More

We use some essential cookies to make this website work. We'd like to set other cookies to remember your settings, measure website use and inform our marketing. We also use content from other sites in our pages, and those sites may also set cookies. More information can be found in our cookies policy.

3. Animation

From an early age, Tanaami was enthralled by cinema. He made almost daily pilgrimages to a local movie theater in Meguro, Tokyo, where he immersed himself in Hollywood Westerns and cartoons featuring Betty Boop, Popeye, and the creations of Walt Disney. His passion for the moving image and visual narratives was further fueled by backstreet kamishibai (shows featuring sequences of illustrations accompanied by live storytelling), a staple of his childhood before the advent of television, and by playing with a magic lantern owned by his uncle. These experiences sparked a growing desire to create his own animations.

In the 1960s, while working as a graphic designer, Tanaami was inspired by the pioneering animations of Yoji Kuri (b. 1928), and began studying film production in Kuri’s studio. Creators such as Tadanori Yokoo and Makoto Wada were concurrently experimenting with animation at the same studio, and in this stimulating environment, Tanaami produced his first animation piece, the Pop Art-influenced Marionettes in Masks (cat. 3-1) in 1965. It was shown in the Animation Festival at the Sogetsu Art Center in Aoyama, a hub for presentations of works by avant-garde artists. In 1971 Tanaami was commissioned to create animations for the late-night live television show 11PM (broadcast from 1965 until 1990) on the Nippon Television Network. His experimental works satirized the mass-produced imagery that dominated the popular media, in a meta-comment on TV’s prevalence as the leading entertainment medium of the time. Tanaami continues sporadically producing video works to this day.