Here's a few soundtrack suggestions for Tomoo Gokita's "Peekaboo" exhibition of monochromatic paintings at Tokyo Opera City Gallery: Mexican ranchera music by Jose Alfredo Jimenez, some late 1990s to early 2000s Latino hip-hop by Control Machete, a spot of Dean Martin, some easy listening by Henry Mancini and Jose Feliciano covers of The Doors. Also Shirley Bassey's "Big Spender."
Gokita is a big music fan, so he would certainly have his own suggestions for what should accompany his expansive one-man show at the gallery. In a long hallway at the end of the exhibition is a grid of Mexican wrestler portraits, each of which includes a reference to a band or song title. The music ranges from classical to classic rock, with sidetracks into eclectic and alternative rock, including the British Foetus Uber Frisco (also known as You've Got Foetus on Your Breath and other like-minded variations), which started in the '80s, and Ween, the U.S. music duo who invented their own demon god "Boognish."
With this zealous interest in music, and a background in illustration and making zines, Gokita's core demographic has been subculture vultures. Described in a 2015 ArtAsiaPacific article as a Tokyo artworld outsider, Gokita has specialized in surrealistic deformations of fleshy floozies and Mexican wrestlers with a precision mix of austere black, white and grays, low-brow culture imagery, kookiness and powerfully evocative draftsmanship.
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