PRADA PRESENTS THE EXHIBITION “PARAVENTI: KEIICHI TANAAMI - パラヴェンティ : 田名網 敬一”AT PRADA AOYAMA TOKYO FROM 3 NOVEMBER 2023 TO 29 JANUARY 2024

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 hosts 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.

 

The Milan exhibition explores the histories and semantics of these objects by tracing trajectories of cross-pollination between East and West, hybridization processes between different art forms and functions, collaborative relationships between designers and artists, and the emergence of newly created works. The folding screens embody liminality and the idea of being on the threshold of two conditions, literally and metaphorically. They cross barriers between different disciplines, cultures, and worlds.

 

Biographical:

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 work first registered the influence of manga and the Neo-Dada movement in Japan, mingling with his childhood experience of the Second World War, a recurring motif via images of air raids, flares, and blasts of white light from the detonation of explosives. His paintings also reflect memories of Kamishibai —public theater productions for Japanese children— that beguiled his mind and eye as a child.

Fondazione Prada