Forward to the Past: Yokoo Tadanori’s Road to Hanshan and Shide
Japan
Kobe
2022
17
The exhibition Forward to the Past: Yokoo Tadanori’s Road to Hanshan and Shide presents artist Yokoo Tadanori’s compelling new paintings, inspired by the Tang-dynasty (618-907 CE) Zen monks Hanshan and Shide, alongside key works from his extensive artistic journey. Responding to the profound global shifts beginning in 2020, Yokoo retreated to his studio, developing his “moro-tai” (obscure style) to portray Hanshan and Shide, celebrated for their tousled hair, ragged clothes, and hearty laughter. This collection reveals how an artist’s personal introspection during times of societal change can lead to an unexpected connection with historical figures and artistic renewal, inviting visitors to consider the enduring power of creative resilience across ages.
Why should you watch this?
The film Forward to the Past: Yokoo Tadanori’s Road to Hanshan and Shide is timely because it shows how an artist’s practice can turn isolation into a public language of resilience and wit. Yokoo’s loose moro-tai brushwork reimagines Tang-era misfits as companions for our own fraught moment—ragged clothes and hearty laughter become forms of resistance. A trembling contour that bursts into a grin, or a pale wash that reads like a private confession, mixes unease with solace. The experience challenges and comforts in equal measure, leaving a simple charge: art can hold loss, reopen stories, and invite renewed care for one another.
Yokoo Tadanori’s Haunted Museum
Japan
Kobe
2021
13
Yokoo Tadanori’s Haunted Museum presents a compelling exploration of the intrinsic connection between art and fear, featuring a diverse range of the artist’s works. Yokoo Tadanori has consistently pursued phenomena that remain invisible or unexplainable by science, a fascination rooted in his childhood experiences with profound darkness and mystical encounters in Nishiwaki. This deeply personal history informs much of his art, from his celebrated illustrations for the Complete Works of Edogawa Rampo to his paintings created since his “painter’s declaration.” The exhibition, designed with deliberately darkened spaces, encourages visitors to engage with their own ambivalent emotions of wanting to look yet fearing the unknown. It highlights art’s enduring capacity to interpret and express humanity’s primal responses to mystery and the unseen, fostering a reflection on these universal aspects of human existence.
Why should you watch this?
The film Yokoo Tadanori’s Haunted Museum asks what happens when fear and curiosity meet in the same moment. Drawing on childhood nights of complete darkness and on the unsettling imagery of his Edogawa Rampo illustrations, Yokoo turns the unseen into something you can almost touch. A face appearing out of shadow or a mouth repeated like a chant unsettles, yet also holds you in place. The experience lingers because it reminds us that fear is not only about danger but about discovery, and that learning to face it can change how we see the world.
Curators in Panic
Japan
Kobe
2021
21
The exhibition Curators in Panic addresses the unpredictable realities of operating a contemporary art museum, presenting unique works by artist Yokoo Tadanori, who has continuously redefined painting since the 1980s. Rooted in the early 2020s — a period marked by the coronavirus crisis and logistical demands from the large-scale retrospective Genkyo Yokoo Tadanori — this show responds directly to the sudden absence of major holdings and the challenges of museum governance. Three participating curators, deeply familiar with the collection, selected their personal favorites not included in the tour, highlighting the profound existence of the artist’s full creative output. This perspective reflects the confusion of managing a cultural facility during a state of emergency. By adopting the curators’ viewpoint, visitors gain an opportunity to freely enjoy the viewing experience and rediscover the rich, constantly changing creative world of Yokoo Tadanori.
Why should you watch this?
Curators in Panic speaks directly to the uncertainties of our present, when cultural institutions and everyday life alike are shaped by disruption and absence. The film captures the uneasy humor of curators calling their own exhibition a “state of emergency,” a phrase that resonates far beyond the museum walls in a world still negotiating the aftershocks of the coronavirus crisis. Their candid voices, recounting both discoveries and setbacks, turn curatorial practice into a deeply human story of resilience and adaptation. Viewers are left with a striking reminder that art, even when interrupted or displaced, continues to create meaning and connection.
Yokoo Tadanori Collection Gallery 2021
Japan
Kobe
2021
13
The Yokoo Tadanori Collection Gallery presents a comprehensive view of the artistic world and deep influences shaping the practice of Japanese artist Yokoo Tadanori. This permanent space, established in 2021 within the Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, displays his original drawings, color proofs, and project designs. The collection offers insight into the cultural and historical contexts that fed Yokoo’s aesthetic, illuminating the wider network of artistic references he engaged with. Visitors can study archive materials and works by figures he admired, such as Francis Picabia and Giorgio de Chirico, revealing the sources that informed his output. The gallery ultimately encourages visitors to recognize the enduring dialogue between personal vision and international creative lineage that defines lasting contemporary art.
Why should you watch this?
The Yokoo Tadanori Collection Gallery reveals the surprising connections between Yokoo’s imaginative designs and the works of artists he admired, such as Picabia and de Chirico, showing how ideas travel across time and place. Scenes capturing his bold color proofs alongside delicate sketches create moments of both delight and contemplation, exposing the processes behind visual invention. By following the intersections of personal creativity and broader artistic currents, the film invites viewers to experience the thrill of discovery and recognize how enduring inspiration emerges from unexpected juxtapositions, offering a vivid reminder of the vitality of art across generations.