YOSHIROTTEN is a graphic artist-cum-art director based out of Tokyo. With his graphic design and other works, he produces everything from spaces to movies to construct a unique worldview that anyone has never seen before. At the moment, he is a creator who is much sought-after from all sides, including fashion and music, as he gives shape to his expression in a variety of different ways.
Graphics that embody concepts what do not appear in the eye and other media, as well as collages, typography, and spatial design that all emit a powerful presence. While his designs take on all forms, we are focusing on typography at this time. We asked him about the connection with graphics and his thought process when he is working on a piece to explore whether there are any common denominators therein. We also posed the question of how YOSHIROTTEN intends to express himself going forward in a world altered by COVID-19. What is on his mind based on his read of the nature of the present moment? We also discuss the next vision for this graphic artist and art director who acts in the whole world.

I have a powerful sentiment of wanting to express
those things which are all the more invisible now

ーーPlease tell us about the graphics you give expression to.

YOSHIROTTEN (YO): For my “FUTURE NATURE” exhibition held in 2018, the theme was “Visualizing the invisible,”, and now I have an even stronger desire to create works by that. I feel if the nature that has persisted all along overlaps with the future moving forward, visible things and what has come to our eyes through intermediary something is a mere fraction of how we perceive. When we shine a different light on them, the landscape appears to change further, and things that shouldn’t exist become visible. That activities such as imaging and depicting these sorts of things make up one dimension of my work as a graphic artist. At the same time, I flexibly create art direction and graphic designs for each purpose.

ーーAre there any aspects of your thinking inspired by a sense of the era?

YO: Yes, definitely. There are a lot of people in Japan who have started to work and act remotely due to COVID-19, but when people communicate over the internet, they aren’t actually in touch with one another, right? I believe there is a possibility that as technology evolves, that these sorts of virtual reality will increasingly become tinged with a sense of reality. For example, it may become possible to realistically project ocean or forest scenery over indoor windows, or even create and let people freely move these pseudo-spaces. I think when this becomes possible, we will come to perceive this as reality, even though what we’re perceiving with our eyes is not actually real. As this escalate, the scenes that are visible to us at this point may perhaps be nothing more than just holes in space. I enjoy giving shape to things by imagining them while thinking freely like that. My intent is to make the viewer recognize how we perceive the real and the virtual through my graphics and design. As the world continues to change in the future, I would be happy if I’m able to present to the world the ways in which art, technology, and nature have become closer in a manner suited to the era.

ーーI think collages are one of the characteristic styles of your works, which serve as a different approach from that of your graphics which express the invisible. What is your think about collages?

YO: This is a closely-held idea that lies at the foundation of my thinking, but I feel that collages are something new that are created through the collision of motifs with one another. Gathering together existing ideas gives form to new designs, and the ideas assembled therein convey messages and come to form designs that leave a powerful impression. I think that the interesting part of a collage is the place you arrive at by combining ideas together. I regard it as one way to further enhance and convey messages you would like to get across.

ーーNow then, what is your think about typography?

YO: Personally, I consider typography something you convert words and characters to shapes thereby instantaneously convey what they mean. There are various different types and methods, and the means of expression vary depending on the typography used to depict something. When creating a typography, although there are times when I customize and adjust an existing font to reach my desired destination, sometimes I make an entire alphabet from A through Z. The times when I’ve actually made a font are when I consent a request and find that there aren’t any suitable fonts. With logos and typography I’ve created to date, including for artworks and the like, a relative majority of these use original fonts. Of course, other designers also do quite frequently.

ーーSpecifically, in what sorts of cases do you create original fonts?

YO: In cases I need to strongly appeal the presence of a thing itself, like brand logos and shop logos. These require a typography with a presence imbued with an atmosphere and appearance that are totally unique to the thing itself. So, in many of these cases, I create an original font or customize an existing font. For example,When I created the typography of DOMICILE TOKYO in Harajuku, the old house renovated with near-futuristic art direction, I designed basic font and distorted it by using a copy machine to express street style of NEO TOKYO such as walking in the town while being drunk with alcohol and music. Conversely, when making the artwork for Stevie Wonder’s album “Love Harmony & Eternity”, I used a basic font that is commonly used all over the world without modification. This words themselves has a strong power, so I absolutely did not need any other visuals or superfluous elements aside from this. Therefore, I represented it with just coloring over the base font. On the other hand, the typography I created for GEZAN’s single “Shomei” (Proof) is expressed in a graphical manner where it is breaking out of its frame. This pattern violates the intended purpose of conveying words through characters, and strengthens the sense of presence by obscuring this. As a rule, those things that are rather incapable of explaining the patterns of techniques are typographical representations, and I find them fascinating for this reason. With the typography for “TOKIO” I made for UT, I imagined TOKYO floating in some future sky.

ーーHow do you personally feel about the connection between graphics and typography?

YO: Both of them have a close connection, with typography broadening the world of graphics, enhancing its sense of presence, and even shouldering responsibility for its explanatory elements. Simply put, I think there are some designs that can be realized by graphics alone, and some aspects where I think adding typography to them to provide explanation allows you to convey your message more powerfully.

ーーDo you ever have any difficulties in creating original fonts?

YO: When I make an original font, I create everything from A to Z, even if they won’t be used. I think you ought to have consistent rules for this. Therefore, the question of how you go about establishing these rules may present a difficulty.

ーーAre there any artists who have influenced you in terms of how you express your typography?

YO: When it comes to the very first artist to move me deeply, that would have to be the fonts of Herb Lubalin. He did the culture magazine called “Avant Garde,” and I was shocked when I saw the way he was using typography in the pages of that magazine. It had this rather free, powerful, avant-garde design for its lettering as I recall. It left a profound impression on me and led me to begin creating my own characters. I’m also a fan of the way Jamie Reid and April Greiman combined typography with artwork. Other artists I like for their use of fonts would include Lawrence Weiner and Christopher Wool.

The real thrill of spatial design
lies in having experiences that stay with you

ーーAt the same time, at present you frequently undertake the design for spaces like the interiors of shops, correct?

YO: That’s right. I produce the spaces for shops and pop-ups, and increasingly I’m creating them in an all-encompassing manner that includes designing the items found within them and images projected there as well. I think that the real thrill when it comes to designing spaces lies in “being able to experience them.” The experience of being able to enter a space created by someone. This is different from a design on a flat plane. Three-dimensional spaces come about as a combination of the sounds, scents, visitors, and various other elements, and I feel that an important aspect when it comes to designing them lies in this fact. Recently, I’ve been working more and more on designs that are represented in 3D and then later recreate 2D version. Perhaps most of my client work is fashion and music. What can I do to make a product more highly visible? Nowadays, when data comes in and instantaneously flows through our smartphones, what can I do to capture people’s gaze, or to make them think that something is pleasant or wonderful? Conversely, can I make something that will give them a shock? While considering these questions, I go about creating designs by altering the technique and expression itself to suit the purpose.

ーーI see. By the way, can you tell us about the products you recently created through your collaboration with TOKION?

YO: I personally came up with these designs out of a desire to create items similar to typical Japanese souvenirs. Therefore, since I love soba, this gave me the idea to have a go at making a soba serving bowl and small dish adorned with graphics. I thought it would be interesting to incorporate a near-futuristic approach in an exquisitely balanced manner by representing traditional Japanese images on a base of vermilion, which is a traditional Japanese color. The graphic consists of an image that is like a new version of Japanese checkered pattern. This would normally be a flat, planar pattern, but I think that representing this with a sense of depth makes it seem futuristic. The typography for “TOKION” was created through a worldview that encourages you to stand right here and grow accustomed to it.

ーーWhat sorts of things would you like to create in the future?

YO: While this is an extension of what I said about designing spaces, I would like to give creating a park a try.

ーーWhy would you also like to do a park?

YO: Perhaps if children were to play in a public space that I worked on the experience may remain itself in their memory, even if just a little. Then, as they grew up into adults, perhaps it would broaden the powers of imagination of those kids. I feel a desire to act in such a way that my creations can be entrusted to future generations in some manner. I would also enjoy it if my park were to be the spark that helped revitalize a neighborhood. Plus, more than anything I think it would be great if fun-looking playground equipment exist in public facilities, right? I recently went to a place where I used to play long ago, and saw it in its current condition, where somehow really deserted and there was nobody there. I felt a twinge of sadness at that. I think it would be a lot of fun to update this place in a manner more suited to the modern age, and feel like this would be something that I could do.

Photography Tetsuya Yamakawa
Text Ryo Tajima

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Hans Ulrich Obrist（hereinafter Hans）：The first time I came to visit you, you told me you had played rugby before getting into art.

Pierre Soulages（hereinafter Pierre）：Yes. I am actually friends with a few players who brought me balls. I have rugby balls here.

Hans：That’s great! Gerhard Richter once told me that paintings is bit like pétanque. So, I was wondering if there was, for you, an analogy between rugby and painting.

Pierre：As I understand it, yes. In rugby, the ball is oval. It’s important because you never know where it will bounce: to the right, to the left, to the front, to the back? And in research it’s always like that. In all research, even in painting. You never know where it will lead you. But I was not a great player.

Hans：But rugby was more important for you than the palm game?

Pierre：No, I have recently played the palm game. I have never been a rugby player, I was only playing when I was a student! What interested me in this sport, is that there is always something unexpected.

Hans：Is that the analogy? “In painting, the unexpected happens.”

Pierre：As in all research. It all depends on how we understand painting. I have never believed in theories before painting, they can only come afterwards.

Hans：Can we then say that there is no a priori, but only a posteriori?

Pierre：Exactly.

Hans：I would like to know how your art began, since rugby is not the beginning. You told me, during my first visit, that the beginning was prehistoric art, the finds of Aveyron.

Pierre：Yes. When I was 16 years old, I thought that the teaching we received was limited to a few centuries. I was going to museums and I was only seeing four or five centuries. In high school, we were taught about art as if it came from Greece, twenty-five centuries earlier. Our culture, the Christian era, represents twenty-five centuries. And I had seen the Antalya caves, which had been painted hundred-nighty-five centuries ago. So I said to myself: “But it’s incredible, we are focused on five centuries and it has been a hundred-nighty-five centuries since men paint!” By the way, a much older cave has been found since then. These questions made me wonder, why do men paint? Why do I want to paint?

Hans：That is a fundamental question, indeed. I have also read the interview you did with Zoe Stillpass for Interview magazine. You told her that already as a child you liked black ink.

Pierre：[Laughs] Those are childhood stories. I was a few years old, 5 or 6, I was dipping bread in the inkwell and when asked what I was doing, I answered: “Snow.” The contrast between black ink and snow made everybody laugh a lot; so much that they remembered it. But there were already telling this story before I was a painter. They thought I was an intriguing, original character.

Hans：This obviously has a completely different meaning today, because with computers the inkwell is disappearing.

Pierre：It is true, it is different. But black hasn’t disappeared.

Hans：Why this idea of working with black and white? Fleck explains in his text that we must not forget the post-war climate, which was very present. Do you think it has something to do with the war or the post-war period?

Pierre：No, it has nothing to do with it. When I was 5 years old, if I liked black, it was not because of that. I liked it because it is a beautiful color.

Hans：Did it come from inside?

Pierre：Of course. It has nothing to do with circumstances, no political significance. Besides, color symbolism was already abandoned at this time. It is an ambiguous symbolism: black represents mourning in our civilizations, but in most civilizations it’s white. When I was a child, I liked black because it is a strong color. When you put black with any other color, very often the other color becomes much brighter. When you put grey with black, it seems less grey, less dull.

Hans：What are your work habits? Do you paint in the morning, in the afternoon?

Pierre：What a question, I’m not a civil servant! [Laughs]

Hans：So you work when you feel like it? Because some artists and writers have a kind of ritual habit.

Colette Soulages（hereinafter Colette）:That’s true.

Pierre：Not me, I work when I feel like it and when I can. Whenever I feel like it. Day, night…

Hans：It’s very interesting to know that you don’t have a regular schedule to work, that painting can come to you at any time.

Pierre：When I start something that interests me, I continue, and sometimes it goes on until three o’clock in the morning. One day, a friend was staying here and saw me awake at three in morning, I had just been working. So he asked me what I was doing, and I told him: “I’m going to sleep, but I am not sleepy. How about you?” He answered: “Neither am I, how about having a drink?” And we had champagne at three o’clock in the morning! [Laughs]

Hans：When you start a painting, is it often finished the same day or can the process be prolonged?

Pierre：Sometimes I work on it for a very long time, other times I work on it for a very short time and it’s already finished. But that’s what I like. The two excesses are being a civil servant – working fixed hours – or manufacturer. I am neither.

Hans：Your work is usually done at 360 degrees…

Pierre：Yes, my paintings are fixed, but if you move them around, they won’t be the same.

Hans：They are never the same twice, in the same way as stained glass.

Pierre：With stained glass, we can see the change from morning to evening.

Hans：Is it different with paintings?

Pierre：Yes, it’s different. The colors of stained glass change throughout the day; it’s interesting because it marks the passage of time. To mark the passage of time in stained glass is not innocent, it’s important: to know that time flows, that it is not the same in the morning and in the evening, it gives you food for thought.

Hans：The idea of time is already in your paintings, because they interact with each other.

Pierre：From the moment you work with light, you work with time.

Hans：How did you come up with the name Outrenoir for your paintings covered with black? Is it a question of going beyond black?

Pierre：I was interested in this process because it’s optical, it’s a physical phenomenon and not an artistic one. Outrenoir designates an artistic phenomenon, the aesthetic emotion that this physical phenomenon provokes in us. What is aesthetic emotion? It brings us to a pleasure, that of dreaming. It reaches our mental field, everything that touches us. This brings us to another question: why do we love a painting?

Hans：Because it is produced to create emotions? It allows us to dream…

Pierre：Yes, but what kind of emotions? The fact that the mental field can be affected by this phenomenon interested me. So I thought it should be given a name, but calling it black was not enough. Outrenoir means beyond black, as outre-Rhin [across the Rhine] means Germany, or outre-Manche [across the Channel] means England. It is something else than black.

Hans：You just mentioned the idea of dream. In the interview with Zoe Stillpass, you said that today we need painting to live in a more interesting way, because it allows us to dream and to create emotions. So for you painting is not just pretty or pleasant, it is something that allows us to confront ourselves, to stand up. Can you tell us about this idea of confrontation?

Pierre：Painting allows us to enter into ourselves. One thing I couldn’t explain is the number of people who cried during my exhibition.

Colette：Not just frail people.

Pierre：Yes. A lot of people wrote to me that they had cried. The first time I was exhibited in Strasbourg I received a letter from a lady who had seen my exhibition. I didn’t know her, I still don’t know her, and she wrote to me: “I saw your stained glass in the Abbey of Conques. I was particularly touched to see how this 20th century creation fitted in with 2nd century architecture. I was so moved that I went regularly to Conques, I found it overwhelming. When I heard there was an exhibition of your work at the Pompidou Centre, I decided to go. When I entered the exhibition room, tears came to my eyes and the further I went the more I cried,” she says, “and when I got to the last room, I cried so much that I had to sit down.”

Hans：Beautiful.

Pierre：She concluded telling me: “I’ve been thinking a lot about why your work touched me so much. I think it’s because you did it with all your soul.” That’s a consideration that I would rather not talk about. Anyway, a few days later, I received a similar letter, and then others. I had received four of five of them when Alain Seban, the director of the Pompidou Centre at the time, contacted me and said: “I’m going to give a decoration to a man who gave a lot of money for the exhibition, could you attend?” I accepted, so I attended this award ceremony. Everybody was very elegant, women were well dressed, men had some decorations… At one point, I took the elevator to meet someone in the street. A man took the stairs at the same time, and came towards me when we were both downstairs. He was a young man, about forty-five years old, with a sporty physique, and he said to me: “Sir, I am glad to see you, I like your work very much.” I thanked him and he said: “I’ve been to your exhibition twice, and each time I cried.” I was so taken aback that a man looking like that would say that to me that I didn’t think to ask him who he was, I should have.

Hans：It’s disarming.

Pierre：Then we went to our respective cars. I thought it was amazing that such different people would have the same reaction. I spoke to Pierre Encrevé [Pierre Encrevé was a linguist, ministerial advisor and art historian specialising in the work of Pierre Soulages] about it, who replied: “They’re not the only ones, I’ve seen several people crying at this exhibition. One lady came regularly, every Friday.”

Hans：It’s very powerful because it’s rare in exhibitions.

Pierre：But the question is, why? I think it touched something deep inside them. Deep down, what is art? It’s not a simple construction, it’s really about something important, something capital, that lies beyond us. It is not a simple activity.

Hans：It’s very moving.

Colette：What surprises me a lot is the passionate interest that children have in Pierre’s paintings. It’s absolutely incredible.

Hans：This was seen in Beaubourg. I saw this exhibition, which was magnificent, and the audience was very young. There were a lot of children of ten or twelve years old.

Colette：Yes, they love it.

Hans：It’s interesting to point out something that Fleck describes in his book about the black and white in your paintings. He says that it’s like zero and one in the digital age, you see? So I wondered to what extend the advent of computer had changed anything. Has digital technology made an impression on you?

Pierre：The computer doesn’t change the sun.

Full interview published in Pierre Soulages by Robert Fleck et Hans Ulrich Obrist, Manuella Editions, Paris, 2017

Pierre Soulages
Born in Rodez in 1919, France. Lives and works between Sète and Paris, France. Experimenting with the color black throughout all his career, Pierre Soulages spreads the paint, brushes it, scrapes it, digs it out with his tools to create unusual light effects. Pierre Soulages celebrated his 100th anniversary last year. For this occasion, the Louvre museum held a retrospective of his work, including new paintings.

Interview Hans Ulrich Obrist
Photography Joe Hage
Artwork credit underneath the painting:Pierre Soulages / ADAGP, Paris and JASPAR, Tokyo ©Photo: Vincent Cunillière / Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin

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