Uno Aquirax (宇野亜喜良) Silk‑Screen Poster – Slaves of Passion (愛奴), Mika Ito Bizarre Ballet Group 2nd Performance, 1968, B1 Size (c.72 × 103 cm)

Uno Aquirax (宇野亜喜良) Silk‑Screen Poster – Slaves of Passion (愛奴), Mika Ito Bizarre Ballet Group 2nd Performance, 1968, B1 Size (c.72 × 103 cm)

This is an original Japanese silk‑screen poster printed in 1968 to promote Mika Ito’s Bizarre Ballet Group second performance Aido (愛奴, often translated “Slaves of Passion” or “Love Slave”) at Shinjuku Kosei Nenkin Hall in Tokyo. The design is a landmark work by visionary illustrator Uno Aquirax (also romanised “Aquirax Uno”), whose hallucinatory, erotic‑surreal imagery defined Japan’s 1960s underground theatre and dance scene. The composition—an elongated nude emerging from the plumage of a hypnotic owl, jewelled chains doubling as bondage—captures Uno at his most decadent and iconic.

Museum significance
This image is now firmly canonised in the history of Japanese graphic art. A B2 variant of the same design, catalogued as Slaves of Passion (Mika Ito Bizarre Ballet Group), is held in the collection of the National Museum of Art, Osaka. A full‑size B1 silk‑screen impression, with near‑identical dimensions to the poster offered here (c.102.7 × 72.7 cm), is preserved at Kariya City Art Museum and listed on Art Platform Japan as Mika Ito Bizarre Ballet Group 2nd Performance “Aido” Poster. Uno’s 1960s theatre and ballet posters, including his collaborations with Mika Ito, have been repeatedly showcased in major retrospectives—from the 2010 Aquirax Uno survey at Kariya City Art Museum to the 2022–23 exhibition AQUIRAX UNO KALEIDOSCOPE at ginza graphic gallery and the vast 2024 solo exhibition AQUIRAX UNO at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.

Condition
The poster is in outstanding original condition for its age—over 55 years old—with rich, saturated inks and beautifully preserved metallic silver ground. The paper remains crisp and bright with only minor edge waviness and a few tiny handling marks visible under raking light; there are no folds, pinholes, writing, tape stains or losses. Overall it presents exceptionally well and is ready to frame as‑is, without the need for restoration.

Why this poster matters
Mika Ito (1936–1970) was a legendary avant‑garde dancer and founder of the Mika Ito Bizarre Ballet Group, notorious for performances that foregrounded nudity, bondage and erotic ritual; she adapted controversial texts such as Story of O and became a cult figure before her sudden death in 1970. Aido was her ambitious dance adaptation of writer Isamu Kurita’s novel Aido (San’ichi Shobo, 1967), for which Uno had also provided the erotically charged book design. The music for this production was composed by Toshi Ichiyanagi, one of Japan’s most important post‑war experimental composers and an early collaborator of John Cage, situating the performance at the crossroads of avant‑garde dance, literature and new music.

In this poster, Uno compresses all those currents into a single, unforgettable image: part European decadent engraving, part Japanese shōjo manga, part psychedelic hallucination. The owl—symbol of nocturnal knowledge—engulfs the dancer’s body, whose beaded chains double as both jewellery and restraint. Printed via silk‑screen in just two inks (midnight blue and metallic silver), the design demonstrates how Uno exploited the medium’s limitations—flat colour fields, bold linework and subtle dot textures—to heighten the sense of drama and taboo. Short‑run silk‑screen printing was the preferred method for Tokyo’s underground theatres and dance troupes, meaning original impressions like this were produced in very small numbers and often discarded after the performance run.

• Over 55 years old – a rare surviving 1968 B1 silk‑screen for Mika Ito’s Bizarre Ballet Group.

• Excellent, unrestored condition with vivid colours and clean margins.

• Not a reproduction or re‑print.

• Certificate of Authenticity included.

Please refer to the imagery as this is the exact poster that is for sale.