In March, 11 years later, strong earthquakes occurred in the waters of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, with magnitudes of 6.1 and 7.4 respectively. In the early morning of the 17th, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio said that there was no abnormality in the nuclear power plants.
After the 2011 March 11 earthquake, musician Ryuichi Sakamoto traveled to the disaster-stricken area and saw a piano that had survived the disaster of the tsunami. This completely out-of-tune piano fascinated him. "The waves come up in an instant, bringing the piano back to its natural state, and the sound of the piano tuned naturally, I think it is particularly beautiful."
Tonight at 8:00 p.m., a special online concert recorded and supervised by Ryuichi Sakamoto in 2020 will be broadcast exclusively through Migu in Live in Chinese mainland. For 100 minutes, there was a piano solo by Ryuichi Sakamoto, a solo tripimilar by Hideyoshi Honjo, and an improvised duet by the duo.
Ryuichi Sakamoto hopes that through this concert, he will be able to
"For the COVID-19 pandemic
Life is affected,
People with great uneasiness and stress
Convey comfort
and offer solidarity"
Ryuichi Sakamoto, nicknamed "Professor" by fans, just celebrated his 70th birthday in January this year. As a young man, he formed the band Hello Magic Orchestra (YMO) and starred in and scored the film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. At the age of 35, he won the Oscar for Best Original Score for "The Last Emperor". After settling in New York at the age of 38, he often created on environmental protection and anti-war themes. In 2014, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, and in 2021, he was diagnosed with rectal cancer. The documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: The Finale chronicles Ryuichi Sakamoto after the Fukushima accident and cancer.
Ryuichi Sakamoto in The Finale
Today I will read an article about the Japanese "madman" artist Tadanori Yokoo. He has been good at blending Japanese elements with pop art, traveling in various fields, and once almost joined Ryuichi Sakamoto's YMO band.
Tadaaki Yokoo (1936-)
Image source: A video
Tadao Yokoo's portrait of the era
Jang Gien
Published "Wenhui Scholar" 2018.7.6
Elvie Chantes, Fei Dawei, Jean Nouvel, Raymond Debadon, David Lynch, Takeshi Kitano, Issey Miyake... Each portrait shows the unique personality of different characters with vivid colors and diverse brushstrokes. The author of these more than 100 portraits is Tadanori Yokoo, who is regarded as The Andy Warhol of Japan as an artist, designer, actor, singer, author and other multiple identities.
In 1936, Yokoo was born in Nishigami, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Since the age of 4, he has been adopted by a couple who run a kimono fabric company. He grew up with a strong interest in art, often copying storybooks, picture books or magazine pictures. In his junior year of high school, he won the first prize for the textile festival graphic poster he designed. This led him to pursue a career in graphic design after graduation and to work in printing houses, magazines and advertising agencies. In 1960, Yokoo went to Tokyo to join the Japan Design Center, an important base for graphic design. He arrived in Tokyo at the height of the anti-security movement, and he felt a turbulent and chaotic social atmosphere. On the other hand, because he grew up in a country field far from the city and was deeply influenced by the local culture, the modernist design that prevailed at that time caught him off guard.
4-year-old Tadanori Yokoo
After a brief period of confusion and confusion, Yokoo Tadashi slowly explored his own unique design approach. He juxtaposes and collages Japanese imagery and European and American pop culture, reflecting his true emotions and the symptoms of the times around him. Tadao Yokoo's usual pre-modernist graphics are derived from personal experience, including kimono labels and card graphics familiar as a child, traditional Japanese ukiyo-e, manga lines, and family badges. At the same time, classic masterpieces of Western art, American commercial advertisements and other elements also constitute its graphic picture. Tadashi Yokoo's mixed design language went against modernism, which emphasized minimalism and functionality, so his work was considered "anti-modernist" at the time. But his outlandish design language quickly attracted countless attention and followers, forming a new trend.
In 1966, Yokoo Tadashi created a cover design for Story Collection magazine
The ups and downs of the times and the emerging underground culture have brought a group of like-minded young people together. Tadao Yokoo met leading figures in different fields in Tokyo, which inspired him to set foot in cross-border creation. He designed posters and stages for Shuji Terayama's Patio Tokishiki Experimental Theater Troupe, he designed books for Yukio Mishima, he also played the main role in Nagisa Oshima's Diary of a Thief in Shinjuku, and he even nearly joined Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruto Hosono, and Yukihiro Takahashi's experimental electronic band YMO. Wandering and active in different fields, Yokoo Tadashi gradually became the cultural founder of that era.
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Tadate yokoo and Yukio Mishima
Because he liked Yukio Mishima, he worked hard to become Mishima's close friend
The young Tadano Yokoo and Ken Takakura
Source: Republic of China
In 1967, Yokoo was invited to New York and met artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Jones. Under their introduction, Yokoo gradually experienced the emerging artistic environment and the hippie culture that was all the rage, and he regarded New York as his spiritual homeland. In 1968, Tadanori Yokoo's designs were exhibited in "Word & Image" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Four years later, the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted a solo exhibition for him, which introduced the Japanese graphic designer to the international stage. Tadano Yokoo gradually became known to the Western world and was known as the "Andy Warhol of Japan".
In 1968, Tadashi Yokoo exhibited poster works for the "Word & Image" exhibition
Solo exhibition by Tadatsunori Yokoo, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1972, New York, USA
In 1981, Yokoo watched A retrospective of Picasso at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which completely changed the trajectory of his life. As he himself put it, "Before I walked into the exhibition, I was a graphic designer. After walking out of the exhibition, I am an artist." He then published the Painter's Manifesto, declaring that he would "retire" from the design profession and turn to painting. In 1982, Yokoo Tadashi held his first exhibition, and his highly expressionist style of painting attracted widespread attention in the art world.
Tadano Yokoo was in his studio
In Yokoo's eyes, design is the work of making a living, while art is life itself. The difference between engaging in design and art is that the former is to meet the needs of customers, while the latter is to meet the needs of the self. He believes that artistic creation is completely spontaneous and will change with the changes of life, so art will never stop or dry up.
For Tadanori Yokoo, art is a way to discover and express oneself. He once confessed that his paintings were inspired by his personal memories, daily philosophies, outlook on life and outlook on life and death. Through his paintings, the viewer will see the war-stained sky and the nostalgia of childhood. In 2012, the Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art was established in the artist's hometown of Hyogo Prefecture, which contains more than 3,000 works.
In 2018, A painting by Tadatsunori Yokoo was exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai PSA
Tadanori Yokoo, "Moat" (1966)
Tadashi Yokoo Self-Portrait
Author: Zhang Jian
Editor: Junichi Lee
Editor-in-Charge: Yang Yiqi