Yokoo Tadanori, "Tadanori Yokoo." Client: Matsuya Department Store. 72.8 x 103 cm. This was a poster for the "Persona Exhibition," a group exhibition by 16 designers held at the Matsuya Department Store in the Ginza, Tokyo, in 1965. The legend at the bottom reads (in English) "Having reached a climax at the age of 29, I was dead." A handsign signifying sex, a photo of the artist at age 1 1/2, and two erupting Mt. Fuji's are placed in the poster's four corners. In front of one of the Mt. Fuji's is a bullet train, a symbol of "reborn" postwar Japan just as hackneyed as Mt. Fuji, a symbol of old (or changeless) Japan.

From Koichi Tanikawa, 100 Posters of Tadanori Yokoo (New York: Images Graphiques, 1978) 17.

 Yokoo Tadanori, "The Ballad To a Severed Little Finger." Client: Yakuza Shobo, Publishers, 1966.72.8 x 103 cm. The black title at center adverstises a book on Yakuza (Japanese gangster) films. In the coins on either side of the title are the book's author, at right, and the illustrator, Yokoo himself, at left. At bottom center is the actor Takakura Ken, the star of many yakuza (Japanese gangster) films of the 1960's. From behind Takakura comes the caption "Shinde moraimasho" ("You'll have to die!"); to the left and right are the titles of two of Takakura's films. At bottom left is a card from the hanafuda card game, often played by gangsters. At top center is the image of a severed little finger: the act of severing a little finger signifies loyalty to a yakuza boss. Koichi Tanikawa describes this poster as Yokoo's "fan letter" to Takakura Ken. (7)

100 Posters of Tadanori Yokoo 22.

 Yokoo Tadanori, "A La Miason De M. Civecawa" (To the Shibusawa house). Client: Garumella Company, 1965. 72.8 x 103 cm. This poster, like the one below, advertises a performance by Hijikata Tatsumi now-legendary dance troupe, the "Ankoku butô-ha." The "Shibusawa house" refers to novelist Shibusawa Tatsuhiko: the "Rose-Colored Dance" advertised in the rose-colored section of the poster was dedicated to Shibusawa. The two nudes are by Ankoku buto-ha's art director, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, after the painting "Gabirelle Distole and Her Sister" by an unknown artist of the Fontainebleau School.

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "The Great Mirror of the Dance as an Immolative Sacrifice." Client: Garumella Company, 1968. 72.8 x 103 cm. This poster's complex visual effect was achieved by placing the color plate for the poster "Hijikata Tatsumi and the Japanese" (below) over the monochrome plate for "A La Maison de M. Civecawa" (above). The final element, the calligraphy with the poster's title, was written by Japanese novelist Mishima Yukio, who was an associate of both Yokoo and Hijikata.

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 Yokoo Tadonori, Poster for Hosoe Eiko's Photography Exhibition, "Kamaitachi no sho." Client: Nikon Salon, 1968. 72.8 x 103 cm. Hosoe's photograph of the dancer Hijikata Tatsumi perched atop a fence (more precisely, a rack used for drying rice plants) is incorporated into Yokoo's design. Yokoo, Hosoe, and Hijikata collaborated in the production of the poster, seeking to apply the ritualistic quality of Hijikata's dance to the design process. As part of this production, Hijikata dipped his hands in gold ink and applied them to the upper corners of the poster.

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "Zoku John Silver." Client: Jokyo Gekijo, 1967. 72.8 x 103 cm. In addition to his work for the avant-garde dance troupe led by Hijikata, Yokoo also produced posters for the avant-garde theater groups Tenjo Sajiki and Jokyo Gekijo. In this second of two posters advertising the play "John Silver" by Kara Jûr, Yokoo combines a silhouette suggesting a strip show with shading, calligraphy, and coloration that evoke Edo woodblock prints. As Tanikawa notes, with the image of a strip show, Yokoo invokes the provocative aesthetic of 60's avant-garde theater, which sought to challenge the complacency of current mainstream theater with elements of "vulgar spectacle." Yokoo often recycles elements from one poster to another-- the hanafuda cards around the borders of this picture recall the poster "Ballad of a Severed Little Finger" from a year before.

100 Posters of Tadanori Yokoo 24.

Yokoo Tadanori, "Yukio Mishima." Ca. 1966. 73 x 102 cm.

From Richard S. Thorton, The Graphic Spirit of Japan (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991) frontpiece.

 Yokoo Tadanori, "Marilyn Monroe." Client: Shueisha Publishing Company, 1969. 72.8 x 103 cm. This is an advertisement for an article on Monroe in an upcoming issue of the Japanese edition of Playboy magazine. This commission gave Yokoo an opportunity to comment on the American actress who had become not merely a pop-culture icon, but an icon of "pop art" itself. He combines Monroe's image with Christian icongraphy and elements of popular Indian religious posters-- a fitting tribute to America's foremost "sex goddess."

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "This is America!" Client: Yomiuri Newspaper, 1968. 51.5 x 72.8 cm. This poster advertises a series of articles on the American forces overseas to be presented under the title "This is America." American president Lyndon Johnson towers over Manhattan, holding a warplane in one hand and a globe in the other.

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "Asaoka Ruriko in the Nude." Client: Heibon Punch/ Matsuya Department Store, 1971. 72.8 x 103 cm. Tanikawa describes this poster as a parody of the "pornographic plague which hit Japan at about the same time as it hit America," (but it can be read as a tribute as well as a parody).Asaoka Ruriko was an "idol" or celebrity, of the day. The text at above Asaoka's neck reads, "I love Asaoka Ruriko!-- Yokoo Tadanori," while the text at the left says "I love Charleton Heston!-- Asaoka Ruriko" (the photo in the circle is of Heston). Three yellow strips give Asaoka's body measurements.

100 Posters of Tadanori Yokoo 45.

 Yokoo Tadanori, "Kataoka Hidetarô." Client: Society for the Support of Mr. Kataoka, 1974. 72.8 x 103 cm. Here, in another of Yokoo tributes, he creates an image of the Kabuki actor Kataoka Hidetarô, an onnagata, or specialist in women's roles.

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "Greeting." Client: Haizuka Publishing House, 1971. 72.8 x 103 cm. After 1969, an eclectic array of religious icons increasingly found their way into Yokoo's designs. In an interview with Fumio Nanjo (Flash Art 137, pp. 96-97), Yokoo claims that he began to see "psychic apparations" after being injured in an automobile accident in 1970. "After that point," he says, "my themes turned to mystic phenomena."

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "There Is No Escape; You Too Shall Sink Into Hell." Client: Mizu Shobo, Publishers, 1973. 59.4 x 84.1 cm. This poster is an advertisement for the religious magazine Suisei. The magazine's name is given at the bottom, and the title caption appears a the top. In between, Yokoo combines the face of Marilyn Monroe with images of Heaven and Hell from an Indian religious picture.

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "Dartimon Cognac." Client: Empire Boeki K.K., 1976. 72.8 x 103 cm. The dizzying and complex montage includes scenes of a march of Chinese Red Guards (bottom left), a Las Vegas stip show (center), Christ appearing above a mushroom cloud (top left) and a floating, electrified glass of cognac (top right). The legend at left reads, "The Vastness of the Universe; The Insignificance of Man-- There is Nothing To Be Distressed About."

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "A Pictoral Record of the Meiji-Taisho Era." Client: Chikuma Shobo Publishing Company Ltd., 1977. 72.8 x 103 cm.

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 Yokoo Tadanori, "Haizuka Printing." Haizuka Prinking House, 1977. 72.8 x 103 cm.

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