page_title: Ay-O
section_title: Signatures
hierarchical_section_title: Ay-O / Signatures
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a signature from AY-O
context_page_description: Takao Iijima, better known by his art name Ay-O, is a Japanese artist who has been associated with Fluxus since its international beginnings in the 1960s.
context_section_description: Ay-O has several phases with different signatures. In older works in the 1950s the signature is mostly and traditionally written in plain letters with the date as for example in the 1955 signature.
   At the same time in the pre-rainbow period some of the painting were frequently done on wood and the signature is sometime etched in the wood.
  In this 1954 example it is etched as 'O ai'. 
  
  With arrival of the rainbow period in the 1980s some new signature is introduced where the O encircles the other letter in a cartouche-like manner like in this example of 1985 on one of the large 96 gradations work. 
  
  Last but not least the rainbow artist developed his 'signature signature': the rainbow signature used mostly for autographs and paper. This is one of his mini happenings. To produce it AY-O puts felt-pin pens in his fist with all colors of the rainbow and signs with it  as can be seen in this picture of a book signed with the rainbow signature.
  
  On paper Ay-O signs using roman letters and his kanji (靉嘔). 
   As for the origin of the name from Ay-O's own and most recent retrospective catalog "Over the rainbow once more" (2012), page 75: "Ay-O, an unusual pseudonym for a Japanese, was conceived during Ay-O's third year at Tokyo Kyoiku University, when he had his friends choose then favorite sounds from the Japanese syllabary A, I, U, E and O. The result: 'AIO.' To express this name, he selected the kanji character 'ai,' from aitai (靉靆) meaning a scene of drifting clouds, and the kanji character 'ou' (long 'o') from the title of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel. 'Outo'　（嘔吐）for  ('Nausea')."
caption: This is a signature from AY-O
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