A contemporary of Yayoi Kusama and Ushio Shinohara, Keiichi Tanaami paints for nine hours a day, every day. His oeuvre is broad — from film, illustration and painting, to art direction at Japanese Playboy. BAM Editor Alana Wilson visited Tanaami in his Tokyo studio.

Alana. You experienced the shocking trauma of war as a young child — the Bombing of Tokyo. How does this manifest in your art?

Keiichi. When I was a small child, I experienced a military airplane come to Tokyo and exploding bombs over the city. At that time, my mother and I went down to an underground bunker, with others, while the bombs exploded. Many airplanes came and dropped bombs over one area. It was a carpet explosion, designed to destroy everything. When I was leaving the bunker with my mother, I saw many dead bodies of people who did not escape the explosion. The bodies were there on the ground. One week, the bombs dropped every single night. The American airplanes continued to drop bombs over Tokyo. Each time, we would run away and hide down in the bunker. After the explosion, we would return home. There were always many dead bodies everywhere. My mother tried to hide my eyes from the horror. Consciously, I remember the images — I could see the bodies, even though my mother tried to shield me. Every day I saw this. I was small, but I understood that my mother didn’t think I should see this. At that time, there was no psychiatrist available …subconsciously, the trauma still affects me. After the Tokyo bombings, many people moved into the countryside, where there were fewer air raids. While we lived there in the countryside, in Niigata, I caught the train back to Tokyo, to my old neighbourhood of Meguro. When I was living there, it was a normal town. But now, the whole town was gone. I remember the ground was all burned and red. But at the horizon line, the sky was still totally blue. This was a strong impression. This is why when I’m painting, I try to use red and blue colours. I’m not painting about the war visions, but that impression of the strong traumatic experience affects my art. For example, when we lived in the countryside in Niigata during the air raids, we rented a small farmhouse. Sometimes there were American airplanes passing overhead, and the chickens would panic — 200 or 300 chickens together. And their combs would get very red, and they would squawk. Their combs looked like they were on fire. For a long time since I always use imagery of chickens as a symbol of fire. So this is in my work ever since.

Alana. What about Neo-Dadaism appeals to you?

Keiichi. Neo-Dadaism had a strong influence on me — especially the work of Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg. My experience of independent films and this Neo-Dadaism in the USA had a big impact on my work. Shusaku Arakawa was a Japanese Neo-Dada artist in New York, and he was one of my friends. When I returned to Japan, I continued to be influenced by Neo-Dadaism. We had a parallel Japanese Neo-Dada artist collective in the 1960s, called the Neo-Dada Organisers. That was managed by one of my best friends, Ushio Shinohara. We made very experimental, deconstructed art.

Alana. Ah yes! Shinohara and his wife Noriko were the focus of the documentary film Cutie and the Boxer by Zachary Heinzerling. He still lives in Brooklyn! Are there certain aspects of American culture that appeal to you?

Keiichi. Yes. He is my best friend. After the war in Japan, around 1946, the only American films we could see were imported propaganda films. They were the only American films the cinema could buy. I was watching them all the time in the Meguro cinema, along with all the other kids. The films had very beautiful actresses, big dinners, tall buildings. At that time, Japanese kids really liked the United States and were kind of brainwashed. I was one of them. I really liked American culture. There were lots of B-grade western movies playing. All the kids watched them — many films with Roy Rogers. We thought it was very cool. These screenings were very popular with the kids. At that time the western actors would always visit the cinemas in-person, before the screening. Once, Roy Rogers came and shot an apple off another actor’s head on the stage, right in front of us kids before the movie started. We were amazed.

Alana. Would you please tell me about your work with video? How did you come to be interested in making video art?

Keiichi. As a child, around 12 or 14, I was living in Meguro, a neighbourhood in Tokyo. There was a B-grade cinema there, and I was going every day. They showed lots of anime, manga movies, Disney, Popeye movies. I watched them, and they were very influential and interesting to me. That was the first time I was exposed to animation, and I became very interested in it. In 1967 I went to New York, and independent films were popular there. I saw films by Warhol, Jonas Mekas, Kenneth Anger. These films were everywhere in New York — and it was the first time I was exposed to them. I was shocked and very intrigued. At that time, commercial films usually had a traditional narrative, music, a set structure. But independent films had no rules. It was about making art rather than making money. For example, Warhol’s film Empire, which shows footage of the Empire State Building for eight hours straight. Another had a camera set on top of a mountain, just turning 180 degrees. So I felt very amazed about these kinds of movies, and when I returned to Tokyo, I endeavoured to make experimental films like these. While making these movies, I was painting as well. I showed an experimental movie in Japan and overseas. It was kind of a boxing movie in stop-motion animation. When I make a movie, I think of the images of the movie as layered, much like the dots in offset printing form to make an image. I try to use this technique to experiment. That kind of animation is related to my recent work.

Alana. Would you mind telling us a little bit about your lifestyle? Is art your primary focus, do you have other interests as well?

Keiichi. Every single day I paint.

Alana. Your art can be described as psychedelic. Do you have any interest in or experience with altered states of consciousness?

Keiichi. In the American 1950s on the west coast, there was the beat culture, which started with Kerouac and Ginsberg, and afterwards, there was the hippy culture. There were many psychedelic posters out there advertising music such as Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane, influenced by acid and drugs. That influenced me heavily. They were psychedelic Art Nouveau posters. Then I learned these posters were not for commercial purposes — they were for looking at while high. When I returned to Japan, I was organising poster events, but they were all cancelled because the drug culture was not allowed. The drugs and these posters were inseparable, so it wasn’t possible in Japan. Many people said my artwork was psychedelic, but it wasn’t influenced by acid or drug culture. It was more about my early experiences of war — the flashes of colour and strong experiences.

Alana. Did you ever try psychedelic drugs?

Keiichi. In America, at that time, it wasn’t illegal. You could buy it very easily in Greenwich Village. Drugs and alcohol were very common. Everyone was doing drugs during Kennedy’s time, but once Johnson came into power, that stopped.

Alana. How would you describe the influence that Andy Warhol had upon you?

Keiichi. After graduating from school, I went to the only Western book store in my area. There, I saw art books by Andy Warhol and Lichtenstein. It was my first experience of pop art, and it had a strong impression on me. And afterwards, I was exposed to his his magazine, Interview. He published many books, and I got into all of his work. Like his book that he published about one single day —all the things that happened in one day. That really surprised me that it was a kind of novel or artwork. I was very influenced by Warhol’s thinking of what art is. He came to Japan in 1974, and at that time the public broadcasting channel NHK was trying to make some sort of special broadcast about the visit, and they wanted him to be the art director for the program. But Warhol when he came, he wasn’t happy, and he was just putting his head down, and he looked miserable, so the broadcast was just cancelled. They couldn’t use the footage. At that time, I made an animation about Warhol for NHK, which was aired. Years later, somebody showed Warhol my animation, and he really liked it. Recently, people tried to have the animation broadcast exhibited, but they couldn’t get the copyright …

Alana. Which other artists have had a strong impression on you?

Keiichi. A Japanese artist named Itō Jakuchū. Mostly, I prefer Edo era Japanese artists like Hokusai. Also Dali, Giorgio de Chirico.

Alana. You did the album cover artwork for Jefferson Airplane and The Monkees. What kinds of music do you listen to?

Keiichi. I listen to Japanese folk music. I also like rock. There is a rock radio station here in Tokyo, which I put on while I’m working.

Alana. Do you have a daily ritual or schedule for making art, or are you more spontaneous?

Keiichi. My daily schedule is exact. The time is important. I have set times for everything. I wake at eight o’clock and eat breakfast. Then I go outside for a walk. Then I go to the studio all day, until seven o’clock. Then I go home and have dinner at seven-thirty. At ten-thirty I take a bath. I go to sleep at eleven-thirty. I really have to follow that schedule, or I can’t work.

This interview originally appeared in BAM Issue #14, 2018.