Tatsuo Okada
{{short description|Japanese avant garde artist}}
{{Use American English|date=March 2021}}
{{Infobox artist
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Tatsuo Okada
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| image = Tatsuo_Okada)),_Japanese_dadaist_artist_in_his_work,_Gate_and_Moving_Ticket-Selling_Machine.jpg
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| caption = Tatsuo Okada performing in his work Gate and Moving Ticket-Selling Machine (1925)
| native_name = 岡田 竜夫
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| birth_date = 1900
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| death_date = {{death year and age|1937|1900}}
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| nationality = Japanese
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| known_for = Graphic design and topography, performance art
| notable_works =
| style = Experimental
| home_town =
| movement = Mavo
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{{nihongo|Tatsuo Okada|岡田竜夫|Okada Tatsuo}} (1900–1937) was a Japanese avant garde artist, illustrator, graphic designer, typographer editor and a member of the radical Japanese performance group Mavo.{{cite journal |last1=Weisenfeld |first1=Gennifer |title=Mavo's Conscious Constructivism: Art, Individualism, and Daily Life in Interwar Japan |journal=Art Journal |date=Autumn 1996 |volume=55 |issue=3 |url=http://www.jstor.com/stable/777767 |accessdate=31 July 2020}}{{cite web |last1=Gopnik |first1=Blake |title=Was Japanese Dada Even Tougher Than Its European Versions? |url=https://news.artnet.com/opinion/japanese-dada-new-york-public-library-622340 |publisher=ArtNet News |accessdate=31 July 2020}}
Work
Okada is known for his Dada-like performances and for his 1925 installation, Gate and Moving Ticket-Selling Machine, that was exhibited at the Second Sanka Exhibition at the Jichi Kaikan, in Tokyo's Ueno Park.{{cite book |last1=Weisenfeld |first1=Gennifer |title=Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde 1905–1931 |date=2002 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=0520223381}}{{cite journal |last1=Failing |first1=Patricia |title=Review: Gennifer Weisenfeld's Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde 1905–1931 |journal=CAA Reviews |doi=10.3202/caa.reviews.2002.80 |url=http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/480#.XyRbvi2ZNqw |accessdate=31 July 2020|doi-access=free }}{{cite journal |last1=Maerkle |first1=Andrew |title=Heads Above Water: The anarchic 1920s Tokyo art movement Mavo and the internationalism of the Japanese Avant-garde |journal=Frieze |date=October 2014 |url=https://frieze.com/article/heads-above-water |accessdate=31 July 2020}}{{cite web |title=1923 Action, Mavo, Futurismo, DVL... |url=https://www.asakusa-o.com/en/1923-2/ |publisher=Asakusa-o|accessdate=31 July 2020}}{{cite book|last1=Eckersall|first1=Peter|last2=Rouse|first2=John|last3=Harding|first3=James M.|chapter=From liminality to ideology: the politics of embodiment in prewar avant-garde theatre in Japan|title=Not the Other Avant-Garde: The Transnational Foundations of Avant-Garde Performance|date=2006 |publisher=University of Michigan Press|location=Ann Arbor |pages=225–249 |url=https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/34649/67271_00003243_01_Eckersall001.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |accessdate=31 July 2020}}
The installation was part of the Mavo collective's work in the show, and took the form of a peripatetic ticket selling machine-like contraption that was located outside the near the Sanka Tower gate to the exhibition venue. Okada or another performer would periodically pedal it through the exhibit hall while playing music.
Okada explained to the press that the operator inside, who was "perhaps naked", would extend a black-gloved hand pretending to sell tickets. The gizmo was designed such that it had several orientations, sideways or upright. The absurd mechanical contraption had signage that read, "entrance" "Mavo" "ticket selling place" and "exit". There were Mavo magazines for sale that were stacked on shelves on the sides.{{cite book |last1=Weisenfeld |first1=Gennifer |chapter=The Expanding Arts of the Interwar Period|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780824861025-005/html|title=Since Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, 1868-2000|date=2011 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |location=Honolulu |isbn=978-0-8248-6102-5 |pages=66–98 |jstor=j.ctt6wqh84.7}}{{cite news |title="Kippu uriba ni nyutto kuroi te" {Suddenly a black hand from the ticket selling place|publisher=Yorozu chōhō (a.m. edition page 2) |date=30 August 1925}}
Collections
Okada's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,{{cite web |title=Object in Collection: Aozameta dōteikyō : Shigashū (Tatsuo Okada) |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/820686 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |accessdate=31 July 2020}} and the Museum of Fine Art, Boston.{{cite web |title=Collection: Shikei senkoku (Death Sentence) |url=https://collections.mfa.org/download/438587;jsessionid=69DF43FF10D912D76DA51E5D21A939F3 |publisher=Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |accessdate=31 July 2020}}
References
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Further reading
- Okada Tatsuo, "Ishikiteki Koseishugi e no kogi (ge)" (A protest to Conscious Constructivism, part 1), Yomiuri Shinbun, December 19, 1923, 6, Tokyo AM edition
- Okada Tatsuo and Kato Masao, "Sakuhin tenrankai" (Works exhibition), July 29-August 5, 1923.
External links
Full issues of Mavo Magazine designed by Tatsuo Okada [https://monoskop.org/MAVO]
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Category:20th-century Japanese artists
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