If you go to Weller Court near Second Street, you will see a large sculpture made up of two long white pipes, intertwined in a graceful knot. For most passers-by, the knot is simply a statue, one among many artistic fixtures in Little Tokyo. But for its creator, Shinkichi Tajiri, the series of knot sculptures stood out from all the obscure art pieces that populated the art scene of the 1960s, and offered a clear message to the viewer: one of beauty and of unity in the face of hate. As he explained:
“Art today is so complicated. It’s a language and it’s changing very rapidly. But everybody has certain connotations and associations about knots. I was looking for instant communication. The knot is basic. Put a knot in the middle of a jungle, and everyone knows what it means.”
Shinkichi’s knot not only represents the desire to bridge gaps within society, but also underscores a deeper struggle the artist faced throughout his life. As a Japanese American, Shinkichi Tajiri was one of 120,000 unjustly incarcerated by the United States government during World War II. For the rest of his life, he struggled to come to terms with that experience and his feelings of being entangled in (and with) his American identity
Born on December 7, 1923 in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Shinkichi Tajiri was one of several children of the Tajiri family to have successful careers. His oldest brother, Larry Tajiri, was a journalist and civil rights activist who edited and ran the Japanese American Citizens League newspaper Pacific Citizen during the World War II era. Another brother, Vince Tajiri, was the first photographer editor for Playboy Magazine.
At age thirteen, Shinkichi moved with the Tajiri family to San Diego. Even in his youth, Shinkichi showed a natural talent for art. While in high school he became an apprentice to sculptor Donal Hord, who designed several art pieces in San Diego that remain in Balboa Park.
On December 7, 1941—his eighteenth birthday—Shinkichi’s life changed forever. Within a few months of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tajiri and his family lost their home, which was taken bodily from its location, and incarcerated by the U.S. government at Poston concentration camp in Arizona. While at Poston, Tajiri met the Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, a friend of brother Larry, and assisted him in his workshop.
In 1943, Tajiri enlisted in the U.S. Army—rather than patriotism, he later claimed that he enlisted because it was his only way to leave camp. He served two years in Europe with the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He was wounded in Italy, and after recuperating in an Army hospital near Rome, he was put on limited service in France and Germany until returning to the U.S. in 1946. While stationed in Mannheim, he curated an exhibit of his artwork, which included a series of sketches of his wartime experiences that depicted soldiers and refugees. He then traveled to Chicago, where he spent a year as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago on the G.I. Bill.
Two years later, in 1948, Tajiri left the United States. Disgusted by the racism he faced, he decided to move to Europe to live the rest of his life in the Netherlands—a move he dubbed “my self-imposed exile.” Like famous black American artists and writers, such as Josephine Baker and Richard Wright, Tajiri moved abroad to seek a new life unhampered by racial prejudice.
Being in Paris proved fortuitous; he studied sculpture under Ossip Zadkine and painting under Fernand Léger, and established himself among American artists in Europe. He befriended counterculture filmmaker Baird Bryant, and in 1955 the two made a film titled The Vipers, about their experiences smoking marijuana. It was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and won a prize.
In Paris, Tajiri fell in love with Dutch artist Ferdi Jansen. The two moved to the Netherlands in 1956, where they later bought a castle in the small town of Baarlo. During his years in the Netherlands, Shinkichi earned acclaim for his series of sculptures of knots and warriors. His art never shied away from criticizing the U.S., and his series of machine statues, such as Made in USA, focused on the effects of racism, the U.S.’s obsession with militarism, and imperialism. In 2007, Queen Beatrix unveiled a series of Shinkichi’s 20 feet high statues, the Sentinels (De Wachters), on the bridge over the Maas river by the city of Venlo.
Throughout his life, Shinkichi Tajiri maintained his self-imposed exile from the U.S., which he regarded as a political statement. Yet he never severed away his American identity; he kept his American citizenship, and voted in elections as a statement that he could not be silenced. Tajiri spent a year as a visiting professor at the Art Institute of Minneapolis Minnesota from 1964 to 1965 and again in 1972, and made several visits to the U.S. to share his artwork.
In 1979, the Friends of Little Tokyo Arts commissioned Shinkichi to create a sculpture for the redevelopment of the area. Two years later, in 1981, Shinkichi unveiled his Square Knot, which was installed in Little Tokyo’s Weller Court. Members of the Friends of Little Tokyo Arts suggested naming the sculpture as the “friendship knot” to symbolize renewed cultural and business connections between Japan and the U.S. Mayor Tom Bradley officiated at the dedication, and Senator Daniel Inouye attended.
Tajiri constructed an iron knot sculpture for the town of Bruyères, France, where many of his comrades in the 442nd died while in battle. The knots remain a cultural icon of Little Tokyo, and in 2023 the National JACL chose Shinkichi’s knot as the logo for their annual convention in Los Angeles.
Even as he lived thousands of miles away, he subscribed to TIME, and occasionaly received copies of the Los Angeles Times and Rafu Shimpo. In 1996 he wrote a letter to the editor of the Rafu protesting the addition of a plaque honoring Kajima Corporation founder Morinosuke Kajima to his Friendship Knot without his permission. The letter followed a series published by the Rafu which investigated the Kajima Corporation’s use of enslaved laborers in China during World War II and the company’s firing of workers from the Ohtani hotel for going on strike in 1996.
More recently, Shinkichi’s artistic legacy is continued by his descendants. His daughters, Giotta and Ryu, embarked on their own paths as successful artists and continue to care for the estate of their late father. In December 2023, to commemorate his 100th birthday, his grandchildren, Tanéa and Shakuru Tajiri, curated an exhibit for the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht that featured art from several chapters in his life, from camp, his self-imposed exile, to finally finding a new home and achieving global success.
Like the knots, Shinkichi always grappled with his Japanese American identity wherever he went. Always tied to the United States, even when he journeyed thousands of miles away from it, he remained fascinated and disturbed by the land of his birth. We should celebrate Shinkichi Tajiri as one of the great Asian American artists of his generation.
This article was originally published in The Rafu Shimpo on September 13, 2024.
© 2024 Jonathan van Harmelen
