This exhibition is the first major retrospective showcasing the internationally acclaimed artist Keiichi
Tanaami (b. 1936). Tanaami is known for vivid, color-drenched works that intensely reﬂect his childhood
memories of World War II and the impact of the American pop culture he encountered after the war. The
exhibition presents an array of works by the astoundingly productive artist, including archival materials
from past decades, tracing the entirety of Tanaami’s creative journey over more than 60 years. This
unprecedented, comprehensive exploration of Tanaami’s oeuvre is organized around the theme of“memory.”0１

After enrolling in the college of design at Musashino Art University, Tanaami befriended avant-garde
artists such as Ushio Shinohara, Genpei Akasegawa, and Shusaku Arakawa, and was exposed totheir cutting-edge activities. In 1957, while still a student, he won a special selection award at the Japan
Advertising Art Exhibition, held by the Japan Advertising Artists Club. He began taking on design jobs whilestill enrolled in school, and joined the Hakuhodo ad agency after graduating. After about two years he left
Hakuhodo and became independent, not only holding gallery exhibitions but also publishing a collection ofworks in 1966 titled A Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami, which can be described as the starting point of his career
as an artist. Profoundly inspired by Andy Warhol’s approach to art and design, which refused to be limited
to any one medium, he came to describe himself as an “image director.” Tanaami went on to prolifically
produce silkscreened posters ( ① ), collages, animations, illustrations, paintings and more ( ② , ③ ).

⓪Realm of the Afterlife / Realm of the Living, 2017
Pigmented ink, acrylic silkscreen medium, crushed
glass, glitter, and acrylic on canvas
217 x 300 ㎝（3 canvases）
Taguchi Art Collection① 1967 TOKYO, 1967
Silkscreen print on paper
103 x 72.8 ㎝② Wonder Woman, 1967
Ink and collage on paper
38.5 x 48.5 ㎝③ Gold Fish, 1975
Acrylic on illustration board
36.4 x 51.5 ㎝

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By the late 1960s, Keiichi Tanaami was engaged in editorial design for numerous magazines coveringmusic, movies, and literature, and in 1975 he became the first art director of the monthly magazine
PLAYBOY (Japanese edition). Around the same time, he also began producing experimental films
and holding screenings with filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto, steadily expanding the scope of his creative
endeavors.

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A trip to China, and hallucinations he experienced during a four-month hospitalization in 1981, inspired
him to produce images reminiscent of Oriental paradises and fantastical labyrinths in the 1980s ( ④ , ⑤ , ⑥ ).
In 1991 Tanaami became a professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design, where he has helped to foster
artists of younger generations.

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Around 2000, Tanaami began combining various motifs appearing in his earlier works to create evenmore complex and dynamic images ( ⑦ , ⑧ ). For Tanaami, creating art is a process of tracing past
memories and seeking to interpret how these memories have evolved within him at a subconscious level.

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At the age of 88, Keiichi Tanaami continues to create with undimmed energy, enthralling artists anddesigners of many generations and nationalities and receiving a deluge of requests for collaborations. Thiscan be attributed to his inimitable sensibilities and continuous renewal of his style and methodologies over
④
⑤
⑥
⑦
⑧

Frederik Ruysch–Theater of Internal Organs, 1987
Acrylic on canvas
145.5 x 145.5 x 3.6 ㎝
Passage, 1986
Acrylic and color pencil on paper mounted on canvas
130.5 x 130.5 ㎝
The House in Ascension, 1987
Wood and lacquer
101x 63.5 x 24 ㎝
Chirico’s Theater, 2009
Acrylic on canvas
195 x 145.5 ㎝
Presence, 2022
Digital canvas print, magazine scrap, ink, acrylic paint,
and rhinestone on canvas
194 x 130 x 4 ㎝

more than six decades of activity. Recently, Tanaami has gained growing international recognition as a
postwar Japanese artist who interprets global culture in a truly distinctive manner, and his works are in thecollections of such institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) (USA), the Walker
Art Center (USA), the Art Institute of Chicago (USA), M+ (Hong Kong), and the Hamburger Bahnhof –Nationalgalerie für Gegenwart (Germany).
This exhibition offers a long-awaited opportunity for viewers to immerse themselves in the world of
Tanaami’s works, which resemble mind-bending collages of memory and imagination, boldly synthesizing
truth and ﬁction and continuing to surge in popularity and critical appraisal.

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1 Works Intimately Intertwined with Japan’s Postwar Cultural History
The works on view include ORDER MADE!! Series(1965) ( ⑨ , ⑩ ), which drew inspiration from Andy Warhol
and was one of the first examples of Japanese Pop Art; NO MORE WAR Series(1967), a finalist in an antiVietnam War poster contest held by the American magazine Avant Garde; and the animation Good-by Marilyn(1971), created using collage techniques for the TV program 11PM. These and many other works illuminate thecounterculture that blossomed in Japan after World War II.

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2 An Ever-Flowing Fountain of Memories
In recent years, Tanaami has produced numerous works with themes drawn from his own memories anddreams. Childhood experiences in wartime, and a severe and life-threatening illness, have been significant
catalysts for his focus on memories magniﬁed in the mind, reﬂecting the idea that “people unconsciously alter theirown memories as they go through life.” Titled Adventures in Memory, the exhibition features new works exhibitedfor the ﬁrst time ( ⑪ ), as well as dream diaries which Tanaami has kept sporadically since the 1970s, drawings ( ⑫ ),and related installations ( ⑬ ), revealing the inexhaustible wellspring of his creativity.

⑨
⑩
⑪

⑫
⑬

ORDER MADE!!, 1965
Silkscreen print on paper
78.9 x 109.4 ㎝
ORDER MADE!!, 1965
Silkscreen print on paper
101 x 73 ㎝
Law of the Forest, 2024
Pigmented ink, acrylic silkscreen medium,crushed glass, glitter, and acrylic on canvas
251 x 200 ㎝
Goldfish, 1982
Acrylic, ink, and color pencil on paper
56.5 x 76.5 ㎝
Memory Reconstruction, installation view of the exhibition“Keiichi Tanaami: Memory Reconstruction,” NANZUKA,Tokyo, 2020

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3 An Astounding Array of Collaborations
Throughout his long career, Tanaami has worked for a remarkable range of clients and with an extraordinary lineupof collaborators. These have included fashion brands, including Mary Quant, adidas ( ⑭ ), JUNYA WATANABE, andGround Y, and musicians, such as GENERATIONS from EXILE TRIBE, Aki Yashiro, and RADWIMPS ( ⑮ ). He has
also worked with iconic characters like Ultraman and joined forces with the late manga artist Fujio Akatsuka ( ⑯ ),with whom he had a friendship. The exhibition highlights Tanaami’s achievements as a designer, showing his deep
commitment to collaboration since the earliest days of his career, as well as his approach to producing new works
through synergies generated by partnerships.

⑭

The Kingdom of Dream, 2018
Pigmented ink, acrylic silkscreen medium,crushed glass, glitter, and acrylic on canvas
140 x 100 × 4 ㎝⑮ Artwork for RADWIMPS WORLD TOUR 2024
“The way you yawn, and the outcry of Peace”
Silkscreen print and glitter on paper
51.7 x 41.7 ㎝⑯ Kaboom, 2022
Pigmented ink, acrylic silkscreen medium,crushed glass, glitter, and acrylic on canvas
149 x 100 ㎝

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Keiichi Tanaami
Born in Tokyo in 1936, and graduated from Musashino Art University. Keiichi Tanaami has achieved
unparalleled recognition for his interdisciplinary activities, as an art director, graphic designer, and ﬁlmmaker.
Tanaami’s recent solo exhibitions include PARAVENTI: KEIICHI TANAAMI (Prada Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan,2023), Manhattan Universe (Venus Over Manhattan, New York, USA, 2022), A Mirror of the World (NANZUKA
UNDERGROUND, Tokyo, Japan, 2022), Keiichi Tanaami (Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland, 2019),
Keiichi Tanaami (Jeﬀrey Deitch, New York, 2019). He is internationally acclaimed as a pioneer of Pop Art inJapan, with work featured in retrospective surveys with a global scope such as International Pop (Walker
Art Center, Dallas Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA, 2015-2016) and The World Goes Pop(Tate Modern, London, UK, 2015). Tanaami’s works are housed in numerous public collections including
The Museum of Modern Art (USA), Walker Art Center (USA), The Art Institute of Chicago (USA), M+ (HongKong), National Portrait Gallery (USA), and Hamburger Bahnhof (Germany).

⑰

Keiichi Tanaami: Posters and Illustrations, Seibu
Shibuya, Tokyo, 1968
⑱ Paraventi: Keiichi Tanaami, Prada Aoyama,
Tokyo, 2023

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NO MORE WAR Series, 1967
While still a student, Tanaami began exploring
various means of reaching a broader audience
with his works, and became increasinglyinterested in techniques of reproduction suchas printing and printmaking. Influenced byAmerican comics and Pop Art, he began
working with silkscreen in the mid-1960s.
His works in the medium include this series,
which he submitted to an anti-war poster
contest organized in 1968 by the American
magazine Avant Garde, where it was selected
as an outstanding work. Tanaami’s halftone
backgrounds, appropriations of photographs,
and comic-inspired layouts not only highlight his
interest in reproduction through print, but also
showcase his sublime command, as a designer,of layout and color usage.
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Good-by Marilyn, 1971
Since childhood, Tanaami has maintained akeen interest in film, and he began producing
animated works in the mid-1960s. In the early
1970s, he was commissioned by television
programs to produce several animations.
One notable work features repeated imagesof hot dogs, bananas, and Marilyn Monroe ineroticized scenes that unfold over four and ahalf minutes. Images of the Statue of Liberty
and Disney characters, along with cutouts from
pornography, are interspersed throughout,

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delivering a singular interpretation of American
popular culture. However, as the title hints,
around this time Tanaami began gradually⑲

NO MORE WAR, 1967
Silkscreen print on paper
63 x 48 ㎝
Taguchi Art Collection⑳ Good-by Marilyn, 1971
16mm film transferred to video, 4 min 23 sec
Production and Animation: Keiichi Tanaami,
Song: Miki Hirayama, “Manatsu No Dekigoto”

distancing himself from American iconography,
shifting the focus of his work towards his own
memories. This work can be said to represent atransitional phase of his career.

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Tokiwa-matsu Series, 1986-87
In 1981, Tanaami was diagnosed with tuberculosis and hospitalized for nearly four months. Hovering between
life and death, he experienced a long series of intense nightly hallucinations due to the strong side effects ofmedication. These visions included recurring imagery such as the Salvador Dalí painting The Madonna of Port
Lligat, and the pine trees in the hospital garden appeared to him to be twisted and contorted. Tanaami documented
what he saw in more than ten notebooks, and these vivid hallucinations while hospitalized propelled him in new
creative directions. A visit to China in 1980 had already reignited his interest in Asian culture, and in the 1980s
he began depicting fantastical worlds, evocative of mysterious spiritual paradises and labyrinths, that combined
images of pine trees and artiﬁcial urban landscapes.

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The Story of Death and Rebirth, 2019
This jaw-droppingly colorful work comprises motifs deeply linked to Tanaami’s childhood memories of wartime.
For the artist, death has been a crucial theme and a continual source of creative energy. Here, numerous ﬁghter
planes sink into the sea while sprite-like creatures ﬂoat in midair, presenting a vision of a chaotic world that evokes
the cycle of reincarnation. In terms of technique, in the 2000s Tanaami began working with digital data, whichenabled him to amplify images inﬁnitely across various media. His ability to seamlessly introduce images into
videos and sculptures further illuminates the protean nature of his talent, which has been increasingly notable inrecent years.

㉑

Tokiwa-matsu, 1986
Silk screen print on paper
103 x 73 ㎝
㉒ Tokiwa-matsu, 1986
Silk screen print on paper
103 x 73 ㎝
㉓ The Story of Death and Rebirth, 2019
Pigmented ink, acrylic silkscreen medium,crushed glass, glitter, and acrylic on canvas
200 x 400 ㎝（4 canvases）

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Pleasure of Picasso – Mother and Child Series, 2020 – ongoing
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, it also brought changes to Tanaami’s practice. With scheduled
exhibitions and other plans disrupted, Tanaami began using some of his newfound free time to copy Pablo
Picasso’s Mother and Child, a painting he has long admired. He initially intended to make about ten copies, but
the number steadily grew, and to date he has produced over 500 works. Tanaami, who has said that constraints
stimulate his creativity, has developed his own narrative over the course this series by incorporating diverse
images into the basic format of Picasso’s Mother and Child. For Tanaami, this series is akin to the Buddhist
practice of transcribing sutras, and it continues to be a part of his daily routine.

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Inconceivable Body, 2019
This sculpture consists of a stack of faces, eachwith a powerful gaze that seems to penetrate theviewer. A complex amalgamation of skulls, spiders,chickens, goldfish, undulating pine trees and otherimagery is synthesized into a single entity thatappears to be thrumming with life force. Tanaami
has described the bizarrely shaped creatures that hefrequently portrays as people wounded in wars, andas embodiments of the fearless side of all humanbeings. Since the 2000s, he has been making
sculptures inspired by Buddhist statues such as theThousand-Armed Kannon, and he has spoken of an“enduring fascination with menacing, shape-shifting㉔㉕㉖

Pleasure of Picasso –Mother and Child, 2020/2021
Acrylic on canvas
41 x 31.8 x 2 ㎝
Pleasure of Picasso –Mother and Child, 2020/2021
Acrylic on canvas
30 x 30 x 3.7 ㎝
Inconceivable Body, 2019
FRP, iron, acrylic and urethane paint, and gold plating
301 × 100 × 100 ㎝

sacred icons.” This piece is among those resemblingan aberrant Buddhist statue, depicting creaturesfrom the Buddhist paradise of the Pure Land asenvisioned by Tanaami.
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Exhibition Titile

Keiichi Tanaami: Adventures in Memory

PeriodAugust 7 (Wed), 2024 – November 11 (Mon), 2024
Closed on Tuesdays

Opening Hours

10:00-18:00(Fridays and Saturdays, 10:00-20:00)(Last admission 30 minutes before closing)

Venue

The National Art Center, Tokyo
Special Exhibition Gallery 1E

Organized by

The National Art Center, Tokyo; The Asahi Shimbun; Japan Arts Council;
Agency for Cultural Aﬀairs, Government of Japan

With the sponsorship of

Shueisha; adidas; MATTEL CREATIONS™

Production cooperation

Sony Music Entertainment

With the cooperation of

NANZUKA

With the support of

J-WAVE

Admission (tax included)
2,000 yen (Adults) 1,400 yen (College students) 1,000 yen (High school students)*Visitors who are junior high school students or younger will be admitted for free.
*Disabled persons (along with the one assistant) will be admitted for free upon presenting the Disabled
Person’s Booklet or an equivalent form of government-issued ID.
*More information on tickets will be posted at a later date on the exhibition website.

令和 6 年度日本博 2.0 事業（委託型）

Access7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8558
Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line ／ Nogizaka Station ／ Direct access from Exit 6
Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line ／ Roppongi Station ／ Approximately 5-minute walk from Exit 4a
Toei Oedo Subway Line ／ Roppongi Station ／ Approximately 4-minute walk from Exit 7
Inquiries
Website(+81) 47-316-2772 (Hello Dial)
https://www.nact.jp/english/Oﬃcial Instagram@tanaami2024

Press Contact
The National Art Center, Tokyo - Public Relations
E-mail: pr@nact.jp

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