Yukio Mishima, The Aesthetics of End 1966

Tadanori Yokoo's Yukio Mishima, The Aesthetics of End is a wild ride of colour and image. The flat colour blocks create a hallucinatory graphic space, like a fever dream printed on a vintage travel poster. Everything in this print is so purposefully placed, and yet still feels anarchic. There’s a kind of manic energy in the rising sun rays, the choo-choo train and the waves which are all crashing in on each other. What's really going on here? Look at the steam billowing from the engine, this is where we get the most painterly aspect of the image, where Yokoo hints at more chaotic or free approach to art-making. He probably did this to allow us to feel a sense of spontaneity within the otherwise rigid composition. I’m put in mind of Jess Collins, who would collage appropriated images together in unlikely combinations in order to make an entirely new and enigmatic artwork. Both artists embrace the idea that art is a playground for the imagination.