3rd November,2023 ~ 29th January,2024
Monday ~ Sunday 11:00 ~ 20:00
Venue：Prada Aoyama 5F MAP
5-2-6 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062, Japan
NANZUKA is pleased to announce Prada presents the exhibition “Paraventi: Keiichi Tanaami - パラヴェンティ : 田名網 敬一”, organized with the support of Fondazione Prada, at Prada Aoyama Tokyo from 3 November 2023 to 29 January 2024. The fifth floor of the building designed by Herzog & de Meuron will host this solo show, curated by Nicholas Cullinan, 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 22 February 2024.
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, expanding the concept of his folding screen conceived for the Milan exhibition. His contribution includes a video installation that unfolds like a folding screen, a paravent collage, and a book-shaped sculptures with video mapping, emphasizing the notion of folding and evoking the Kamishibai tradition.
A combination of American pop culture themes with the stylistic features and techniques of Japanese illustration, such as ukiyo-e printing, shapes Tanaami’s commission. Characters from the cartoon and movie universe, set in surreal, psychedelic landscapes, meet iconic figures from artworks such as Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, expressing the rejection of the formal hierarchies.
By privileging methodology over medium, Tanaami’s practice crosses various languages, including graphic novels, collages, sculptures, paintings, and films. If his Milan folding screen results from the crystallization of moving images, the Tokyo installation could enact a reverse process, restoring the original performativity to the images that had inspired it. It will thus delve into contemporary and future declinations of the notion of the folding screen, further bringing to light its confrontation between what is concealed and revealed, withheld and unfurled.
The Tokyo exhibition also comprises a six-panel folding screen titled Flowers and 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, subtly surpassing traditional landscape painting. It generates a dialectic with the kaleidoscopic and colourful intricacy of Tanaami’s style, revealing his connection to art history.
We look forward to welcoming you to the exhibition.
