A towering influence on the evolution and iconography of Japanese contemporary art, Tadanori Yokoo has straddled the worlds of commercial and fine art since the 1960s. As a designer, his bold use of collage, psychedelia and appropriation of popular cultural icons – both Japanese and Western – created a new visual language for the turbulent, youth-charged 1960’s. As a focal point of the Japnese avant-garde, which included filmmaker Akiro Kurosawa and writer Yukio Mishima, Yokoo’s own work and collaborations with his peers generated an indigenous visual language and helped define post war Japan as an international cultural force.