Atsuko Tanaka (artist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Atsuko Tanaka
|
|
|---|---|
Atsuko Tanaka in 1957, wearing her Electric Dress
|
|
| Born | February 10, 1932 |
| Died | December 3, 2005 (aged 74) |
| Known for | Painting, Sculpture, Performance art, Installation art |
Atsuko Tanaka (田中 敦子, Tanaka Atsuko; February 10, 1932 – December 3, 2005) was a Japanese artist known for her very new and experimental art, called avant-garde art. She was a central figure of the Gutai Art Association from 1955 to 1965. Her artworks have become much more famous around the world since the early 2000s. She had her first big art show in Japan, and then her first show outside Japan in New York and Vancouver. Her art was also shown in many exhibitions about Gutai art in Europe and North America.
Contents
About Atsuko Tanaka
Atsuko Tanaka was born in Osaka, Japan, on February 10, 1932. She had eight older brothers and sisters. She studied painting at the Kyoto Municipal College of Art in 1950. Later, she went to the Art Institute of Osaka Municipal Museum of Art starting in 1951.
While studying, Tanaka became friends with Akira Kanayama. He encouraged her to try new ways of making art. He later invited her to join a group of artists called Zero Society (Zero-kai). Other young artists like Kazuo Shiraga and Saburo Murakami were also part of this group.
In 1953, while she was in the hospital, Tanaka started making art that didn't show real objects. She was inspired by a calendar she used to count days. She began making artworks with handwritten numbers on different materials like cloth, tracing paper, and newspaper. In some pieces, she repeated numbers to make them look different and change their usual meaning.
In 1955, Tanaka, Kanayama, and other members of Zero Society joined the Gutai Art Association. This was a group of experimental artists led by Yoshihara Jiro. After joining Gutai, Tanaka created several famous works. These include Electric Dress (1956), Work (Bell, 1956), and Work (Pink Rayon, 1955). These artworks got a lot of attention and good reviews from art critics. She also performed Stage Cloth (1957) at a Gutai event called "Gutai Art on the Stage" in Osaka.
As Tanaka's art career grew in the late 1950s and early 1960s, her relationship with Yoshihara Jiro became difficult. In 1965, Tanaka decided to leave Gutai and married Kanayama. They moved to a house in Osaka. She created most of her art at home and in a flat at her parents' house. In 1972, Tanaka and her husband moved to Nara.
After leaving Gutai, Tanaka mostly made large paintings. She used shiny synthetic paints on canvases laid flat on the floor. She created unique designs with colorful circles and swirling lines. These designs came from her earlier drawings, which were inspired by her works like Electric Dress and Bell. Her paintings from this time continued to be popular in Japan and other countries.
Atsuko Tanaka passed away on December 3, 2005, at the age of 74.
Joining the Gutai Art Movement
In 1952, Akira Kanayama introduced Tanaka to his friends in Zero-kai (Zero Society). This was an experimental art group he started with Shiraga Kazuo and Murakami Saburo. Tanaka soon joined them. Around the same time, Jiro Yoshihara, a well-known artist, was teaching painting. He wanted to create a new kind of art that had "never been done before." In 1954, Yoshihara and other young artists, many of whom were his students, formed the Gutai Art Association. Around June 1955, Yoshihara invited members of Zero Society, including Tanaka, to join Gutai.
Tanaka and the other members of Zero Society became very important to Gutai after they joined. Their experimental art, which didn't show real objects, helped make Gutai art even more daring. Tanaka's works were shown in all Gutai exhibitions from 1955 to 1965. Even after she left Gutai, her famous works like Bell (1955) and Electric Dress (1956) were still shown in exhibitions. They were seen as great examples of Gutai's experimental art.
Her Artworks
Tanaka's abstract paintings, sculptures, performances, and installations changed how people thought art should look or "act." She used everyday items like factory-made fabrics, electric bells, and light bulbs. This showed the artistic beauty in ordinary things.
Yellow Cloth (1955)
For Yellow Cloth, Tanaka took three pieces of plain cotton fabric. She tacked them to a gallery wall. The fabrics moved gently when people walked by. The artist did very little to the fabric, so it looked almost like regular cloth. By calling this work a "painting", Tanaka made people think about what a painting really is. The artwork showed the simple beauty of materials without a lot of fancy art changes. A fellow Gutai artist, Sadamasa Motanaga, said about it: "Beauty is not technique. People experience the beauty of opening cloth even in their home. The artist pointed it out as beauty. This act is very precious."
Bell (1955)
Tanaka created Bell in 1955, inspired by her outdoor art piece Pink Rayon (1955). Bell was made of a string of twenty electric bells and a button. The button had a sign that said, "Please feel free to push the button, Atsuko Tanaka." In early versions, the bells were placed about two meters apart around a gallery room. When visitors pressed the button, the bells would ring one after another for two minutes. The way the bells were arranged changed for different exhibitions.
This artwork allowed visitors to do something usually not allowed in art galleries: touch an artwork and make loud noise. It gave viewers a chance to feel like they were part of creating art. However, some visitors felt a bit surprised or uneasy when the loud noise started, especially with others watching. This made them think about how much control they had over what happened around them.
Electric Dress (1956)
Tanaka's famous Electric Dress (1956) was a costume made of 200 lightbulbs. It weighed more than 50 kilograms (about 110 pounds). At the "2nd Gutai Art Exhibition" in 1956, Tanaka wore Electric Dress and walked around the gallery. Photos show her covered from head to toe in the dress, with only her face and hands showing. The colored light bulbs blinked randomly, making her look like a strange creature. Tanaka said it "blink[ed] like fireworks."
Tanaka was inspired by the bright neon signs in the city of Osaka to create Electric Dress. The artwork showed how cities were changing quickly in Japan after the war. At the same time, the dress made the person wearing it feel confined. It also gave off heat and bright light. Tanaka herself felt a bit nervous when the electricity was turned on. She said, "I had the fleeting thought: Is this how a death-row inmate would feel?" The artwork showed the strong power of a machine made from industrial materials, which could feel a bit threatening to a human body.
The bright colors of Electric Dress also related to fashion and advertisements. After the war, dull wartime clothes were replaced by bright, colorful clothes that were sold and worn widely. Also, many Japanese women enjoyed making their own clothes. Tanaka herself had studied dressmaking. By creating Electric Dress, which trapped the wearer's body, Tanaka made people think about how fashion can sometimes limit or confine people.
Stage Clothes (1956 performance)
Tanaka's performance Stage Clothes (1956) also explored ideas about fashion, the body, and gender. Tanaka designed a costume with many layers and parts that could be removed. In the performance, she took off the layers one by one to show different outfits underneath. A very large pink dress with sleeves 9.1 meters (about 30 feet) long was placed in the background.
Art Shows and Collections
In the 2000s, Tanaka's artworks were shown in many exhibitions in Japan and other countries. These included shows at the Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art, the Nagoya Gallery HAM, the New York Grey Art Gallery and Paula Cooper Gallery, and the Galerie im Taxispalais in Innsbruck, Austria. The Grey Art Gallery focused on Tanaka's Gutai period and included videos and information about the movement, plus a rebuilt version of Electric Dress. In 2005, the University of British Columbia's Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver held a big exhibition of Tanaka's work called "Electrifying art: Atsuko Tanaka, 1954-1968." Electric Dress and other works were also shown at the 2007 documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany. A major exhibition called "Atsuko Tanaka: The Art of Connecting" traveled to Birmingham, Castelló, and Tokyo in 2011-2012.
Atsuko Tanaka's art is part of many important public art collections around the world. These include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. MoMA's online collection has a large, untitled painting from 1964 by Tanaka. This piece is nearly 12 feet tall and over 7 feet wide. MoMA says it "evolved from Tanaka's performance Electric Dress" and "vividly records the artist's gestural application of layers and skeins of multicolored acrylic paint on the canvas as it lay on the floor." The Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, owns a rebuilt version of Tanaka's Electric Dress made in 1999. This was for a Gutai exhibition at the Jeu de Paume. Tanaka was also featured as a pioneer of abstract art in the "Women in Abstraction" exhibition. This show was at the Centre Pompidou and the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2021.
Solo Exhibitions
- 1963: Atsuko Tanaka Solo Exhibition, Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka
- 1963: Atsuko Tanaka Exhibition, Minami Gallery, Tokyo
- 1967: Atsuko Tanaka Solo Exhibition, Hakusuisha Gallery, Osaka
- 1967: ATSUKO TANAKA, Akao Gallery, Osaka
- 1972: ATSUKO TANAKA, Minami Gallery, Tokyo
- 1972: Atsuko Tanaka Solo Exhibition, Fujimi Gallery, Osaka
- 1974: Atsuko Tanaka MODERN ART Exhibition, Gallery Nihonkan, Osaka
- 1978: 10th Solo Exhibition of Atsuko Tanaka, Asahi Gallery, Kyoto
- 1983: Atsuko Tanaka Exhibition, Gallery Takagi, Nagoya
- 1987: Atsuko Tanaka: Peintures, Galerie Stadler, Paris
- 1989: Solo Exhibition, Gallery Be-Art, Kyoto
- 1990: Atsuko Tanaka Exhibition, Kita Modern Art Museum, Nara
- 1994: Atsuko Tanaka Exhibition, Gallery Takagi, Nagoya
- 1996: Atsuko Tanaka Exhibition: Small Works and Drawing, Gallery Kita, Nara
- 2001: Atsuko Tanaka: Search for an Unknown Aesthetic, 1954-2000, Ashiya City Museum of Art and History
- 2002: Atsuko Tanaka, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Austria
- 2004: Electrifying Art: Atsuko Tanaka 1954-1968, Grey Art Gallery, New York
- 2006: Atsuko Tanaka Memorial Exhibition: From Circle to Circle, Gallery HAM, Nagoya
- 2011: Atsuko Tanaka: The Art of Connecting, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
See Also
- Wearable art
