Tajiri…. Photographer, Painter, sculptor, graphic artist . He has practically explored every discipline art has. His claim to fame were his large sculptures and specially the KNOTS are more than impressive. As a person he is even more fascinating, because he was in the middle of things, because of his studies and travels he had met many very important artists.
In 1949 he went to Paris to study with Ossip Zadkine and then Fernand Léger. He met Karel Appel and Corneille in Paris and shows at the 1949 COBRA exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. In 1951 he went to Germany and taught at the Werkkunstschule Wuppertal. In 1955 he won a Golden Palm at Cannes, for his first short film, The Vipers, because of his experimental use of the language of film. From 1956 he lived in the Netherlands, since 1962 in Baarlo. He worked as a sculptor and painter. He exhibited at the famous Kassel documenta II, 1959; III, 1964 and IV, 1968. From 1969 Tajiri taught at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste at Berlin. 1969 and 1970 Shinkichi took pictures of every part of the Berlin Wall. In 1970 he went to Denmark and directed the award-winning documentary Bodil Joensen – en sommerdag juli 1970 about Bodil Joensen. In 1975 and 1976 he recreated the Daguerreotype: surreal portraits, nudes and daguerreotypes of the Wall.
On this last subject www.ftn-books.com has a very nice publication available. Daguerreotyoes were Tajiri’s other specialty.
