PRADA AOYAMA
"Paraventi: Keiichi Tanaami - パラヴェンティ : 田名網　敬一"

Conceived as emanations of the Milan exhibition, Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai and Prada Aoyama Tokyo host two shows, both presenting artistic commissions focusing on how folding screens are currently influenced by our pervasive digital experience. The Tokyo show explores the narrative and performativity dimension of folding screens, alluding to their deployment as props for the Kabuki Theater and in the Kamishibai, a form of street theatre and storytelling by paper images that originated in Buddhist temples in 12th-century Japan and was popular during the 1930s and the post-war period. Keiichi Tanaami (Tokyo, 1936), one of the leading pop artists in Japan since the 1960s, created a new environmental work specifically for Prada Aoyama spaces. His contribution includes a video installation that unfolds like a folding screen, a paravent collage, and a book-shaped sculpture with video mapping, evoking the Kamishibai tradition. The exhibition also comprises a folding screen titled Plum, Bamboo and Mynah Birds by Shikibu Terutada, a Japanese ink and wash painter of the late Muromachi period (16th century). This ancient screen is a relevant example of employing the panelled structure to convey a sense of movement and atmosphere and it generates a dialectic with the kaleidoscopic and colourful intricacy of Tanaami’s style, revealing his connection to art history.