that they were not the subject of artistic evaluation until very recently. Perhaps this exhibition will serve as an opportunity for his work to converge on the evaluation that it was rooted in art.
While looking at the venue scenery
To be honest, I lack sufficient knowledge to write an article about Keiichi Tanaami, so this time I will introduce the exhibition scenery while writing down what I felt and thought.
First, after passing through the entrance with its flashy primary colors, there is a dimly lit small room. This is a corner to appreciate two types of Prologue: 'Bridge at the Boundary Between the Profane and the Sacred', expressed through folding screens and a three-dimensional installation, featuring 'One Hundred Bridge Picture'. Surprisingly, these are new works produced in 2024.
First, the installation. The nightmare-like object (over 2 meters tall) where countless arched bridges overlap has an impressive glossy red color. Various monsters resembling spiders, utensils, and people are projected onto the bridges and pass through. The light changes color moment by moment, and at times the whole thing becomes a waterfall, or a world of dazzling sights unfolds with monsters crowded together.
On the opposite side of the installation, there is a row of large folding screens that seem to cover the entire wall. It is a bizarre work that leaves one bewildered by the torrent of primary colors unleashed from collage-like, anything-goes art, including the monsters projected by the three-dimensional object in the back.
It is hard to see in the photos, but rhinestones are scattered throughout, making it sparkle beautifully.
Regarding the 'One Hundred Bridge Picture', a message from the artist, Mr. Tanaami, was posted on the wall. It contained the reminiscences of an artist born into a family of kimono merchants in Tokyo, whose childhood was stained by memories of the fires of World War II, and an essay on the existence of bridges, which were perceived in medieval Japan as the boundary between this world and the next. I was astonished by the quiet tone of voice, which is unimaginable from such bizarre works. Even though he draws things like this, he might be an intelligent and clear-headed person...
Now, from here on is Chapter 1: 'NO MORE WAR'. It mainly exhibits a group of silk-screen commercial posters created by a young Keiichi Tanaami in the 1960s. I suppose this is just a part of his entire body of work, but I am overwhelmed by the number of works that fill the space from the floor to near the ceiling...!
It seems Fuji-Q Highland in 1969 was all about the hippie culture. That's the kind of thing that would definitely get you in trouble today.
Chapter 2 is themed "Illustrated Guide to Imaginary Futures". It showcases work related to magazines, starting with the avant-garde art and subculture magazine of the same name that featured contributors like Genpei Akasegawa. It is characterized by collage art made from illustrations collected by his uncle, who never returned from World War II, and clippings from American comic books and erotic magazines he received from acquaintances.
Chapter 3 is "Animation". A collection of early animation works by Tanaami-san, who is also a video artist, is screened here. Although they are animations, they are works from the 1960s, so the movement is still a bit awkward. He creates a mysterious worldview by collaging not only visuals but also audio, and through repeated editing.
A paradise, or perhaps a garden of pleasure, or maybe a land of madness.
Passing through the curtain from the mini-theater, Chapter 4 takes a sudden turn with "Artificial Paradise".
This series was started after he suffered a serious illness in his forties and was inspired by hallucinations he saw while delirious in the hospital. Unlike the American pop style seen until now, Asian and spiritual motifs and figures are used extensively, and as you gaze at them, there is a strange atmosphere that makes you feel as if you are being drawn into a spiritual world of zones and visions.
I wouldn't want a chair that makes you ascend when you sit on it. The madness of primary colors is filled with shapes that are just wrong.
The temperature difference in his style is starting to make me feel nauseous in Chapter 5: 'A Journey Tracing Memories'. This section displays works from the period when Tanaami-san was obsessed with snails and smallpox, and just looking at them is unsettlingly intense. It might be fun in a drug-like way if you get into it, though!
These were the most subdued paintings in this area. You can imagine what the surroundings were like.
Chapter 6: 'Experimental Film' is a corner where several video works are played in parallel in a dark room, so there are no photos. It includes the mysterious video "4 Eyes," which evokes the spiritual boom of the 1970s, and "Chirico," produced in 2008, which is filled with love for De Chirico. I enjoyed the works that change along with the progress of video technology.
Wild madness
Chapter 7: 'Arcimboldo's Labyrinth' is not exactly an homage to Giuseppe Arcimboldo, but rather focuses on posters produced since 2000.
During this period, his style changed again, with pop, kitsch, and perhaps 'creepy-cute' figures and objects dancing and exploding everywhere. The range of his style is so wide it feels like I might catch a cold.
Chapter 8: 'Repairing Memories' moves further ahead in time, showcasing a group of paintings produced in the 2020s. In the 2020s, at over eighty years old, this volume of work. I was left stunned and speechless by the sheer energy and the madness bursting from the canvases.
Chapter 9: 'Picasso's Pleasure' introduces the results of Picasso-style paintings that Tanaami began as rehabilitation after work was canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic and he (by his own account) stopped painting due to a loss of motivation. The canvases lined up densely on three walls possess the unmistakable characteristics of Picasso's Cubism, yet they are different from any of Picasso's actual works.
Keiichi Tanaami, who himself displays a wide range of styles, seems able to make others' styles his own as he paints. He is a terrifyingly skillful person...
Chapter 10 is titled 'Baku's Talisman', referring to the talismans with pictures of a Baku (a mythical creature) used around the Edo period to ward off nightmares.
This gallery displays Japanese-style (if you can call it that) paintings and a collection of mysterious, giant objects. The cheapness of the objects has a surreal, glossy quality that makes you forget you are in a museum room—a chaotic space. Yet, the homage to Ito Jakuchu is, as expected, a folding screen that accurately captures his characteristics.
The colors and shapes are calculated to be cheap in a nightmarish way.
In fact, Tanaami once aimed to be a manga artist in his youth. Chapter 11 is a collaboration with his secretly respected senior manga artist, Fujio Akatsuka, titled 'Keiichi Tanaami x Fujio Akatsuka'.
It is said that during Akatsuka's lifetime, Tanaami held back out of respect and they never became close, but the fact that such a collaboration was realized in 2022 might even surprise Akatsuka in heaven.
By the way, perhaps he liked the Akatsuka font so much himself, because in the epilogue of the exhibition, it finally became three-dimensional. I never would have thought of that...!
Conclusion: What did I actually see?
After finishing the Keiichi Tanaami exhibition, which hits you with an overwhelming volume of work and passion, I felt a sense of exhaustion so deep it felt like I was sinking into the ground, but the nausea I felt midway through had vanished as if it were a lie. If anything, I even felt a strange sense of exhilaration.
What did I see here?
Perhaps the closest way to describe it is that I just had a somewhat interesting nightmare. While there is certainly a sense of oppression and discomfort, there is also a sense of excitement and a feeling of having one's heartstrings plucked repeatedly. Everything is so chaotic that it is a difficult sensation to explain, as if a tug-of-war is constantly playing out between the feeling of 'I never want to see this again' and the thought, 'Well, I'm curious about what's next, so I might go see it again if it's held again...'
The quiet demeanor of Keiichi Tanaami that I saw in the exhibition materials was so gentle that it was impossible to imagine from his work.
If a boy with artistic talent, born into a traditional Japanese intellectual family, were to witness extreme terror, madness, life, and death amidst the chaos of World War II, carry the mental scars that nearly broke him for the rest of his life, and survive by pouring all of that madness into his work... perhaps it would result in pieces like these. Perhaps that is how he reached a fountain of art that never runs dry, without ever going truly insane.
Thinking about that, I bowed to the eulogy for Keiichi Tanaami placed at the very end.