"Tadanori Yokoo: DNF Anya Kouro"
2001-10-20 until 2001-01-14
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Tokyo, , JP

Hara Museum, Tokyo & Hara Museum ARC, Gunma Hara Museum (Tokyo) Morimura Self-Portraits: An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo is on view through October 7 at the Hara Museum (Shinagawa, Tokyo). Hara Museum ARC (GUNMA) Selections from the Hara Museums Permanent Collection Oct. 5 - Dec. 2, 2001 Yokohama Triennale http://www.jpf.go.jp/yt2001/ Next Exhibition Tadanori Yokoo: DNF Anya Kouro Saturday, October 20, 2001 - Monday, January 14, 2002 Memory, objects, people, thoughts, history, culture--things lost or on the verge of being lost are the subjects of Tadanori Yokoo, a leading artist of our time who has striven since the 1960s to recover these things within himself. Active in a variety of areas centered on painting, design and writing,

Yokoo has won a wide and enthusiastic following that encompasses all ages and nationalities. As a leader in his field and a constant source of grand messages, he has had an inestimable influence on contemporary culture and society. This exhibition, entitled Tadanori Yokoo: DNF Anya Kouro, originated in the paintings that Yokoo made of night scenes in his hometown this past autumn. Most of the works in this exhibition are drawn from the DNF: Anya Kouro* series which the artist completed in an incredibly short period of a few months.

In the novel by Naoya Shiga, A Dark Nights Passing, the protagonists psychological transformation is depicted with penetrating realism. Shiga, who developed a world of the self in his novels through the emphasis of feelings, may be compared to Yokoo who once said that it was his desire to depict only those things experienced through his own body. This faithfulness to feelings and thoughts obtained through the medium of ones own flesh and mind is a commonality that connects the two men beyond the boundaries of time.

In DNF: Anya Kouro, the motif in each work is a forked road in the dark, accompanied by a landscape that is fast disappearing from the rational, ordered modern roads of today. This road stretches into two directions, dividing darkness in two, so deep so as to render the destinations invisible, filling us with anxiety down to the soles of our feet. This crossroads, this dark nights passing of life, may be road that all humans must tread, fought with problems and uncertainties. At the far end of the road, a tiny light dimly flickers. It is at once a signpost that signifies salvation, and a light that keeps the darkness at bay. At other times it is a blinding light, or a powerful subjugating force.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Yokoos career changeover to painting. Over these years, he has created works for a number of series. To the artist, making many paintings on the same theme is like collecting a large number of the something that he likes. That is, as he puts it, the taking in and accumulation of feelings within the body.

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