Circular shapes rippling out from the centre, splashes of colour and lines overlayed on top create the tension in Work by Atsuko Tanaka from 1965. The relationship between order and chaos is what we see here, exerting an energetic pull further intensified by vibrant vinyl colours. Denkifuku (electric dress), probably Atsuko Tanaka’s most sensational work, is a sculpture made of 200 colourful flashing light bulbs and fluorescent tubes, which the artist herself wore to several exhibition events. The preliminary drawings and circuit plans for Denkifuku inspired the visual language of her paintings and can also be found as lines and circles in Work. This small-format work represents the prelude to the following 50 years which Tanaka devoted exclusively to developing her pictorial language of complex systems of lines and circles in ever larger dimensions. Her way of thinking and working had a significant influence on the conceptual approaches of the ZERO-kai artists group which she co-founded and the Gutai group which followed.
Atsuko Tanaka (1932–2005)
Work, 1965
Currently exhibited: Yes (Gallery: From Zero to Action)
Material: Vinyl on canvas
Size: 53.2 x 45.3 cm
Inv-Nr.: A_079
Keywords:
Previous owner: Private collection, Japan
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Est-Ouest Auctions Co., Ltd., Hong Kong, 2011
Circular shapes rippling out from the centre, splashes of colour and lines overlayed on top create the tension in Work by Atsuko Tanaka from 1965. The relationship between order and chaos is what we see here, exerting an energetic pull further intensified by vibrant vinyl colours. Tanaka became internationally known for her works Bell, an interactive room installation made of interconnected bells, and Denkifuku, a sculpture made of 200 colourful flashing light bulbs and fluorescent tubes, which the artist herself wore to several exhibition events. The preliminary drawings and circuit plans for Denkifuku inspired the visual language of her later paintings: the electrical wires and the round shape of the light bulbs are reflected in the circular shapes and the lines connecting and overlapping them in Work. The strong, bright colour contrasts also create a similar effect to the rapid flashing of the bulbs in Denkifuku: “For me ‘Bell‘ and ‘Electric Dress‘ were not experimental ones. I worked on them clearly recognizing them as actual paintings.“ [1]
Tanaka’s way of thinking and working had a significant influence on the conceptual approaches of the ZERO-kai artists group which she co-founded and the following Gutai group to which she belonged from 1955 to 1965.
‘By using a vocabulary of form that had technological rather than psychological origins, […] Tanaka launched a conceptual attack on the Informel and Abstract Expressionist idea that art could or should be an expression of the soul, poured out and worked on a canvas,’ wrote Gutai expert Ming Tiampo in her 2004 essay ‘Electrifying Art’.
Tanaka created Work in 1965, the same year she left the Gutai group as a result of differing opinions with the group’s increasingly authoritarian founder Jiro Yoshihara. This small-format work represents the prelude to the following 50 years which Tanaka devoted exclusively to developing her pictorial language of complex systems of lines and circles in ever larger dimensions.
[1] Atsuko Tanaka – Another Gutai, production: Aomi Okabe, 1998, 45 min, here 38:26—38:37 min.
[2] Ming Tiampo: ‘Electrifying Painting’, in: Electrifying Art. Atsuko Tanaka 1954–1968, exh. cat. Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver 2004, p. 65–78, here p. 76.
