Shusaku Arakawa
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was a Japanese conceptual artist and
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
. He had a personal and artistic partnership with the writer and artist Madeline Gins that spanned more than four decades in which they collaborated on a diverse range of visual mediums, including:
painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
&
printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...
,
experimental filmmaking Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...
,
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
, and architectural & landscape design. Throughout his life, Arakawa frequently infused his works with philosophical ideas that considered art's intrinsic functions, human perceptions of the physical world, and the language of signs, symbols, and visual meanings. These thematic elements were based on the writings and theories authored by key figures in Science, Philosophy, and Art History:
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
,
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
, and
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
. Beginning in the 1960s, Arakawa's work attracted positive responses from the Western art world and led to his representation at numerous esteemed galleries and museums: the Dwan Gallery,
Gagosian Gagosian is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Larry Gagosian (born 1945), American art dealer ** Gagosian Gallery, an art gallery owned by Larry Gagosian * Robert Gagosian (born 1944), American oceanographer {{Surname ...
, The National Museum of Modern Art,
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
, David Barnett Gallery,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...
, and the
Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...
. Arakawa and Gins founded The Reversible Destiny Foundation in which they designed architectural sites that were aimed toward the longevity of human life expectancy. Moreover, they established the Architectural Body Research Foundation in 1987 as a non-profit research group that stimulated multidisciplinary studies with renowned biologists, neuroscientists, quantum physicists, and medical doctors on the nature of life and death. Arakawa usually referred to himself by his surname only, which eventually came to be more commonly practiced by him during his career in the United States and Europe.The Guardian, Shusaku Arakawa obituary
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Early life

Shusaku Arakawa was born in
Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...
on July 6, 1936. His family ran an
udon Udon ( or ) is a thick noodle made from wheat flour, used in Japanese cuisine. There are a variety of ways it is prepared and served. Its simplest form is in a soup as with a mild broth called made from dashi, soy sauce, and mirin. It is usual ...
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. 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. Arakawa briefly attended
Musashino Art University or is a private university in Kodaira, Western Tokyo, founded in 1962 with roots going back to 1929. It is known as one of the leading art universities in Japan. History In October 1929, was founded. In December 1948, it became , and in ...
to study art.


Early career (1950s – 1960s)

Arakawa's early works were first displayed in the infamous Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition in 1958, 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. 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.Rawlings, Ashley (2010). Shusaku Arakawa (1936 - 2010). ArtAsiaPacific, (69), Jul/Aug. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/69/ShusakuArakawa19362010 The utilization of '' objets'' – everyday, consumer products transformed into assemblages – permitted Arakawa to convey meaning through items not traditionally associated with the
fine art In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...
s. 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 , sometimes shortened to Neo-Dada Organizers or simply , was a short-lived but influential Japanese Neo-Dadaist art collective formed by Masunobu Yoshimura in 1960. Composed of a small group of young, up-and-coming artists who met periodically a ...
, along with Genpei Akasegawa, Ushio Shinohara, Shō Kazakura, Kinpei Masuzawa, and group founder Masanobu Yoshimura. 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 Hariu Ichirō deemed "savagely meaningless". One of Arakawa's stunts as a member of Neo-Dada was a work titled ''Site Made by the Viewer'' performed at
Nihon University , abbreviated as , is a private research university in Japan. Its predecessor, Nihon Law School (currently the Department of Law), was founded by Yamada Akiyoshi, the Minister of Justice, in 1889. The university's name is derived from the Ja ...
, 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". 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.


Paintings and printmaking (1960s – 2010)

Arakawa arrived in New York in 1961 with fourteen dollars in his pocket and a telephone number for
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...
, whom he phoned from the airport and with whom he eventually formed a close friendship. Inspired by Duchamp's conceptual approach to artistic production, 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". Arakawa's diagrammatic paintings often included text intermixed with charts, arrows, and scales. Moreover, an eclectic range of cultural and historical figures informed Arakawa's artistic engagement with philosophy, including
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
,
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
, and
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
. Thematically, these works are enmeshed with theoretical ideas grounded in
phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 ...
,
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
,
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
,
semiotics Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is a ...
, and
epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...
. In terms of meaning, these works were endowed with complex messages that interrogated the precise nature of art's function and how art is meant to be perceived. ''Hard or Soft No. 3'' (1969) is a painting in which numbers, letters, arrows, and lines are sparsely positioned from one another among large expanses of white negative space, and the following text frames the bottom tier of the work: "These arrows indicate almost nothing/Re-arrange the numbers anyway you like." Paintings like ''Hard or Soft No. 3'' were meant to stimulate critical thinking among viewers to discern how language can be constructed from basic visual elements (line, shape, color, form, etc.). During ''The Mechanism of Meaning'' exhibition at the Guggenheim in 1997, art critic
Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times. Education and early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawre ...
described Arakawa's paintings and prints as "a bridge between Dada and Fluxus and the soon-to-be-Conceptual Art" and added that they operate as "philosophical or linguistic puzzles" that are open to countless interpretations and visual readings. Moreover, art historians, critics, and curators note that the diagrammatic, blueprint-like appearances of Arakawa's paintings and prints foreshadow his and Gins's later architectural projects. The versatility of Arakawa's printmaking abilities is evident in the range of printing techniques he pursued:
silkscreen Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen in a "flood stroke" ...
,
lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
, embossing,
etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...
, and
aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. It has also been used ...
.


Film (1960s – 1970s)

Arakawa's partnership with Gins led to their creation of films in the late-1960s and early-1970s that further expounded upon the philosophical ideas Arakawa explored in his paintings and prints. Although it comprised a short segment of his career, his involvement in experimental filmmaking was another avenue through which he could question and alter viewers' understanding of perception, evident in his philosophically laden ''Why Not: A Serenade of Eschatological Ecology'' (1969). ''For Example'' (1971) features a young homeless boy who wanders the streets of New York City in a drunken stupor while a male narrator recites a text. The film's documentary-style camerawork was intended to visualize and articulate the theories espoused in Arakawa and Gins's long-term architectural project ''The Mechanism of Meaning,'' which specifically aims to "deconstruct meaning and construct non-meaning".


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''). 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 fuse 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.


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. 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. Designed in 1995, "The Site of Reversible Destiny - Yoro Park" was conceived as an "experience park" to reorient and transform visitors' understanding of their bodily relationship to the physical world. Flat, planar surface were removed entirely from the park, and instead Arakawa and Gins placed great emphasis on hilly, bulging surfaces that complicated how one walked around the park; spectators were encouraged to interact with the site as if they were toddlers learning to walk for the first time. 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. 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. 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. "The Reversible Destiny Lofts - Mitaka (In Memory of
Helen Keller Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness when ...
)" were completed in Tokyo's western suburbs in 2005. Similar to Bioscleave, the lofts employed the philosophy of " procedural architecture" whereby the human body is kept in a continual state of physical interaction with their surrounding environment to prevent age-related decline. In terms of formal arrangement, each of the lofts are assembled together in cubical, spherical, and tubular shapes that each contain spatially disparate layouts for their respective residences. While Bioscleave was more focused on residential functions, the Mitaka Lofts are regularly utilized in a multipurpose fashion: residences, educational facilities, and cultural centers. Sections of the site are often leased for short and long-term usage, and it has even been a featured site on the popular vacation rental platform
airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( , an abbreviation of its original name, "Air Bed and Breakfast") is an American company operating an online marketplace for short-and-long-term homestays, experiences and services in various countries and regions. It acts as a ...
.


Later life

Arakawa and Gins "lost their life savings" in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme.


Death

Arakawa died on May 19, 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."


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. 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 Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; 11 February 1900 – 13 March 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 on hermeneutics, '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''). Life Family and early life Gad ...
commended Arakawa for his transformation of "the usual constancies of orientation into a strange, enticing game – a game of continually thinking out." Gadamer included a quote by the German poet
Paul Celan Paul Celan (; ; born Paul Antschel; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a German-speaking Romanian poet, Holocaust survivor, and literary translation, literary translator. He adopted his pen name (an anagram of the Romanian spelling Ancel ...
to further underscore his comments: "There are songs to sing beyond the human." 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." The art critic and philosopher
Arthur Danto Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for ''The Nation'' and for his work in philosop ...
found Arakawa to be "a genuinely advanced artist" whose accolades he equated to Gins's literary prowess. For his part, Arakawa declared: "Painting is only an exercise, never more than that."


Architectural works by Arakawa and Gins

*"Ubiquitous Site, Nagi's Ryoanji, Architectural Body (
Nagi, Okayama is a List of towns in Japan, town located in Katsuta District, Okayama, Katsuta District, Okayama Prefecture, Japan. , the town had a population of 5,512 in 2,437 households and a population density of 79.3 persons per km². The total area of the ...
, 1994 / Nagi Museum Of Contemporary Art) *"The Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro (
Yōrō, Gifu is a List of towns in Japan, town located in Yōrō District, Gifu, Yōrō District, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 29,309 in 10,356 households and a population density of 405 persons per km2. The total area of ...
, 1995) *"Reversible Destiny Office," in "The Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro" (
Yōrō, Gifu is a List of towns in Japan, town located in Yōrō District, Gifu, Yōrō District, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 29,309 in 10,356 households and a population density of 405 persons per km2. The total area of ...
, 1997) *"Shidami Resource Recycling Model House (
Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...
, 2005) *"The Reversible Destiny Lofts - Mitaka" (In Memory of Helen Keller) ( Mitaka,
Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
2005) *"Bioscleave House (Lifespan Extending Villa) ( Northwest Harbor, East Hampton,
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
, NY, 2008) *"Biotopological Scale-Juggling Escalator (NY, 2013: / Dover Street Market New York,
Comme des Garçons Comme des Garçons (CDG, ) is a Japanese fashion label, founded by Rei Kawakubo in 1969. It is based in Paris, where its flagship store is located. Other than fashion, the label has expanded to include jewelry and perfume (under the brand Comme ...
)


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) *''For Example (A Critique of Never)'' (Arakawa, 1974)


Filmography

* ''Why Not: A Serenade of Eschatological Ecology'' (1969) *
For Example (A Critique of Never)
' (1971)


Exhibitions

Since the 1950s, Arakawa's artworks have been displayed in over four hundred exhibitions in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Select Solo Exhibitions * 1965: ''Peintures de Arakawa'' - Galerie Aujourd'hui, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium * 1966: ''Arakawa -'' Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands * 1970: ''Shusaku Arakawa, Japanese Pavillion'' - XXXV
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
, Italy * 1974: ''Arakawa: Recent Prints'' -
The Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...
, New York, USA * 1979: ''Arakawa Prints'' -
Williams College Museum of Art The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is a college-affiliated art museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is located on the Williams College campus, close to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Clark Art Institu ...
, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA * 1979: ''Arakawa: The Mechanism of Meaning'' - The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan * 1982: ''Arakawa, Matrix 72'' -
Wadsworth Atheneum The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionism, Impressionist paintings, Hudson Riv ...
, Hartford, Connecticut, USA * 1986: ''Arakawa: Paintings to Read'' - The Contemporary Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan * 1994: ''Arakawa: Drawings 1961 - 74'' - Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan * 2006: ''Shusaku Arakawa: Print Works'' - Gifu Collection of Modern Arts, Gifu, Japan * 2010: ''Funeral Bioengineering to Not to Die - Early Works by Arakawa Shusaku'' - The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan 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 *1970: ''Language IV'' - Dwan Gallery, New York, New York, USA * 1976: ''The Golden Door: Artist-Immigrants of America 1876 - 1976'' -
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed ...
,
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
, Washington, D.C., USA * 1976: ''Thirty Years of American Printmaking'' -
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
, New York, USA * 1977: ''Documenta VI'' - Kassel, Germany * 1983: ''Twentieth Century Acquisitions'' - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA * 2009: ''The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860 - 1989'' - Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA * 2019: ''American Masters 1940 - 1980'' -
National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...
, 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 is a national university established in 1949 in Kyoto, Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and ext ...
Museum and Archives, Kyoto, Japan * 2018: ''Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient'' - Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery,
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
, New York Retrospectives * 2019: ''Arakawa: Diagrams for the Imagination'' -
Gagosian Gagosian is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Larry Gagosian (born 1945), American art dealer ** Gagosian Gallery, an art gallery owned by Larry Gagosian * Robert Gagosian (born 1944), American oceanographer {{Surname ...
, New York, USA


Awards and recognition

Arakawa served as a representative of Japan in the XXXV
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
(1970), and was a participant in the German-based contemporary art exhibitions Documenta IV (1968) and Documenta VI (1977). Additionally, Arakawa was the recipient of multiple awards and honors: * 1986:
Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...
, French Government * 1987 - 1988:
John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated dis ...
* 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 Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
celebrated his 85th birthday with a
Google Doodle Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running annual Bu ...
.


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 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...
, New York;
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo;
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
, Paris; Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Karuizawa, Japan.


See also

* Madeline Gins * Reversible Destiny Foundation * Nagi Museum Of Contemporary Art


References


External links


Arakawa and Madeline Gins Tokyo Office
*

at the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arakawa, Shusaku 1936 births 2010 deaths Japanese architects Japanese contemporary artists Japanese printmakers Japanese conceptual artists University of Tokyo alumni People from Nagoya Japanese emigrants to the United States Neo-Dada Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th class