Nanzuka Underground is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Keiichi Tanaami (1936-). This exhibition especially focuses on Tanaami's early works, in painting and sculpture which restructured his paintings, drawings, video works and silk screens during the 60s and early 70s.

Keiichi Tanaami started his career as an artist in the 1960s. Throughout the 60s and 70s, he had been a central figure of the avant-garde art movement in the post-war Japan. He acted with Neo-Dada Japan, which was a key player in the antiart movement in Japan, established a close rapport with Robert Rauschenberg and Michel Tapié and also worked with Andy Warhol. Tanaami has been highly regarded since then, as a standard-bearer of the counterculture movement which rippled throughout society and effected the dialogue during the Vietnam War, the revision of Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, the Great Cultural Revolution, and the oil crisis.

His representative works from the period include the “NO MORE WAR” series, a prize winning silk screen print work in the "Pacifist Poster Contest" sponsored by AVANT-GARDE magazine in 1968 and album covers for legendary bands such as The Monkees and Jefferson Airplane all of which have left a significant imprint on the introduction of Pop Art and psychedelic culture into Japan. Tanaami also focused on making art books from early on in his career, applying his energy to publishing art books including “Tamago-gata (Egg Shape)” (1963), "A Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami" (1966), and “Kyozo Mirai Zukan (Illustrated Book of Imaginary Tomorrow)” (1969). These works represent Tanaami's focused attention on the possibilities of Pop Art which uses the rules of advertising art by experimentally applying techniques like polychrome printing and image sampling with the concept of replication in his art since the mid 1960s.

Receiving a lesson from Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas around the same time, Tanaami also poured his efforts into making experimental movies and animations. These works have been invited to and highly regarded by many international film festivals and film exhibitions in the past, including the "New York Film Festival" (1976), "Japanese Experimental Cinema” (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1978), and the "London International Avant-Garde Film Festival" (UK, 1979, 2003).

His recent activities include: A collaboration for Paris Fashion Week with Indian fashion designer Manish Arora; A feature spread in the Norwegian art magazine "HOTROD" and Solo exhibitions at dominant galleries in Europe such as Art&Public (Geneva) and Galerie Gebr.Lehmann (Berlin).

This exhibition [COLORFUL] focuses on the early works of Keiichi Tanaami who has been trying to do freer expressive activities beyond the boundary between fine art and graphic art, and attempts to think again about the creative activities still embodying the social climate.

Tanaami comments looking back on the 60s as follows: "When I look back down my winding road I can see bright lights shooting from that special period in the 60's. Everything was born in the 60's: graphic design, editorial design, animation, experimental film, painting, printing, dimensions, and has now matured."

We hope you will be able to visit this exhibition.