Tadanori Yokoo

One of the few surviving members of the first generation of Pop international artists, Tadanori Yokoo [b, 1936, Japan] has left an indelible mark on the aesthetic and cultural exchanges between Japan, Europe, and the U.S. since the 1960s.  Appropriating and intermixing Western and traditional symbols, Yokoo’s subversive poster designs were instrumental in the development and dissemination of a new iconography for post-war Japan. 

Moving to Tokyo in 1960 to pursue his passion for painting and a career in graphic design, Yokoo quickly became a rising figure within the Japanese avant-garde. Working across disciplines and continents, Yokoo counted many renowned creative minds –– within Japan, such as the poet Yukio Mishima, and in his visits to New York, figures such as the artist Jasper Johns –– among his many points of connection.

By 1972, Yokoo had achieved widespread international recognition and was exhibiting widely at a number of prestigious institutions including a solo exhibition, Graphics of Tadanori Yokoo, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. During this time, his commercial work included designing album covers for Miles Davis and Santana, among others, while maintaining a private practice of painting.

Yokoo’s work has been the subject of countless solo exhibitions and is held in the permanent collections of key institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Fondation Cartier, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.  Since albertz benda opened in 2015, the gallery has presented two exhibitions of Yokoo’s paintings spanning from the 1980s to the present.