Poster, Tadanori Yokoo, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Tadanori Yokoo, considered the most important postwar Japanese graphic designer, has straddled the spheres of commercial and fine art since the early 1960s. Despite his prominence as a poster designer in the 1960s and 1970s, he believes a designer should reject any ideas of commercialism when working, and instead “explore his own themes, his own life, his own thoughts." By 1981, Yokoo gave up commercial work to focus on painting and, always open to new media and ideas, he later experimented with computer technology. His work examines his varied interests in pop culture, mass consumption, Indian culture, Buddhism, spirituality, animism, rationality, and the relationship between East and West. Artistic influences range from Surrealism to American Pop art to traditional Japanese arts like ukiyo-e woodblock prints. This poster for Yokoo’s solo exhibition at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum uses the artist's typical collage technique and mixes photographs with flat geometric shapes. It features a photograph of the designer, and an image of Jibo Kannon, or Compassionate Mother, from Japanese Buddhist iconography.

Poster, Tadanori Yokoo, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Designed by Tadanori Yokoo (Japanese, b. 1936); Japan; offset lithograph on white wove paper; 95.2 x 63.3 cm (37 1/2 x 24 15/16 in.); Gift of Sara and Marc Benda; 2009-12-6