Audio guide

PROLOGUE Bridges: A Border Between the Secular and the Sacred

Hello, and welcome to the Keiichi Tanaami: Adventures in Memory audio guide.

In front of you is a distorted, layered series of arched Japanese bridges. This is A Hundred Bridges, a new installation created by Keiichi Tanaami for this exhibition. What meanings does it contain?

The secret to that lies in Tanaami’s own memories. For instance, his childhood experiences during the war: he recalls seeing the sky during an air raid, with flames from the city drawing a bright red arc like a huge arched bridge. Also, he recalls the vivid red arched bridge at the Meguro Gajoen wedding hall, where he played after kindergarten. And there is a range of other imagery associated with bridges. In the past, bridges were places where diverse people gathered, free from social hierarchies, creating a kind of otherworldly space. Tanaami himself has said, “A bridge connects this world and the next, the profane and the sacred. I am fascinated by the otherworld beyond.”

By collaging together his own memories with countless images he has encountered over the years, Tanaami creates an alien realm all his own. Using this approach, he has produced an astonishing number of works. The bridge before you serves as a mysterious link between our everyday world and the cosmos of Tanaami’s art. Now, let’s embark on a grand journey through Keiichi Tanaami’s Adventures in Memory.

<Chapter1> NO MORE WAR

A stunning array of graphics, bursting with color and dynamism—these are works created by Keiichi Tanaami in the 1960s.

Growing up in Tokyo, a city rising from the ashes of war, young Tanaami was enthralled by boys’ comics and American B-movies. He aspired to become a painter, but his mother discouraged him on the grounds that there was no way he could make a living at it. So he enrolled in the design department of Musashino Art School, now known as Musashino Art University. Inspired by artists of his age group such as Ushio Shinohara and Genpei Akasegawa, Tanaami began his career as a graphic designer after winning an award for a poster he created while still a student.

The 1960s were a time of flourishing youth culture worldwide, particularly in the US and the UK. Tanaami absorbed this energy, and created posters and art books influenced by Pop Art. It was a time when design was viewed as an “applied art” and did not qualify as “pure art.” In defiance of this bias, Tanaami began exploring new artistic possibilities through printing techniques.

In 1968, his work titled NO MORE WAR won an American anti-war poster competition. While establishing a reputation in design, Tanaami also remained deeply committed to creating fine art.

In this section, witness his experimental spirit transcending boundaries between art and design.

<Chapter2> Illustrated Book of Imaginary Tomorrows

Encyclopedia of the Imaginary Future—it’s a title tinged with irony. In this visual book, published in 1969, Tanaami brought together fabricated images found in advertisements, newspapers, and other media, using print as a platform to communicate his message. Tanaami’s stance toward society, and his rejection of divisions between design and art, are clearly evident here.

In 1970, Tanaami made his first trip to New York, where he immersed himself in the underground culture of experimental films, music, and comics. He was struck by radical forms of media expression that disrupted social norms, in print, on film, and at live performances. Deeply inspired, Tanaami began collecting underground comics and pornographic newspapers, which he later used as material for collages. In fact, collage became one of Tanaami’s signature techniques. Enthralled by the process of combining disparate images to create entirely new ones, he continued producing these works in private.

In 1975, the Japanese edition of PLAYBOY was launched, and Tanaami joined the team as art director. Working with photographers and illustrators, he devised a bold visual style that helped the magazine achieve sales of one million copies, all while continuing to work on his collages. Tanaami had the ability to seamlessly manipulate images from across eras and cultures, and his quiet enjoyment of the creative process comes across powerfully in these works.

<Chapter4> Artificial Paradise

Here’s a question that may surprise you: Have you ever experienced hallucinations? In this section are works that Tanaami produced in the 1980s. Cranes, turtles, pine trees, the moon, waves… in a radical departure from his previous Pop-inspired style, the works are now filled with bizarre and enigmatic motifs.

In 1981, Tanaami found himself confined to a hospital bed. After years of a hectic lifestyle, fluid had accumulated in his lungs, leaving him gasping for breath and hovering between life and death. As he lay feverishly in bed, the pine trees outside his window twisted and undulated, and visions of Salvador Dali paintings and childhood memories appeared and vanished. Was it a dream or reality? Over his four months in the hospital, Tanaami began sketching the visions he beheld in a notebook.

Weird images, like nothing he had seen before, began bubbling up from the depths of his mind. For Tanaami, this was a life-altering experience. Around the same time, he had also traveled to China, where he was fascinated with exotic motifs like cranes, turtles, and immortals frolicking in heavenly realms. As he faced mortality and his own memories, Tanaami explored his inner visions through various media, including printmaking, painting, and sculpture, continuously combining, transforming, and reinterpreting the surreal inner visions he described as an “artificial paradise.” In this section, immerse yourself in this world where hallucination and reality converge.

<Chapter5> “The Trip to Stir Memories”

Snails, turtles, rhinoceroses, human figures with long noses and large ears like elephants, all rendered in swirling lines. These are some of the drawings that Tanaami has been creating daily for decades. What thoughts underlie them?

Around 1990, Tanaami developed a routine of retreating to a small, four-and-a-half-tatami room – about seven square meters – in his home after dinner. There, he unearthed memories and drew the images that surface. Through this process, he solidified chaotic memories and gained a grasp of the flow of time. Eventually, Tanaami found that he could freely travel back in time, a sensation he likened to the film Back to the Future.

Another practice Tanaami adopted was keeping a dream journal. Inspired by Myoe, a monk who lived around 1200 AD and reportedly became capable of lucid dreaming by recording his dreams, Tanaami diligently kept a nightly dream journal. However, after about ten years, his health began to decline, as his desire to have more vivid and thrilling dreams had become so intense that he could no longer sleep well. These drawings depict visions that emerge from a maelstrom of memories, dreams, and imagery from famous paintings. Have you ever had dreams like these?

<Chapter7> The Labyrinth of Arcimboldo

In the center of the gallery stand huts shaped like human faces. One of them has a face composed of fruits and vegetables such as grapes and pears. Does it seem familiar? It’s actually a tribute to the trompe-l’œil paintings of the 16th-century Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Since childhood, Tanaami was fascinated by intricate and bizarre creations, like Meguro Gajoen, described as a 20th-century version of a fairytale castle, and the works of Arcimboldo. These creations are like labyrinths conjured by extraordinary human imagination, blending terror and mystery with exhilarating exploration, leaving viewers both unsettled and intrigued.

Tanaami, too, has constructed his own labyrinth of images. Let us offer you a glimpse into its secrets. In the hut modeled after Tanaami’s studio, you’ll see graphic design blueprints that detail the layouts of various works. On these sheets, Tanaami affixes color specification chips alongside copies of his drawings. His assistants then input this information into a computer to generate digital files. At this stage, the original drawings are not yet fully colored, but in Tanaami’s mind, the finished composition is already “visible.” This is the remarkable power of imagination. Be sure to compare these color specification sheets with the completed posters!

<Chapter8> Memory Reconstruction

Tanaami’s grand journey through “adventures in memory” continued into the 2000s. Around this time there was a shift in his creative environment. This was spurred by a reappraisal of his work by people of younger generations, leading to increased collaborations in the fashion and music industries. This catapulted Tanaami to international fame via the internet. As his presence in magazines and online expanded, Tanaami described his creative method as “combining and editing images from dreams and memories.”

But what does it mean to “edit memories”? This concept is rooted in the psychological theory that people unconsciously alter their own memories throughout their lives. For instance, Tanaami remembers seeing the scales of his grandfather’s goldfish shimmering in the glow of flames during air raids as a child. His mother contended that this could not have happened, but then where did those memories come from? As if confronting this enigma, Tanaami began repeatedly depicting goldfish.

In the 2010s, Tanaami began producing works that freely merged his fragmented memories with magazine cutouts and American comics. His approach involves densely collaging images he has accumulated over time, and it extends beyond 2D media to sculptures and video works. For Tanaami, art is an ongoing process of linking and layering memories. Understanding his creative process may deepen our appreciation of his works.

<Chapter9> The Pleasure of Picasso

The walls are filled with countless paintings, all created over a four-year period starting in 2020 and all inspired by the paintings of Pablo Picasso. Why the obsession with Picasso? The answer lies in something that swept the world in 2020. Of course, that was the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tanaami, who had been constantly busy with overseas exhibitions and collaborative projects, suddenly found himself at loose ends due to lockdowns and border closures. This left him feeling a profound emptiness. It was then that he rediscovered a work he had made earlier, which juxtaposed characters from Astro Boy with a Picasso painting of a mother and child. Recalling his student days, he thought “Why not try copying after a painting again?” This idea led him to pick up a brush, and he found the activity surprisingly engaging, becoming deeply absorbed.

Without specific goals or looming deadlines, Tanaami spent his days enthusiastically painting alone. Gradually, he began to deviate from the original painting, adding his own unique interpretations. In all, he produced over 700 pieces. Now in his mid-eighties, Tanaami had discovered an unexpected new creative path. In solitude, he rediscovered the joy of painting and made continuous advances. Imagine the figure of Tanaami hard at work as you enjoy these paintings.

<Chapter10>Talisman of the Baku

Here’s another question for you: What would you do if creatures that could never exist in reality appeared in your dreams? While pleasant dreams are welcome, no one wants to have a nightmare. Actually, in ancient Japan, people placed a talisman depicting a baku, a mythical creature said to devour dreams, as a protective charm under their pillows to prevent bad dreams from coming true.

So, what kind of magic does Tanaami use? The subjects of his works are bizarre and otherworldly. Skeletons, venomous spiders, hybrids of high school girls and goldfish… but the overall impression is somehow cheerful. Eerie, but evocative of Pop Art, and at the same time so sophisticated. This is the magic that Tanaami works. Confronting memories that evoke death, like his wartime experiences or hallucinations seen while hospitalized, he combines them with pleasing visual patterns and continually superimposes them. The end result of this process is his art. For Tanaami, creative output might be a daily “protective charm” that converts negative emotions into positive.

American fighter planes and arched Japanese bridges, chickens from the paintings of Ito Jakuchu, female nudes... In Tanaami’s world, worldviews of different countries and eras, and even life and death themselves, coexist on the same plane. He does not let memories lie there gathering dust. Herein lies the key to Tanaami’s ever-evolving mental universe.

<Chapter 11> Keiichi Tanaami × Fujio Akatsuka

Tanaami’s “adventures in memory” encompass images from many different eras and cultures, from 18th-century Japanese painter Ito Jakuchu to Pablo Picasso. One stunning episode during this journey was his collaboration with Fujio Akatsuka, Japan’s “king of gag manga.”

This project merged Akatsuka’s iconic characters like the magical girl Himitsu no Akko-chan with her distinctive red ribbon, eccentric neighbor Rerere no Ojisan and eel-dog Unagi-inu from Tensai Bakabon, Iyami, known for the “Sheeeh!” pose, and the stray cat Nyarome. These characters from Akatsuka’s manga, beloved for over half a century, produce surprising synergies with Tanaami’s motifs, complete with onomatopoeic sounds like “Jaan!”, “Bokaboka!”, and “Dogachin!” But how did such a fusion come to pass?

The project was inspired in 2022 when the publisher Shueisha decommissioned its gravure printing presses. Asked to create a work commemorating the occasion, Tanaami proposed a posthumous collaboration with Akatsuka. In fact, as a child Tanaami had aspired to be a manga artist, and had profound admiration for Akatsuka, a member of his own generation. This project pushed the boundaries of gravure printing, which had long been a cornerstone of manga and magazine production.

Here you can see the outcome. It’s a groundbreaking series of print art collaboration between Keiichi Tanaami, the “king of adventures in memory,” and Fujio Akatsuka, the gag manga king, using state-of-the-art printing technology. At the time, Tanaami was 86 years old. It raises the question: how much further might Tanaami’s mental universe expand?