Edited by Momoko Fukurama, Shinji Nanzuka. Text by Nils Olsen, Fredi Fischli, Yuji Yamashita.
Keiichi Tanaami (born 1936) was a protagonist of Japan’s postwar avant-garde, and one of the first Japanese artists to successfully blend art and commerce. Tanaami’s artwork was appearing in advertisements and magazines as early as 1962, when American Pop art was still in the ascendant. A trip to New York in 1968 provided a transformative encounter with Andy Warhol, which encouraged Tanaami to pursue several paths at once, and he was soon producing poster designs, happenings, prints and album covers, developing an assured, erotic psychedelic style populated with butterfly women, chimneys and breasts (a meeting with Robert Crumb and an appreciation of American underground comics was also significant). Including collage, painting, silkscreen prints and animation, this volume constitutes a catalogue raisonné of Tanaami’s early work of the 60s and 70s. It includes his illustrations for the magazine Shosetsu-gendai, drawings and collages for Art Journal, album covers for the Monkees and Jefferson Airplane, stills from an animation series made for the film festival at Sogetsu Art Center, anti-Vietnam War silkscreen prints and painting series of Hollywood actresses.
"P.B. Grand Prix" (1968) is reproduced from Keiichi Tanaami: Killer Joe's Early Times 1965-73.
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"The term 'psychadelic' is frequently used in writings on my work. I think the album jacket I designed for Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's in 1967 is where that started, but I have never actually used any term like that myself. The monstrosity of the war I experienced as a child thoroughly wrecked my young mind and spirit, and I think I entered adulthood without ever regaining a normal perspective. I think that perhaps the incoming flares in the dark, the ominous light of the firebombs, the searchlights that illuminated the bomber planes, the heat and pressure given off from the explosions—that almost hallucinatory drama that took place in the darkness was perhaps a sort of 'psychadelic' for me. If there are people who get a hallucinatory or psychedelic sense from my paintings, perhaps that is based on the unimaginable experience of war. The light from the searchlights cutting through the bright red night sky left deep scars in my young eyes and heart." Text excerpt and featured image, "Collage Book" (1969) are reproduced from Killer Joe's Early Times 1965-73, Walther Koenig's new monograph on Japanese avant garde graphic artist Keiichi Tanaami. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 13.75 in. / 350 pgs / 250 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $75.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $99 ISBN: 9783863353568 PUBLISHER: Walther König, Köln AVAILABLE: 2/28/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AU/NZ AFR
Keiichi Tanaami: Killer Joe's Early Times 1965-73 Catalogue Raisonné
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Momoko Fukurama, Shinji Nanzuka. Text by Nils Olsen, Fredi Fischli, Yuji Yamashita.
Keiichi Tanaami (born 1936) was a protagonist of Japan’s postwar avant-garde, and one of the first Japanese artists to successfully blend art and commerce. Tanaami’s artwork was appearing in advertisements and magazines as early as 1962, when American Pop art was still in the ascendant. A trip to New York in 1968 provided a transformative encounter with Andy Warhol, which encouraged Tanaami to pursue several paths at once, and he was soon producing poster designs, happenings, prints and album covers, developing an assured, erotic psychedelic style populated with butterfly women, chimneys and breasts (a meeting with Robert Crumb and an appreciation of American underground comics was also significant). Including collage, painting, silkscreen prints and animation, this volume constitutes a catalogue raisonné of Tanaami’s early work of the 60s and 70s. It includes his illustrations for the magazine Shosetsu-gendai, drawings and collages for Art Journal, album covers for the Monkees and Jefferson Airplane, stills from an animation series made for the film festival at Sogetsu Art Center, anti-Vietnam War silkscreen prints and painting series of Hollywood actresses.
