An exhibition presented by Prada with the support of Fondazione Prada. The solo show, curated by Nicholas Cullinan, is in conjunction with the extensive group exhibition “Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries” on view at Fondazione Prada in Milan from 26 October 2023 to 26 February 2024.
PRADA AOYAMA 3 November 2023 - 29 January 2024 5-2-6 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo Monday to Sunday: 11am - 8pm
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.
Rising to prominence in the 1960s, Keiichi Tanaami (b. 1936, Tokyo) found early success by creating images now deeply forged in the cultural landscape of both Japan and the United States. He is widely considered the progenitor of the Superflat movement, embodied today by Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara, among others. Tanaami’s artistic practice is likewise characterized by an intensive cross-pollination between modes of production—drawing, painting, collage, graphic illustration, film, and sculpture. In his large-scale works, American pop iconography is placed into complex conversation with historic forms of Japanese illustration, such as traditional ukiyo-e wood-block printing. Tanaami’s work has been the subject of numerous international solo exhibitions at both public institutions and galleries, it is also held in the permanent collections of public institutions around the world.
