KEIICHI TANAAMI: ADVENTURES IN MEMORY
HAPPENINGText: Alma Reyes
Tanaami was so enthralled by Picasso that he created over 500 pieces of altered versions of the master’s works in The Pleasure of Picasso – Mother and Child series (2020-2023). Visitors’ eyes will rotate feverishly from wall to wall and around Kiosk Picasso (2022), an eye-catching neon-lit news stand installation containing books, paintings, and other media.
Gallery view, Keiichi Tanaami, The Pleasure of Picasso. Photo: Alma Reyes
Another room with life-size sculptures is Talisman of the Baku. Even in his old age, Tanaami continued to work on his memory expression, evolving around the good and evil, fear, death, and Baku the supernatural being. In Inconceivable Body (2019), a concoction of skulls, spiders, chickens, goldfish and winding pine trees on stacked faces embody what Tanaami regarded as war victims, trapped in a Buddhist statue-like figure.
Gallery view, Keiichi Tanaami, Talisman of the Baku. Photo: Alma Reyes
The goldfish had become a conspicuous motif. He had watched them inside his grandfather’s aquarium while war bombs fell from the sky. Later in the 2000s, he envisioned heavily made-up teenage girls with artificially enlarged eyes as goldfish swimming through the chaotic streets. Chickens and roosters are also omnipresent, such as in the enormous murals, Realm of the Afterlife/Realm of the Living (2017) and The Story of Death and Rebirth (2019). He recalled the animals roaring in terror during the air raids, and they remained as dreadful fragments of the war. For Tanaami, the echo of death summoned the fatal source of his creative energy.
Gallery view, Tanaami’s Cabinet. Photo: Alma Reyes
Finally, we can dive into Tanaami’s world of collaborative creations in a glass cabinet of all the brand projects he had accomplished with like Mary Quant, Barbie, Adidas, and more. Costumes, bags, books, records, cups, toys, and all sorts of paraphernalia assemble as fragile souvenirs of the phenomenal artist’s life adventures.
Keiichi Tanaami: Adventures in Memory
Date: August 7th – November 11th, 2024
Hours: 10:00 – 18:00 (Friday and Saturday till 20:00)
Closed on Tuesdays
Place: The National Art Center, Tokyo
Address: 7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Tel: +81 (0)47 316 2772 (Hello Dial)
https://www.nact.jp
Text: Alma Reyes
Photos: Courtesy of The National Art Center, Tokyo and NANZUKA © Keiichi Tanaami
