2. Illustrated Book of Imaginary Tomorrows
After becoming a freelance graphic designer, Tanaami took on projects for women’s and music magazines. In 1969 he published the artist’s book Illustrated Book of Imaginary Tomorrows (cat. 2-80), which presciently addressed the information-saturated society looming on the horizon. In the book, he boldly combined mass media imagery with his own illustrations, demonstrating the creative potential of transcending conventional editing and design norms. In 1975 he became the first art director for the Japanese edition of Playboy magazine. His inaugural issue, with an innovative layout seamlessly integrating text, photos, and illustrations, was an instant success and sold out on the day it was released.
Around 1967, in parallel to his hectic graphic design career, Tanaami began creating collages for personal pleasure. His materials included magazines and postcards prolifically collected by his uncle, who had perished in the war, as well as pornographic newspapers and American comics obtained during a 1970 trip to New York to visit his friend Ushio Shinohara. These collages were influenced, in part subconsciously, by his childhood wartime experiences and later exposure to American pop culture. They generated new contexts through the interplay of conflicting images, yielding visual effects that even Tanaami did not foresee. Through collage he established the juxtaposition of a deluge of images as a cornerstone of his artistic approach, which he continues to explore to this day. Although these works were not initially exhibited and were forgotten for many years, even by the artist himself, they were rediscovered in 2012 when approximately 300 collages surfaced in a storage space in his family home.
