Taro Okamoto in Tokyo

Glimpses of Taro Okamoto on television or in photographs often showed the avant-garde artist with his hands moving in circles in front of his face, flashing the cheeky grin and bulging eyes that became as well-known as his proclamation: “Art is an explosion!”

Such expressions and imagery usually found their way into self-reflective paintings and sculptures—colors bursting forth, swirling patterns and distorted facial features—that made Okamoto one of Japan’s most revered contemporary artists.

Born in 1911 in Kawasaki, Okamoto studied philosophy and sociology at the University of Paris before serving in the Imperial Army in China during World War II. Following his return to Japan in 1946, he harbored antiwar sentiments. Soon after, he established a studio in Setagaya that would later move to Aoyama, which today is the location of the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum. He died of acute heart failure in 1996. The installation of one of his masterpieces, “Myth of Tomorrow,” inside Shibuya Station later this month will certainly renew interest in his output, which can be widely seen in Tokyo and the surrounding area. Read more