Aquirax Uno "Kaleidoscope"

Ginza Graphic Gallery

Finished

Artists

Aquirax Uno

This March Aquirax Uno celebrated his 88th birthday. Since the 1950s, for over half a century this talented left-handed artist has been at the forefront of the times as an illustrator and graphic designer. In the 1960s and 70s, he became intimately involved with subculture movements such as angura theater (an underground Japanese avant-garde theater movement), including performances by Shuji Terayama’s Tenjo Sajiki theater troupe, and took the world by storm with his posters and illustrations that dealt with madness, malice, eroticism, and intense emotion. Uno’s posters were so popular they would be taken down as soon as they were put up. And the posters he made for plays before they went on sometimes even influenced the contents of the plays themselves.

At the end of the 20th century, the posters Uno created in the 60s were reevaluated, and his aesthetic which included scandalous aspects matured. Uno’s images of cute and alluring girls in particular still have many fans among both the young and the old to this day. Recently, he has come back in sync with the times. He says that his sense of the distinctive cuteness of young girls he had in the 1960s has returned, naturally enabling him to draw the images of girls he depicted years ago.

“Printing is not the precise reproduction of an illustration; what’s most important is that the results are good,” said Uno expressing his strong long-time interest in the magic of printing. The main exhibition room on the first floor will showcase around 20 original works based on the theme of haiku and girls. The works will be presented in a new way, with designs by Junko Tsuda who used specialized printing techniques to give them new life. The basement floor will feature an impressive collection of around 50 posters from the 1960s which were the starting point for his new works that experiment with printing, in collaboration with the Kariya City Art Museum. The venue will be transformed into a space of synchronicity of new and early works. Experience Uno’s images of girls at Kaleidoscope with their universal appeal that transcends generations.

Schedule

Dec 9 (Fri) 2022-Jan 31 (Tue) 2023