Tarō Okamoto

Tarō Okamoto 1953

Tarō Okamoto ( Japanese 岡本 太郎 , Okamoto Tarō ; born February 26, 1911 in Takatsu , Tachibana-gun (now Takutsu-ku , Kawasaki ); †  January 7, 1996 ) was a Japanese artist. Okamoto created numerous two- and three-dimensional works, which are under the influence of abstract art and surrealism , but also refer to the art of the Jōmon period and the artistic tradition of Okinawa . He was also active as a writer and appeared frequently in the media in the later years. His best known work is the "Tower of the Sun" ( 太陽 の 塔 , taiyō no tō ), which he created for the 1970 World Exhibition in Osaka .

Life

Tarō Okamoto was born as the eldest son of the comic artist and caricaturist Okamoto Ippei and the writer Okamoto Kanoko . He graduated from middle school at Keiō University and in 1929 studied at the oil painting department of Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō (now Tōkyō Geijutsu Daigaku ), but traveled to Europe with his parents in December of the same year and settled in January 1930 Paris down. In 1931, Okamoto, together with Kurt Seligmann (1900–1962), proclaimed neoconcretism as an art movement that wanted to position itself between the antifigurative abstraction creation and the surrealists, but was unable to establish itself as an independent movement. Under the influence of Picasso, he turned to abstract art in 1932.

Since 1933 Okamoto was a member of the artist group Abstraction-Création and showed pictures such as “Raum” (空間, Kūkan), “Kontrapunkt” (コ ン ト ル ポ ア ン, Kontorupoan) and “Band” (リ ボ ン; Ribbon). In 1938 he studied ethnology with Marcel Mauss , took part in the international exhibition of Surrealists in Paris with the painting “Wounded Arm” ( 傷 ま し き 腕 , itamashiki ude ) and was introduced by Patrick Waldberg to Georges Bataille's secret society Acéphale . After German troops marched into France, Okamoto returned to Japan in 1940. In 1941 he received the Nika Prize ( 二 科 賞 , nika-shō ) for two of his works created in Europe . The following year Okamoto was drafted into the military and used as a private on the Chinese front.

When he returned in 1946, he found that all of his works had been destroyed in an air raid . With the literary critic Kiyoteru Hanada and others, he founded the avant-garde group Yoru no Kai ( 夜 の 会 , German "evening party") in 1948 . In 1954, works by Okamoto were shown at the 27th Venice Biennale . In 1956 he designed the ceramic reliefs on the walls of the 1957 completed, now demolished administration building of Tokyo Prefecture ( Tōkyō-to Chōsha ) in Marunouchi . In addition to the “Tower of the Sun” (太陽 の 塔, Taiyō no tō) Okamoto created the “Tower of the Mother” and the “Tower of Youth” for the so-called symbol zone of the Expo '70 in Osaka. Other works include oil paintings such as “Blue Sky” (青 空, Aozora; 1954), “Young Dispute” (若 い 闘 争, Wakai tōsō; 1962) and “The Legend of Tomorrow” (明日 の 神話, Asu no shinwa).

In December 1954 he was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres . In 1981, in a television commercial for video cassettes, he popularized his motto “Art is Explosion” ( 芸 だ は 爆 発 だ! , Geijutsu wa bakuhatsu da! ). In 1991 he donated important works to the city of Kawasaki, of which he became an honorary citizen in 1993. He died on July 1, 1996 of acute respiratory failure.

In 1999 the "Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki" (川 崎 市 岡本 太郎 美術館, Kawasaki-shi Okamoto Tarō bijutsukan) was opened in Kawasaki, which has almost 1,800 works by him.

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Okamoto Tarō . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 1137.
• Tazawa, Yutaka: Okamoto Tarō . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art. Kodansha International, 1981. ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .

Web links

Commons : Tarō Okamoto  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Taro Okamoto Museum of Art website with a tabular curriculum vitae in English and Japanese