YUKIKO MIZUTANI is pleased to present Tadanori Yokoo’s solo exhibition, “slip off slip – Sure Zure Kusa – with Mask Portrait,” as the inaugural exhibition of the gallery. This exhibition is comprised of woodblock prints inspired by the yakusha-e (portraits of famous actors) of Toshusai Sharaku and the latest works arranged as mask portraits from Yokoo’s previous works such as “Literary Masters Series”, “Pink Girl Series”, and “Fondation Cartier-The Inhabitants”.

The title of this exhibition, “SureZure-gusa,” is an homage to Tsurezuregusa by Kenko Yoshida. However, the actual work inspired by Sharaku’s Yakusha-e (portraits of famous actors) and the title “SureZure-gusa” is derived from the word “suru” (to print/摺る). When Yokoo created the stage art for Jusuke Hanayagi , he presented slides based on the Sharaku’s actor works. The new prints presented in this exhibition are a further development of the aforementioned stage art.Normally, we become nervous not to make “gaps”(ズレ） in the process of printing, but on the contrary, by emphasizing the “gaps”, Yokoo dared to deliberately play a big failure, emphasizing the carelessness of nerves in the printing process. In terms of color, Yokoo also dares to create disharmony in these works. Using Ukiyoe, a popular media from the Edo period, as a motif, Yokoo creates works and reproduces them as woodblock prints, which is similar to the method of Pop Art represented by Andy Warhol.The Mask Portrait series is a reinterpretation of Yokoo’s previous works using the current global pandemic as a creative source.

The mask portraits whose facial expressions are obscured by surgical masks were created and derived from the insight of the artist that accepting and coexisting with viruses rather than confronting them is essential for the pandemic era which we are currently living through.Yokoo’s humor can be felt in these works, which comically and cynically express the current crisis whereby everyone constantly wears masks and the strangeness of his works has become a part of daily life.