Takenobu Igarashi
UCLA Yanai Initiative, Kyogen
2017
28 ½ x 40 ½ in. (72 x 103 cm)
Offset Lithograph
Condition: Excellent
UCLA’s Yanai Initiative, founded in 2014, brings together international scholars, writers and performing artists involved with the Japanese humanities. In 2016 the program sponsored the creation of 11 posters by Japanese graphic designers to promote its performing arts program. Many of the designers involved had also contributed to an important 1981 poster series in conjunction with a Japanese performing arts festival held at UCLA that year.
Takenobu Igarashi is known particularly for his work on axonometric alphabets (three-dimensionally drawn letters). For this poster about kyogen, a traditional form of Japanese comic theater, the three-dimensional Kanji characters for Kyogen seem to leap across the page as if in an animated performance.