Tatsuo Okada

Summary

Tatsuo Okada (岡田竜夫, Okada Tatsuo) (1900–1937)[1] was a Japanese avant garde artist, illustrator, graphic designer, typographer editor and a member of the radical Japanese performance group Mavo.[1][2]

Tatsuo Okada
岡田 竜夫
Tatsuo Okada performing in his work Gate and Moving Ticket-Selling Machine (1925)
Born1900
Died1937
NationalityJapanese
Known forGraphic design and topography, performance art
StyleExperimental
MovementMavo

Work edit

 
MAVO 03

Okada is known for his Dada-like performances and for his 1925 installation, Gate and Moving Ticket-Selling Machine, that was exhibited at the Second Sanka Exhibition at the Jichi Kaikan, in Tokyo's Ueno Park.[3][4][5][6][7]

The installation was part of the Mavo collective's work in the show, and took the form of a peripatetic ticket selling machine-like contraption that was located outside the near the Sanka Tower gate to the exhibition venue. Okada or another performer would periodically pedal it through the exhibit hall while playing music.[8]

Okada explained to the press that the operator inside, who was "perhaps naked", would extend a black-gloved hand pretending to sell tickets. The gizmo was designed such that it had several orientations, sideways or upright. The absurd mechanical contraption had signage that read, "entrance" "Mavo" "ticket selling place" and "exit". There were Mavo magazines for sale that were stacked on shelves on the sides.[8][9]

Collections edit

Okada's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[10] and the Museum of Fine Art, Boston.[11]

References edit

  1. ^ a b Weisenfeld, Gennifer (Autumn 1996). "Mavo's Conscious Constructivism: Art, Individualism, and Daily Life in Interwar Japan". Art Journal. 55 (3). Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  2. ^ Gopnik, Blake. "Was Japanese Dada Even Tougher Than Its European Versions?". ArtNet News. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  3. ^ Weisenfeld, Gennifer (2002). Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde 1905–1931. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520223381.
  4. ^ Failing, Patricia. "Review: Gennifer Weisenfeld's Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde 1905–1931". CAA Reviews. doi:10.3202/caa.reviews.2002.80. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  5. ^ Maerkle, Andrew (October 2014). "Heads Above Water: The anarchic 1920s Tokyo art movement Mavo and the internationalism of the Japanese Avant-garde". Frieze. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  6. ^ "1923 Action, Mavo, Futurismo, DVL..." Asakusa-o. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  7. ^ Eckersall, Peter; Rouse, John; Harding, James M. (2006). "From liminality to ideology: the politics of embodiment in prewar avant-garde theatre in Japan". Not the Other Avant-Garde: The Transnational Foundations of Avant-Garde Performance (PDF). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 225–249. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  8. ^ a b Weisenfeld, Gennifer (2011). "The Expanding Arts of the Interwar Period". Since Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, 1868-2000. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. pp. 66–98. ISBN 978-0-8248-6102-5. JSTOR j.ctt6wqh84.7.
  9. ^ ""Kippu uriba ni nyutto kuroi te" {Suddenly a black hand from the ticket selling place". Yorozu chōhō (a.m. edition page 2). 30 August 1925.
  10. ^ "Object in Collection: Aozameta dōteikyō : Shigashū (Tatsuo Okada)". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  11. ^ "Collection: Shikei senkoku (Death Sentence)". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved 31 July 2020.

Further reading edit

  • Okada Tatsuo, "Ishikiteki Koseishugi e no kogi (ge)" (A protest to Conscious Constructivism, part 1), Yomiuri Shinbun, December 19, 1923, 6, Tokyo AM edition
  • Okada Tatsuo and Kato Masao, "Sakuhin tenrankai" (Works exhibition), July 29-August 5, 1923.

External links edit

Full issues of Mavo Magazine designed by Tatsuo Okada [1]