Colección SOLO is honoured to participate in Keiichi Tanaami’s first major show in New York since the 1960s. The Last Supper will form part of Visible Darkness / Invisible Darkness, a solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins and Co. featuring the Japanese artist’s most recent large-scale paintings.
A central figure in Japanese pop art, Tanaami has spent a lifetime blending traditional iconography, contemporary imagery and personal experience. The boy who remembers being “always scolded by mother for drawing manga all day” is now in his 80s, and producing his largest and most technically ambitious work ever. Cherry blossoms, Guzei bridges and Buddha figures appear alongside roosters and tigers, inspired by the work of Ito Jakachu, an 18th century scroll painter. Long-term influences, such as classic cartoon characters and American B Movies, are still in evidence, while sickness, death, and Tanaami’s childhood memories of war are recurring themes.
For Tanaami himself, and for organisers Sikkema Jenkins and Co.,“The Last Supper” is “an incredibly important piece,” a brilliant expression of the artist’s lifelong explorations of Eastern and Western art histories, and American and Japanese pop cultures.
Visible Darkness / Invisible Darkness
17th March – 23rd April
Sikkema Jenkins and Co.