Poster, Laforet / Happy Anniversary,

2005

Nagi Noda designed stuffed animals and bags, made music clips and advertising videos, and created fascinating hair sculptures. Time and again, she struck a balance between mainstream aesthetics and visual disorientation shot through with ambiguity and irony. One example is her poster for the trendy Japanese department store Laforet, in which a powerful fantasy animal holds a petite young woman in its arms—a scene that brings to mind both the French fairy tale classic Beauty and the Beast and the Hollywood movie King Kong. The eyeless beast appears harmless due to its plumpness and its fur of flowers, yet its sharp teeth and claws convey a contrasting air of danger: blood-red petals drip from its maw and the woman’s mouth, spreading over a white dress that signals innocence. However, the mighty beast also has a “bleeding” wound. Noda’s colorful, initially cheerful-looking poster thus provokes a surprisingly equivocal and enigmatic cluster of interpretations. (Bettina Richter)