Chapter Commentaries 6

In the 1960s, when Uno was active as a graphic designer, he created the poster for ONDINE (see chapter 4), which he made layering photos and illustrations like a block print. Then there were his illustrations in "mini books, full of bewitching but melancholic girls. These included Uno's characteristically delicate and elaborate line drawings in Aido no keifu (Lineage of the Slaves of Passion], "Chanson," and others. All were made using his artistic talents and knowledge of printing. Silk-screened posters, such as "Words of Michelangelo," and "NONÈ NIENTE, NONÈ NIENTE," feature vivid colors and overflow with the fantasy, elegance and eroticism Uno is known for.

In the mid-1960s, Uno met playwright Shuji Terayama and was involved in the latter's experimental theater lab, Tenjo Sajiki. This was when Uno began to create posters for plays. These posters did not merely serve as ads for the public, but they also got theatrical companies, actors and their staff excited. The posters became "symbols of wild enthusiasm and the energy of arousal.［1］The posters captivated those who saw in them a somewhat toxic esthetic, and there were times when the posters hung around town were ripped off the walls by fans who wanted them.

Posters that play to the eye of passersby are inevitably soaked by rain and their colors bleach out. Uno viewed posters, which people saw momentarily as they walked along, as a fleeting, evanescent media. The enormous number of posters he created were all steeped in both flamboyance and a sense of futility.

[1] Akira Uno, Bara no kioku (Memory of Roses), Tokyo Shoseki, 2000, p. 83.