Shusaku Arakawa

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Shusaku Arakawa
Shusaku Arakawa bijutsu-techo 1963-10a.jpg
Born(1936-07-06)July 6, 1936
Nagoya, Japan
DiedMay 18, 2010(2010-05-18) (aged 73)
New York City, New York, U.S.
NationalityJapanese
Alma materUniversity of Tokyo (Mathematics and Medicine) Musashino Art University (Art)
OccupationArtist/Architect
Known forThe Mechanism of Meaning Reversible Destiny
MovementNeo-Dadaism, Conceptualism
Spouse(s)Madeline Gins
Websitewww.reversibledestiny.org

Shūsaku Arakawa (荒川 修作, Arakawa Shūsaku, July 6, 1936 – May 18, 2010)[1] was a Japanese conceptual artist and architect. He had a personal and artistic partnership with the writer and artist Madeline Gins that spanned more than four decades. Later in their lives, Arakawa and Gins were more commonly associated with architectural projects aimed toward the longevity of human life expectancy.[2][3]

Arakawa usually referred to himself by his surname only, which eventually came to be more commonly practiced by him during his career in the West.[4]

Early life[]

Shusaku Arakawa was born in Nagoya on July 6, 1936. His family ran an udon shop. Arakawa spoke of himself as an "eternal outsider" and "abstractionist of the future", and was interested in a variety of disciplines including art, mathematics, and medicine.[4] The convergence of his interests in multiple, seemingly disparate subjects originated during childhood. One of Arakawa's neighbors was a doctor who offered the young Arakawa professional advice on proper training for a career in medicine. According to Arakawa, the doctor's wife, an artist, advised him to "draw" which led him to refine his skills in both drawing and painting.[5]

Arakawa briefly attended Musashino Art University to study art.[6]

Early career (1950s – 1960s)[]

Arakawa's early works were first displayed in the infamous Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition in 1958,[citation needed] a watershed event for postwar Japanese avant-garde art that departed from the strictness of traditional Japanese art exhibitions in favor of a looser structure with an absence of awards and a deciding jury.[7] During this exhibition, Arakawa produced a socio-political installation that criticized the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; coffin-like boxes contained lumps of cement with fur and hair attached to recall the violence inflicted upon Japanese citizens by the American military.[8] The utilization of objets - everyday, consumer products transformed into assemblages - permitted Arakawa to convey meaning through items not traditionally associated with the fine arts.[9]

In 1960, at the height of the massive Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, Arakawa became involved with the avant-garde art collective Neo-Dada Organizers, along with Genpei Akasegawa, Ushio Shinohara, , , and group founder .[10] The group engaged in a series of bizarre "events" and "happenings" that blended visual and performance art, which the art critic Yoshiaki Tōno labeled “anti-art” (han-geijutsu) and the critic deemed “savagely meaningless.”[11]

One of Arakawa's stunts as a member of Neo-Dada was a work titled Site Made by the Viewer performed at Nihon University, in which Arakawa invited 400 spectators to an auditorium but refused to allow them inside. When Yoshimura and five other attendees, at Arakawa's urging, climbed a ladder that led up to the auditorium's balcony, Arakawa removed the ladder, trapping them on the balcony for over one hour while he silently crouched in the darkness. Arakawa explained he did not create an artwork but "manipulated" his audience by turning them into "actors."[12]

However, Arakawa was eventually expelled from the Neo-Dada Organizers collective because he was deemed "too much of an aesthete," and for chaotically disrupting group events.[13]

Arakawa arrived in New York in 1961 with fourteen dollars in his pocket and a telephone number for Marcel Duchamp, whom he phoned from the airport and with whom he eventually formed a close friendship.[14] He began to integrate diagrams within his paintings as philosophical propositions to compel viewers to question the representation of forms and to assess how the diagrams affected one's perception. He referred to them as "diagrams of the mind."[15][16] Arakawa's diagrammatic paintings often included text intermixed with charts, arrows, and scales. Moreover, an eclectic range of cultural and historical figures inspired Arakawa's artistic engagement with philosophy, including: Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.[17][18]

The Mechanism of Meaning (1960s – 1980s)[]

Beginning in 1963, he collaborated with fellow artist, architect, and poet Madeline Gins on the research project The Mechanism of Meaning, which was completed by 1973. This research project and its subsequent architectural projects - both built and unbuilt ones - formed the basis of the 1997 Arakawa + Gins: Reversible Destiny exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo (the accompanying book of the same title remains the most comprehensive collection of their work, and it incorporates the whole of the Arakawa/Gins book, The Mechanism of Meaning).[19]

The panels appear as a constellation of views concerning the nature of meaning that may be characterized as "holistic" or as entailments of a holistic view concerning meaning. To date, two editions of The Mechanism of Meaning have been made and many of the panels incorporate collaged elements.

In the years since Arakawa's and Gins's deaths, there has been a legal dispute regarding ownership of The Mechanism of Meaning between the Architectural Body Research Foundation and the Reversible Destiny Foundation.[20]

Reversible Destiny Foundation (1980s – 2010)[]

Arakawa and Madeline Gins co-founded the Reversible Destiny Foundation in 2010, an organization dedicated to the use of architecture to extend the human lifespan.[21][22] They have co-authored books, including Reversible Destiny, which is the catalogue of their Guggenheim exhibition, Architectural Body (University of Alabama Press, 2002) and Making Dying Illegal (New York: Roof Books, 2006), and have designed and built residences and parks, including the Reversible Destiny Lofts-Mitaka (In Memory of Helen Keller), Bioscleave House (Lifespan Extending Villa), and the Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro.[23]

Bioslceave House (Lifespan Extending Villa) (2000–2008) in East Hampton, New York encapsulates the philosophies Arakawa and Gins shared toward human mortality. The house's form is characterized by its asymmetrical, undulating appearance whose interior and exterior walls are each painted in over four dozen shades of vibrant hues. Ceilings and entranceways extend across varying directions and heights, either along straightened or curved edges. Similarly, windows and light switches are strewn along the walls at inconsistent heights. The floors are designed from hardened soil with rounded bumps atop their surfaces that slope at both slight and steep inclines; freestanding poles are included in multiple rooms to assist occupants to maintain their physical balance.[24] Arakawa and Gins firmly believed it was integral for domestic environments to be constructed in layouts that rendered residents with a sense of instability and discomfort.[25] They argued physical passivity and comfort allows the human body to deteriorate and the solution to reverse one's mortality is to reside in a home that encourages continual bodily movement and reorientation, which is evident in the Bioscleave House's lack of smooth floors and high/low placement of windows.[26][27]

Later life[]

Arakawa and Gins "lost their life savings" in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme.[28][29]

Death[]

Arakawa died on May 18, 2010, after a week of hospitalization. Gins would not state the cause of death. "This mortality thing is bad news," she stated. She planned to redouble efforts to prove "aging can be outlawed."[30]

Reception[]

Internationally renowned 20th Century philosophers studied the metaphysical underpinnings behind Arakawa's artworks and valued his synthesis of philosophical theories into a visual medium.[31][32] The French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard praised Arakawa's work for its ability to "makes us think through the eyes", and the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer commended Arakawa for his transformation of "the usual constancies of orientation into a strange, enticing game - a game of continually thinking out."[33] Gadamer included a quote by the German poet Paul Celan to further underscore his comments: "There are songs to sing beyond the human."[34]

The writer Charles Bernstein and artist Susan Bee observe, "Arakawa deals with the visual field as discourse, modal systems that constitute the world rather than being constituted by it."[35] The art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto found Arakawa to be "a genuinely advanced artist" whose accolades he equated to Gins's literary prowess.[36] For his part, Arakawa declared: "Painting is only an exercise, never more than that."[37]

Architectural works by Arakawa and Gins[]

Books by Arakawa and Gins[]

  • Word Rain (Or a Discursive Introduction to the Philosophical Investigations of G,R,E,T,A, G,A,R,B,O, It Says) (Gins, 1969)
  • The Mechanism of Meaning (Arakawa & Gins, 1971)
  • Intend (Gins, 1973)
  • What the President Will Say and Do (Gins, 1984)
  • To Not to Die (Gins, 1987)
  • Architecture: Sites of Reversible Destiny (Arakawa & Gins, 1994)
  • Hellen Keller or Arakawa (Gins, 1994)
  • Reversible Destiny (Arakawa & Gins, 1997)
  • Architectural Body (Arakawa & Gins, 2002)
  • Making Dying Illegal (Arakawa & Gins, 2006)

Exhibitions[]

Since the 1950s, Arakawa's artworks have been displayed in over four hundred exhibitions in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia.[38]

Select Solo Exhibitions

Select Group Exhibitions

  • 1958: Tenth Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition - Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
  • 1959: Eleventh Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition - Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
  • 1960: Twelfth Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition - Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
  • 1961: Thirteenth Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition - Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
  • 1967: Drawing: Recent Acquisitions - The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
  • 1967: Pictures to Be Read, Poetry to Be Seen - Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • 1968: Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture - Museum of Art Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
  • 1968: Documenta IV - Kassel, Germany
  • 1976: The Golden Door: Artist-Immigrants of America 1876 - 1976 - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., USA
  • 1976: Thirty Years of American Printmaking - Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA
  • 1977: Documenta VI - Kassel, Germany
  • 1983: Twentieth Century Acquisitions - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  • 2009: The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860 - 1989 - Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
  • 2019: American Masters 1940 - 1980 - National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Select Arakawa and Gins Exhibitions

  • 1990: Building Sensoriums 1973 - 1990 - Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, USA
  • 1997: Reversible Destiny - Arakawa/Gins - Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
  • 2004: Arakawa + Gins: Architecture Against Death - Nagoya University of Arts, Art & Design Center, Nagoya, Japan
  • 2010: Arakawa + Gins: Reversible Destiny Projects - Kyoto Institute of Technology Museum and Archives, Kyoto, Japan
  • 2018: Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient - Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Columbia University, New York

Retrospectives

  • 2019: Arakawa: Diagrams for the Imagination - Gagosian, New York, USA

Awards and Recognition[]

Arakawa served as a representative of Japan in the XXXV Venice Biennale (1970), and was a participant in the German-based contemporary art exhibitions Documenta IV (1968) and Documenta VI (1977).[39][40][41]

Additionally, Arakawa was the recipient of multiple awards and honors:[42]

  • 1986: Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, French Government
  • 1987 - 1988: John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
  • 1988 - 1989: Belgian Critics' Prize
  • 1997: College Art Association's Artist Award for Exhibition of the Year/Distinguished Body of Work, Presentation or Performance Award
  • 1998: Highest award in the Rainbow Town Urban Design Competition
  • 2003: Shijo Housho - Medal with Purple Ribbon
  • 2003: Nihon Gendai Shinko Sho - Award for Innovation in Japanese Contemporary Art from Japan Arts Foundation
  • 2010: The Order of the Rising Sun - Gold Rays with Rosette
  • 2021: Google celebrated his 85th birthday with a Google Doodle.[43]

Collections[]

In addition to private and corporate collections, many of Arakawa's artworks are permanently housed in prestigious museums around the world, including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Karuizawa, Japan.[44]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Bernstein, Fred A. (May 19, 2010), "Arakawa, Whose Art Tried to Halt Aging, Dies at 73", The New York Times
  2. ^ "Arakawa - Reversible Destiny Foundation". www.reversibledestiny.org. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  3. ^ Keane, J. (2013). Initiating Change: Architecting the Body-Environment with Arkawa and Gins. In The innovation Imperative: Architectures of Vitality (pp. 76-83). John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ad.1528
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b The Guardian, Shusaku Arakawa obituary
  5. ^ Ikeda, Emiko (September 26, 2010). "Shusaku Arakawa Oral History". Oral History Archives of Japanese Art.
  6. ^ artnet.com: Resource Library: Arakawa, Shusaku
  7. ^ Erber, Pedro (2015). ARTMargins. Introduction to Akasegawa Genpei's “The Objet After Stalin", 103. Retrieved January 25, 2021, from https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ARTM_a_00125 Published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  8. ^ Rawlings, Ashley (2010). Shusaku Arakawa (1936 - 2010). ArtAsiaPacific, (69), Jul/Aug. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/69/ShusakuArakawa19362010
  9. ^ Gale, Matthew. "Objet trouve". Oxford Art Online/Grove Art Online. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  10. ^ Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 194–195. ISBN 9780674988484.
  11. ^ Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 195–197. ISBN 9780674988484.
  12. ^ Kuroda, Raiji (December 2005). "A Flash of Neo Dada: Cheerful Destroyers in Tokyo (1993)". Review of Japanese Culture and Society. 17: 64-65.
  13. ^ Nakazawa, Hideki (2008). "Neo Dadaism Organizers". Contemporary Art History: Japan. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
  14. ^ Erkan, Ekin (2019). Severe Ascesis: Arakawa's Object-Oriented Ontologies and the Spectral Event. AEQAI, (April 30). Retrieved January 29, 2021, from https://aeqai.com/main/2019/04/severe-ascesis-shusaku-arakawas-object-oriented-ontologies-and-the-spectral-event/
  15. ^ Gibson, Eleanor (March 7, 2019). Diagrammatic paintings by Japanese artist Shusaku Arakawa go on show in New York. Dezeen. Retrieved from https://www.dezeen.com/2019/03/07/shusaku-arakawa-diagrams-for-the-imagination-exhibition-gagosian-new-york/
  16. ^ Battaglia, Andy (February 1, 2017). The Legacy of the Radically Experimental Arakawa Heads to Gagosian. ARTnews. Retrieved January 17, 2021, from https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/the-legacy-of-the-radically-experimental-arakawa-heads-to-gagosian-7697/
  17. ^ Tezuka, Miwako (April 25, 2018). Da Vinci to Duchamp: Arakawa's Archival Sources of Inspiration. Lecture presented in Asia Art Archive in America, New York. Retrieved January 26, 2021, from https://www.aaa-a.org/programs/da-vinci-to-duchamp-arakawas-archival-sources-of-inspiration/
  18. ^ "The Degrees of Meaning, from Reality and Paradoxes". Blanton Museum of Art. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  19. ^ Pascucci, Ernest ( January 1997). Arakawa/Gins: The Mechanism of Meaning in Reversible Destiny Architecture. Artforum. Retrieved January 28, 2021, from https://www.artforum.com/print/199701/arakawa-gins-the-mechanism-of-meaning-in-reversible-destiny-architecture-53054
  20. ^ Kinsella, Eileen (October 11, 2017). "What Do Gagosian, Bernie Madoff, and a Multimillion-Dollar Conceptual Artwork Have in Common? One Heck of a Lawsuit". Artnet. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
  21. ^ Otake, Tomoko (January 16, 2011). Living in a house of longevity. The Japan Times. Retrieved January 17, 2020, from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2011/01/16/style/living-in-a-house-of-longevity/
  22. ^ Robinson, Joel (2005). From Clockwork Bodies to Reversible Destinies (On the Architectural Experiments of Arakawa and Gins). (March/April), 35-39. Retrieved January 27, 2021, from https://www.academia.edu/2369116/_From_Clockwork_Bodies_to_Reversible_Destinies_On_the_Architectural_Experiments_of_Arakawa_and_Gins_
  23. ^ Ciampaglia, Dante A. (May 30, 2018). These Architects Sought to Solve the Ultimate Human Design Flaw - Death. Metropolis. Retrieved January 31, 2021, from https://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/arakawa-madeline-gins-achitecture-death-exhibition/
  24. ^ Doezema, Maria (August 20, 2019). Could Architecture Help You Live Forever? The New York Times. Retrieved January 13, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/t-magazine/reversible-destiny-arakawa-madeline-gins.html
  25. ^ Goodman, Matthew Shen (April 1, 2018). We Have Decided Not to Die. Art in America. Retrieved January 11, 2021, from https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/decided-not-die-63507/
  26. ^ The Discomforts of Home. (December 18, 2005). Newsweek. Retrieved January 19, 2021, from https://www.newsweek.com/discomforts-home-113959
  27. ^ Doezema, Maria (September 2019). Death is for the Lazy. T Singapore: The New York Times Style Magazine. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https://www.magzter.com/stories/Fashion/T-Singapore-The-New-York-Times-Style-Magazine/Death-Is-For-The-Lazy
  28. ^ Efrati, Amir (24 March 2009). "Couple's Dreams of Immortality at Death's Door, Thanks to Madoff: Artists Who Design Homes to Prolong Life Lost Their Life Savings; Undulating Floors". Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  29. ^ "Madeline Gins - obituary". The Telegraph. 18 March 2014.
  30. ^ Bernstein, Fred A. (20 March 2010). "Arakawa, Whose Art Tried to Halt Aging, Dies at 73". Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  31. ^ "Arakawa". Institute for Research in Art - University of South Florida. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  32. ^ Tsukahara, Fumi. "Highlights of Shusaku Arakawa Exhibition - From Diagrams to Reversible Destiny and beyond". Waseda University Online. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  33. ^ "Shusaku Arakawa". David Barnett Gallery. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  34. ^ "Painting for Closed Eyes: Arakawa". Ronald Feldman Gallery. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  35. ^ "Meaning the Meaning: Arakawa's Critique of Space." Content's Dream: Essays 1975-1984, Sun & Moon Press; 184-195
  36. ^ Danto, Arthur (October 15, 1990). Gins and Arakawa: Building Sensoriums. The Nation, 429-432.
  37. ^ "Arakawa - Maateriality". Arakawa + Madeline GINS: Tokyo Office. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  38. ^ "Arakawa - Exhibition History". Reversible Destiny Foundation. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  39. ^ "Arakawa". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  40. ^ "4. documenta". Documenta. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  41. ^ "documenta 6". documenta. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  42. ^ Arakawa - Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2021, from http://www.reversibledestiny.org/arakawa-and-madeline-gins/arakawa
  43. ^ "Shusaku Arakawa's 85th Birthday". Google. 6 July 2021.
  44. ^ Arakawa. (April 12, 2018). Gagosian. Retrieved January 13, 2021, from https://gagosian.com/artists/arakawa/

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