The Experiences That Shaped The Works of Keiichi Tanaami
We asked artist Keiichi Tanaami about the formative experiences that shaped his current style, including his encounter with manga and comics and how he was influenced by pop art.(July 2020 Interview).
By Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
Inconceivable Symposium, Keiichi Tanaami, 2020 ©Keiichi Tanaami Courtesy of NANZUKA
Keiichi Tanaami was born in Tokyo in 1936. He has been active as a graphic designer, filmmaker, and artist since the 1960s while aggressively traversing the boundaries of these mediums. As a leading figure among the versatile artists of today, and he has had a significant influence on artists around the world. His works are included in the collections of art museums in numerous countries, including the MoMA in New York and the M+ Museum for Visual Culture in Hong Kong.
For readers and fans of manga today, his work may seem far removed from the concept of “manga.” But from the 1960s to the 1980s when the avant-garde art movement was in full swing, his work, along with that of creators from the same generation such as Tadanori Yokoo and Genpei Akasegawa , resonated with the “manga” of the time within the larger framework of “youth culture.”
On the occasion of Keiichi Tanaami’s latest solo exhibition Memorial Reconstruction (held at NANZUKA 2G (Shibuya Parco, Tokyo) July 4–26, 2020 / NANZUKA (Tokyo) July 11–August 8, 2020), where he has converted his own graphical formative experiences, including those related to “manga” and “American comics,” into works of art, we talked with him about what “manga” and “art” mean to him.
Cover of "Manga Shōnen (reprint edition)" (2020)Original Source: Kokusho Kankokai
I wanted to become Osamu Tezuka
During my childhood, I was an avid reader of Manga Shōnen (Gakudosha), a magazine that serialized works by Osamu Tezuka, Soji Yamakawa, Shigeru Komatsuzaki, and other manga artists. I too contributed to the reader contribution page alongside people who would later become famous, such as Kishin Shinoyama and Tadanori Yokoo. That period was just around the peak of Tezuka’s popularity when The Jungle Emperor (1950) was being serialized. I wanted to become somebody like Tezuka.
Kazushi Hara“Kanra Karabē [Laughing Soldier]” vol. 1, p.24-25, from Manga Shōnen (reprint edition)"Original Source: Kokusho Kankokai
Among my father’s university classmates, there was a popular manga artist named Kazushi Hara whose work was being serialized in Manga Shōnen at the time. When my father took me to meet him, he said to me, “If you like manga that much, why don’t you draw some and bring it to me?” And so, for a while, whenever I drew a manga I would have Hara look at it. Unfortunately, he died of tuberculosis a short time later. When that happened, I gave up on becoming a manga artist, thinking, “My path to becoming a manga artist has been cut off.”
Graphic design and art-inclined friends
Around the time I gave up on becoming a manga artist, I found out about the existence of art schools and began thinking of enrolling in one. My mother was a rather strict person, and she had been against the idea of me drawing manga. So, I wanted to find a path that would allow me to make a living by creating illustrations rather than manga. That’s why I changed my direction to that of “study design and get a job” and decided to enter university at the Musashino Art School (currently the Musashino Art University ).
However, the friends I made after continuing my education were people strongly inclined toward the arts, such as Ushio Shinohara , Shusaku Arakawa , and Genpei Akasegawa. Regardless of the fact that I had given up on manga and enrolled in a design course, my yearning to “be able to express myself freely” only continued to grow from there.
While I struggled with that dilemma, I also had some family problems, which is why I went to work at an advertising agency for a bit. There, through the pop art of artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, I discovered expressions that utilized my obsession with graphic design, the manga I kept inside myself, and commercial art.
My first encounter with pop art was when I was a student. Shinohara and I were wandering around the famous bookstore Iena in Ginza when we met Jin'ichi Uekusa, a popular columnist at the time. Showing me the American art magazine ART NEWS, he informed me, “This is the most popular painting in New York right now.” That encounter with pop art, which rejected all of my conventional ideas about art, was a profound shock to me.
I didn’t want to single-mindedly paint “works using my entire body” like Shinohara, nor did I want to do things that were critically refined like Akasegawa. Seeing pop art and thinking, “here’s another way of doing it,” is what saved me.
America and my uncle
Another formative experience just as significant as Manga Shōnen was the American comic books brought to Japan by American soldiers that piled up at the used bookstores during my school days. I bought tons of them and brought them home to read. What’s more, my father’s younger brother was what you would call an “otaku” nowadays.
This uncle died on the battlefield, but he left behind in our house a mountain of treasures that he had collected—an extensive collection of picture postcards, magazines, posters, and more. The materials in this collection, which I later acquired, have also become collage materials in my own work.
Adventures of the Eyes 7 (2020) by Keiichi TanaamiOriginal Source: ©Keiichi Tanaami Courtesy of NANZUKA
Because of those experiences, living in the tightly regulated, restrictive society of design became difficult for me. This led me to quit design and devote myself to art.
A creature reminiscent of Max Fleischer’s animated character Betty Boop is depicted in the upper central portion of this work. Scattered around it are the titles, covers, and title pages of various genres of American comic books that were published during the 1950s to 1960s.
The fighter planes depicted in war comics, as well as Ernie Bushmiller’s classic newspaper comic character Nancy, are motifs that appear repeatedly in this solo exhibition. Eadweard Muybridge’s stop-motion photographs of a racehorse are placed in the background, reflecting Tanaami’s passion for things that move.
Wonder Woman and other heroines depicted on the covers of pulp magazines—sexy female figures that are an essential part of American popular culture—are another light motif of this exhibition. The indecent nature of these references is shared with the American underground comics of the ’60s, by which Tanaami says he was influenced.
Keiichi Tanaami"Cover of Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami",1966Original Source: ©Keiichi Tanaami Courtesy of NANZUKA
After that, when I went to America, underground comics such as those by Robert Crumb were in their heyday. The comic books were published almost every week and I became obsessed with collecting them. There was also a lot of hype around experimental films in New York at the time. Screenings of works by people such as Warhol, Jonas Mekas, and Kenneth Anger were held frequently. These kinds of things inspired me, and I began to think about free expression that was not confined to one medium or genre.
42nd street_Jayne M (1967) by Keiichi TanaamiOriginal Source: ©Keiichi Tanaami Courtesy of NANZUKA
"Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami", "THE PORTRAIT OF KEIICHI TANAAMI _3" (1966) by Keiichi TanaamiOriginal Source: ©Keiichi Tanaami Courtesy of NANZUKA
"Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami", "THE PORTRAIT OF KEIICHI TANAAMI _6" (1966) by Keiichi TanaamiOriginal Source: ©Keiichi Tanaami Courtesy of NANZUKA
From concepts to physicality
In my younger days, I created conceptual, logic-driven works. It may have been that I was influenced by the artists around me. Works that prioritize theory over this or that are boring, and they aren’t any fun to paint. Now I enjoy painting according to bodily instinct. Even if I start with an image of the finished work in mind, I often deviate from it and end up with a completely different painting.
I was also influenced by the films of Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and Jack Smith, and I made many video and animation works. I made a printed film about boxing in which movement was created using halftone dots, as well as a film called Artificial Paradise (1975) that depicted the gradual deconstruction of a single tourist postcard through changes in the colors and halftone dots.
I also love comics by artists like Robert Crumb and Saul Steinberg. As for old animation films, Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941) by the Fleischer brothers is one of the best. No matter how many times I watch the film, I never get tired of seeing the depth of expression that comes from its extensive use of shadows. My admiration for Tezuka’s story-centered manga also remains strong today—I can’t depict what he was able to. Rather than telling a story, I was interested in depicting things that move like living creatures, things that transform. I think my style of visual expression can be traced back to that fascination.
Cooperation: NANZUKA
Text: Hiroshi Odagiri
Photo: TADA（YUKAI）
Edit: Yuka Miyazaki（BIJUTSU SHUPPAN-SHA CO., LTD.)
Supervisor: Hirohito Miyamoto（Meiji University）
Production: BIJUTSU SHUPPAN-SHA CO., LTD.
Written in 2020
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