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Japanese, 20th century, male.

Active in the USA since 1961.

Born 6 July 1936, in Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture).

Painter.

Conceptual Art.

Neo-Dadaist Organisers group.

Shusaku Arakawa studied medicine and mathematics at Tokyo University (1954-1958) and art at Musashino Art University, Tokyo. He began his career in the 1960s when he concerned himself with the representation of impossible space, which corresponded to Marcel Duchamp’s scientific interest in the fourth dimension. In 1960 he was involved in anti-art and Neo-Dadaism in Tokyo and produced his first happenings....

Japanese, 20th century, female.

Active in the USA.

Born 1933, in Tokyo.

Painter, sculptor, performance artist.

Neo-Dadaism, Fluxus.

After settling in New York, Yoko Ono initially took an active role in the Fluxus group, organising concerts (particularly of La Monte Young) and putting up artists from the group (George Brecht, Allan Kaprow, George Segal). After marrying the singer John Lennon of the Beatles, she broke off from her own activities as an artist and took part in demonstrations for peace and for the emancipation of women. Following the assassination of her husband, she returned to her work as an artist....

(b Tokyo, May 4, 1904; d Yokohama, June 13, 2001).

Japanese painter and sculptor. Self-taught as an artist, in the 1920s he met David Burlyuk and others involved with such movements as Futurism, Constructivism and Dada. From 1931 Saitō concentrated on a career as an artist, initially producing Constructivist reliefs. At that time a celebrated incident occurred when he refused to exhibit pieces at the Nikakai (Second Division Society) exhibition on the grounds that his pieces were neither painting nor sculpture: he was first chosen for the Nikakai exhibition in 1936. In 1938, together with Jirō Yoshihara and Takeo Yamaguchi (1902–83), he established the ‘Room Nine Society’ (Kyūshitsukai) with artists of the Nikakai whose works tended towards abstraction. He collaborated on Toro-wood, a series of reliefs (c. 1939) destroyed in World War II (for reconstruction see 1984 exh. cat., p. 54). During the war he was persecuted by the military authorities for his avant-garde activities....

Japanese, 20th – 21st century, male.

Born 1924, in Amagasaki, near Osaka (Hyogo Prefecture), Japan; died 8 April 2008, in Amagasaki, near Osaka (Hyogo Prefecture), Japan.

Painter.

Neo-Dadaism, Action Painting.

Zero, Gutai.

Shiraga Kazuo studied traditional painting at Tokyo Fine Arts and Music University (some sources say the Kyoto Art Academy). In 1953, together with Kaiko Kaneyama, Kaiko Tanaka, and Saburo Murakami, he founded the Zero group. In 1955, he underwent a conversion to modern Western-style painting, and joined the Gutai group, which had been founded in 1954 by Yoshihara Jiro, for the purpose of opening Japanese art to all possible modes of expression, all materials and all attitudes, as well as outdoor events, traditional forums, and art galleries. Having won the approval of the critic Michel Tapié in Tokyo, the group went on to make a great impression in Europe and the USA under Tapié’s influence, although he did temper some of its showy excesses and directed its members towards abstract art, of which he was then one of the great champions....

Japanese, 20th century, female.

Born 1932, in Osaka.

Painter, draughtswoman, installation artist, performance artist. Wall decorations.

Neo-Dadaism.

Groups: Zero, Gutai.

After graduating from art college in Kyoto, Atsuko Tanaka went on to study under the direction of Jiro Yoshihara. Already a member of the Zero...

Japanese, 20th century, male.

Born 1905, in Osaka; died 1972, in Ashiya.

Painter.

Neo-Dadaism.

Gutai group.

Yoshihara (or Yoshiwara) Jiro taught himself oil painting while studying commerce at Kansai Gakuin University, Nishinomiya. He won his first prize at the 1934 Nika-kai exhibition and in 1938...

Japanese, 20th century, male.

Active in the USA since 1962.

Born 1932, in Oita.

Painter.

Neo-Dadaist Organisers group.

After studying at Musashino College of Fine Arts near Tokyo from 1951 to 1955, Yoshimura Masanobu taught painting to children until 1960. In 1962 he moved to New York. From ...