Atsuko Tanaka
2016. 2.12(Fri.) - 2.27(Sat.)
11:00 - 19:00(closed on Mon., Sun. & Public Holiday)
Atsuko Tanaka - works on paper -
"7-16" 15.07 x 10.06cm, pencil on paper
"6-4-1" 15.1 x 12.24cm, pencil on paper
MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY B1 2-16-12 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Atsuko Tanaka was born in Osaka, on February 10, 1932.
In 1952, Tanaka became a member of "Zero-kai"(group Zero) at Akira Kanayama's introduction with his highly awareness of Tanaka's talent for her abstract expression. "Zero-kai" was formed in 1952 by Akira Kanayama, Kazuo Shiraga and Saburo Murakami. In 1955, they united with the Japanese avant-garde art group Gutai, and Tanaka also joined Gutai group.
Her very representative "Work (Bell)" was made for the first Gutai exhibition in Tokyo in 1955.
It consisted of 20 bells installed at regular intervals along the baseline of the walls of several galleries.
Her best-known work is "Electric Dress", invented in 1956, a burqa-like costume consisting of electrical wires and lit-up coloured lightbulbs. Tanaka wore the dress to exhibitions.
Because of this kind of avant-garde style of artwork, Tanaka had been associated with Gutai movement or known as "happening".
However, Tanaka said she made both of the works as a completed painting.
Actually both "Electric Dress" and "Work (Bell)" have spinoffs in drawings. Their endlessly modulated arrangements of lines and circles form the basis for the abstract paintings that have been her chief work since the late 1960's, Tanaka and Kanayama left Gutai group.
Through her precise forms of circles and lines connecting them, we can recognize her great attention to every line. She was always serenely painting. It is her universal expression of spiritual world beyond our notion of material or space.
In this exhibition, we'll show her 22 works on paper and 2 type of silkscreen print work.
Like the universe expanded from an extremely dense and hot state and continues to expand, her drawings embody the root of her creation.
Since the last several decades ago, Tanaka became to be featured by overseas international exhibitions individually apart from the context of the Gutai movement or that of art in postwar Japan.
Her work is included in a number of internationally important public collections, including that of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). In the ‘Documenta 12′ exhibition in 2007 her ‘Electric Dress’ attracted great attention and then a large-scale work of hers.
We'll see Atsuko Tanaka's mission as artist, "finding unknown beauty and ensconce it" through her purest expression on the papers.