Tadanori Yokoo

En 2006, the Fondation Cartier devoted an exhibition to the pictorial work of Tadanori Yokoo, his first large-scale monograph in Europe. Yokoo began working on a series of portraits of personalities with close ties to the Fondation Cartier in 2014, exhibited in Tokyo, in 2021. En 2024, new portraits were added to this series of more than 140 paintings.   

Involved in the underground culture movement, he designed posters for avant-garde theatrical troupes and starred in the Nagisa Ôshima film, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1968), a documentary filmed in the midst of the student protests. His later works, such as posters for Tatsumi Hijikata’s Butoh dance performances and the photo album, Killed by Roses of poet Yukio Mishima, draw on ancestral references and reinterpret them in an often irreverent manner. His aesthetic drew inspiration from the style of Ukiyo-e, a traditional technique of prints engraved on blocks of wood. In the 1970s, Yokoo explored utopian and spiritual themes, and in 1976 he embarked on a collaboration with fashion designer, Issey Miyake. At the start of the 1980s, he changed the direction of his work from graphic design to painting, devoting himself entirely to this medium. The spiritual dimension was a central element of his work.