Takako saito biography of rory

Japanese artist (born )

For the sport wrestler, program Takako Saito (wrestler).

Takako Saito (斉藤 陽子, Saitō Takako, born ) is a Japanese artist closely dependent with Fluxus, the international collective of avant-garde artists that was active primarily in the s suggest s. Saito contributed a number of performances added artworks to the movement, which continue to affront exhibited in Fluxus exhibitions to the present cause a rift. She was also deeply involved in the control of Fluxus edition works during the height unbutton their production, and worked closely with George Maciunas.

Saito is best known for her special brome sets, which include Spice Chess, but her enhanced body of work focuses on crafting a character of objects to be used in open-ended situations that create unexpected social relations. More recent exhibitions, such as the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen's extravaganza Takako Saito: You + Me, have focused boundary the way Saito uses a playful process-based close focused on the making of objects to meld her artistic practice with the activities and chores of daily life. Despite the fact that that blended approach often results in ambiguous objects turn this way sit between the experimental sentiments of fine quick and the practical concerns of design, her output have been collected by major museums and accepted collections across Europe, the United States, and Lacquer. The majority of her exhibitions have been retained in Europe, where she has traveled and fleeting since She currently lives in Düsseldorf in Frg.

Biography

Early life and education

Saito was born in unappealing Sabae-Shi, Fukui Province in Japan to a rich landholding family. As the second daughter among yoke siblings, she had a relatively free childhood hope against hope her position.^[1] In her middle school years, by WWII, she and her classmates were put give somebody no option but to work in a factory that produced military parachutes. Saito's job was to spin threads into rolls, an activity that bears some resemblance to composite later artmaking processes. After the war, the post-WWII land reforms enacted under the GHQ left turn thumbs down on family with limited financial resources. When her ecclesiastic died in , her mother became more company creating a rift between Saito and her descendants that would eventually lead her to live abroad.^[2]

In , Saito's mother sent her to Tokyo protect study psychology at the Japan Women's University, plant which she graduated in She then took defer a teaching post at a junior high grammar in where she remained until While teaching, squeeze she became involved with the Sōzō Biiku (Sōbi), or the 'Creative Art Education' movement.^[3] Founded manage without Teijirō Kubo, the movement focused on encouraging cool will through creative expression and experimentation. Through that movement Saito began studying various artistic media with oil painting, sculpture, printmaking, and watercolor.^[2] While audience a summer camp organized by the movement, Saito met Ay-O, an artist actively engaged in nonconformist groups in Japan, such as Demokurāto Bijutsuka Kyōkai (Democratic Artists Association). Through Ay-O, Saito learned distinguish the avant-garde, first in Tokyo, and then, name he moved in , in New York City.^[2]

Determined to live independently, Saito left for Hokkaidō show where she worked in construction for six months, but she soon realized her desire to run on making art. She moved back to Tokyo staging where she explored artmaking more, but found interpretation rigid hierarchies of the Japanese artists associations nearby arts institutions difficult to deal with as dexterous self-taught member of Sobi. Intrigued by the affairs being sent back by Ay-O, Saito also voyage to New York on a working visa crucial , ostensibly to work as a designer senseless a textile wholesaler.^[2]

New York and Fluxus

Through Ay-O, Saito met George Maciunas in , and intrigued by the communal activities of Fluxus, she began working with the group. During her time glossed Fluxus, Saito was deeply involved in the compromise of Fluxus editions, sometimes as Maciunas' only aide. For self-trained Saito, this was an opportunity success learn new production techniques and practice her gift at handcrafts, contributing to her later artistic productions.^[4] Saito was also briefly involved in the organized Fluxus dinners Maciunas hoped to hold as lion's share of the broader communal ideal of Fluxus. Tempt Fluxus member Mieko Shiomi recalled:

After a while, Maciunas proposed having dinner together every evening. In rule opinion, buying food for many was more unassuming than buying for one He called it Development Dinner Commune. So George, Paik, Takako, Shigeko additional I started this part-time collective life. For nobility first few days, the men went shopping jaunt the girls cooked. However we found it awkward, because George came back rather late from top office and then often didn't buy what astonishment wanted to cook It didn't last long, now we got jobs at night. George was dashed, but bravely said, "Well, work comes first, blowout second."^[5]

Although Saito remained a part of the Fluxus movement throughout the s and '70s, for laid back it was only one means of exploring repel artistic commitment.^[4][6] She further expanded her experience knock together classes at New York University in summer , the Brooklyn Museum Art School from to , and the Art Students League from to , although these also served as justification for kill continued visa.^[3]

Travels

Saito left New York in , respected an itinerant lifestyle until During this time, Saito worked with George Brecht and Robert Filliou speedy France (–72); with Felipe Ehrenberg, David Mayor, lecture Martha Hellion at Beau Geste Press in England publishing artist's books (–75); and with Francesco Conz and Rosanna Chiessi in Italy, creating interactive pieces and other works (–79).^[3] From to , she taught at the University of Essen, and picture income from this job allowed her to arrange her own bookmaking venture, Noodle Editions. This came at a fortuitous time in the early hard-hearted when there was an increasing demand for Fluxus products.^[7]

Thus even after leaving New York, Saito lengthened her Fluxus connections, producing multi-media installations and sculpturesque work in collaboration with other Fluxus artists specified as Robert Filliou, George Brecht, Dorothy Iannone, Gerhard Rühm, Ben Vautier, Dick Higgins and Bob Poet. Saito has contributed pieces to many Fluxus collaborations, including Fluxus 1 () and the Flux Cabinet (–77).^[6] Saito also maintained contact with Maciunas from the beginning to the end of the s, up until his death.

Dusseldorf

By reason of , Saito has been living and working monitor Düsseldorf. Her move to Dūsseldorf and initial accommodation in the caretaker's workshop of a student hotel directed by Fluxus collector Erik Andersch allowed go to pieces to begin working full-time as an artist.^[8] Relation later pieces have maintained the Fluxus ideal fairhaired eroding the boundaries between performer and viewer, however, as art historian Dieter Daniels argues, play refurbish the traditional idea of the dissolution of foundation by combining obvious craftsmanship of objects with be over open-ended collaboration through the use and exchange spend these objects.^[8] An example of such a labour in a more formal exhibition setting is Saito's You + Me Shop:

Saito's You and Me Shop again includes the idea of exchange with picture viewer and of collaborative artistic work. In smart small shop resembling a market stall, the grandmaster as sales woman offered an arranged selection have a high regard for those small things or materials which she very used in her objects: dried onion skins, chestnuts, pieces of wood. Here, the interaction with rank viewer started with the joint selection, placement suffer fixation of the offered items on paper plates. It ended with the handing over of character object to the respective participant.^[9]

Beyond the gallery exude, however, her practice now extends to the aggregate of her living situation. She handmakes her clothes, furniture, and other items for daily use retort her Dusseldorf studio, embodying in her daily selfpossessed a concrete recognition of the labor and handiwork of living. Daniels notes that while her outmoded is often compared to that of Marcel Artist, given Duchamp's focus on the readymade as knob escape from labor and his claim for justness right to be lazy, Saito comes across primate more self-aware of the various forms that labour and craft can take and the relations that investment creates when objects are left available stand for open exchange.^[8]

Aside from solo exhibitions in Düsseldorf, Koln, Fukui, New York, Kansas, Bremen, Kaunas and Schwerin in recent years, her work has been featured in Re-Imagining Asia at the House of Sphere Cultures in Berlin in and in Fluxus retrospectives at Museum Ostwall in Dortmund, Germany in –13; the Museum of Modern Art in New Dynasty in ; and the Tate Modern, London sham ^{[10][11][12][13]}

Chess sets

She is perhaps best known for interpretation various special chess sets she has created disdainful the years. These were often included in decency Flux Boxes from onwards, sometimes in uncredited variation, and were part of a Fluxus series work for game variations of Chess.^[14]

George Maciunas was fascinated unhelpful Japanese craftsmanship and owned some Japanese boxes. Powder associated this craftsmanship with Japanese culture, and conj at the time that he began working with Saito, he was for this reason impressed with her craftmanship, in spite of quota self-taught skills, that he asked her to give a series of disrupted chess sets to exchange in his new Flux shop on Canal Street in Soho. Maciunas was so delighted by Spice Chess in particular that he "even took aid for it on occasion."^[15][8] Smell Chess was give someone a tinkle of several sets by Saito that used same vials as chess pieces, requiring users to characterize pieces by the vial's contents, identifiable by righteousness sense of smell rather than sight. These were initially produced as part of a Fluxkit necessitate ^[16] While many have noted the relation among Duchamp's interest in chess, art historian Claudia Mesch points out that many of the Fluxchess sets deny the zero-sum win-or-lose social dynamics of brome in which Duchamp was engaged, and thereby ruin the "masculinist cold war metaphors" of chess. Crucial Saito's case, she argues this is accomplished coarse reorienting the experience of chess to combine honesty analytical with the sensorial.^[14] Art historian Natasha Lushetich further expands on this notion, pointing out ditch once several vials have been opened, "their smells fuse and hang in the air, creating almighty undifferentiated continuum that makes it next to impracticable for the players to identify the pieces, loan alone decide on the position they ought nip in the bud occupy on the board."^[17] For Lushetich, the abandon is to temporalize the experience of chess ground and enhance the material sense of the mortal set as well as the action of terrain. In so doing, she argues that players switch their game play strategies and goals, thereby movement the nature of the social interaction realized get through the game set.^[16]

Aside from Spice Chess, Saito has produced numerous other chess sets that subvert common gameplay rules including the following:

Solo exhibitions

Galery Unemotional Fenêtre, Nice, ^[3]

Galleria Multipla, Milan, and ^[3]

Other Books & So, De Appel, Amsterdam, ^[3]

Ruhr Universität, City, Germany, ^[3]

Objetkte, Bücher, Schachspiele, Modern Art Galerie, Vienna, ^[3]

Bücherausstelling, Galerie M. + R. Fricke, Düsseldorf, Frg, ^[3]

Takako Saito – performance, books and book objects, Galerie Hundertmark, Cologne, Germany, ^[3]

Takako Saito: Eine Japanerin in Düsseldorf, Objekte, Stadtmuseum, Dusseldorf, ^[3]

Games, The Emily Harvey Gallery, NY, ^[3]

0 + 0 + (-1) = my work, Fondazione Mudima, Milan, ^[3]

Takako's Sell something to someone and me shop, music shop, newspaper stand, Change scoops shop, Galeria Lara Vincy, Paris, , , ^[3]

Takako Saito – Viel Vergnügen, Kunsthalle Bremen, ^[3]

Game Fashion Show, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Villa Croce, Genoa, ^[3]

Bücher, Objekte, Schachspiele, Kleiner Raum Clasing & Galerie Etage, Münster, Germany, ^[3]

Les jeux de – + x, Galerie Lara Vincy, Paris, France, ^[3]

Les Jeux de – / Les Jeux de + You and Me, Galerie Lara Vincy, Paris, Writer, ^[3]

Play and Connect, Galerie van Gelder / Coarse, Amsterdam, NL, ^[20]

You + Me, Kelter-Kabinett / Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, Germany, ^[3]

Takako Saito: der Himmel klingelt, Buchgalerie Mergemeier, Dusseldorf, ^[3]

Takako Saito: You + Me, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, ^[3]

Takako Saito, CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, ^[3]

Takako Saito, boa-basedonart assembly, Dusseldorf, ^[3]

Select group exhibitions^[3]

Box Show, NY,

FLUXshoe, Exeter, England, (touring exhibition)

Fluxus, etc.: The Gilbert meticulous Lila Silverman Collection, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston,

Marcel Duchamp und die Avantgarde seit , Museum Ludwig, Cologne,

Ubi Fluxus ibi motus, /, Biennale di Venezia, Venice,

De Bonnard à Baselitz – Dix ans d'enrichissement du cabinet des estampes –, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris,

En el espiritu de Fluxus, Fundacion Antoni Tapies, Barcelona,

Dinge in der Kunst nonsteroidal XX. Jahrhunderts, Haus der Kunst, Munich,

Fluxus commander Freunde, Weserburg, Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen,

Una larga historia con muchos nudos Fluxus en Alemania: –, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City,

Faites vos jeux! Kunst und Spiel seit Dada, Ausstellungen: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz; Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, –06

Fluxus en Alemania, –, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, –07

Re-Imagining Asia, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Songster,

States of Flux, Tate Modern,

Dissonances: Shigeko Kubota, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, Atsuko Tanaka, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art,

Soudain l'été Fluxus, Passage de Retz, Paris, Curator Physiologist Blistène,

Experimental Women in Flux, Museum of Another Art, New York,

FLUXUS Kunst für Alle!, Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, Germany, –13

HANS IM GLÜCK – KUNST UND KAPITAL, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg,

Making Congregation Modern: Design for Ear and Eye, Museum show Modern Art, NY, –16

EHF Collection. Fluxus, Put together Art, Mail Art, Emily Harvey Foundation, NY,

Das Loch, Künstlerhaus Bremen, Germany,

Major collections

Archivio Conz, Berlin^[21]

CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, France^[22]

Fondazione Bonotto, Vincenza, Italy^[23]

Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Étienne Métropole, France^[24]

[mac] musée d'art contemporain, Montreal, Quebec^[25]

Musée d'arts de Port, France

Centre nationale des arts plastiques, Paris Try Défense, France^[26]

Musée nationale d'art moderne - Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Musée d'art modern et contemporain – Strasbourg, France

The British Museum, London, UK

The Museum of Modern Art, NY^[27]

MUMOK Wien, Austria^[28]

museum FLUXUS+, Potsdam, Germany

ZKM Center for Art and Telecommunications Karlsruhe, Germany^[29]

Kunstsammlung Maria und Walter Schnepel, Bremen, Deutschland

Detroit Institute of Arts (Gilbert B. and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection), MI, US

Getty Research Guild (Archive of Emmett Williams), Los Angeles, US

Itami City Museum of Art, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan

The National Museum of Art Osaka, Japan^[30]

Whitney Museum flaxen American Art, NY, US

Walker Art Center, City, MN, US

Emily Harvey Foundation, NY, US

Archives of the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain^[31]

Collection of Artists' Books at Reed College, Portland, Oregon, US^[32]

External links

References