Atsuko Tanaka (1932-2005)

Born in Osaka, Atsuko Tanaka attended both the Art Institute of Osaka Municipal Museum of Art and Kyoto Municipal College of Art, where she studied Western painting and worked in a primarily figurative manner. It was during this time that Tanaka met fellow artist--and her future husband--Akira Kanayama, who encouraged her to explore new artistic territory.  According to Tanaka, it wasn’t until this time, after she took Kanayama’s advice and started experimenting with her style that she began to seriously pursue her artistic career.[1]  In 1953, Tanaka was hospitalized for an extended period of time, and in anticipation of her discharge she made a calendar and drew along the contours of each number with oil pastel. Upon her release from the hospital, Tanaka continued to produce works featuring numeric symbols; she also began experimenting with nontraditional materials, including shipping waybills and tracing paper.

From this point on, despite her use of unconventional materials to create nonfigurative work Tanaka would describe her work always as "painting." In 1954, Tanaka began attending meetings of an innovative young Japanese art group called Zero Society, which counted Kanayama, Kazuo Shiraga, and Saburo Murakami among its founding members. Tanaka was affiliated with Zero Society until 1955, when she and other members joined the Gutai Art Association, led by Jiro Yoshihara. Zero Society believed that every work of art came from nothing, a sort of "ground zero" ontology. This philosophy discloses an idea of "starting from scratch" that must have been very much in the minds of many post-war Japanese artists who were struggling, literally, to construct a new identity for their country. Zero Society’s approach to art making greatly influenced Tanaka’s own methodology, and in 1955, Yoshihara first saw Tanaka’s work at the “8th Ashiya City Exhibition,” where he served on the jury panel and invited her to join the group.

Tanaka had submitted three works made of different layers of yellow cotton fabric cut into the shapes of a circle, square and rectangle, which were displayed tacked to a wall. Tanaka’s description of her artistic process at this time coincided with the principles of Gutai, as she asserted that these works were “the result of thinking through how to handle it in truly my own way. I was to create something that drastically deviates from ordinary painting.” [2] In October of that year, now a new member of the Gutai Art Association, Tanaka participated in the groundbreaking Japanese avant-garde exhibition “First Gutai Art Exhibition,” where she produced the first iteration of Work -Bells (1955 – 1993), which has since become one of her most emblematic pieces, alongside Electric Dress, a wearable sculpture of flickering, multi-colored lights which she created the following year.

Work-Bells is an interactive, conceptual sculpture that Tanaka described as "painting with sound."  Arranged on the floor of the exhibition hall, a series of electric bells attached to a snaking cord were positioned on the floor, and viewers were invited to press a button with their feet, causing a series of shrill electric bells to ring throughout the exhibition space.  Recalling the reaction to Tanaka’s installation, Yoshihara stated, “we suddenly heard the shrill sound of bells ringing through the hall…All those present remained standing still, and their bodies became ears.  The sounds was jumping around just like a living animal…We walked back and forth through the hall several times.  All faces beamed with satisfaction.” [3]

Following the “First Gutai Art Exhibition,” Tanaka added a notched switch mechanism to Work-Bells; she exhibited this improved version the subsequent month, at the “3rd Genbi Exhibition” in Kyoto.  Of the altered version, Tanaka explains “I designed it so that the bells, controlled by a motor, automatically ring sequentially.  I aimed at the effect of sound diminishing as it moves further away.”[4]  Five versions of Work-Bells, with varying number of bells and cord length, have since been recreated under the supervision of the artist. The Work-Bells considered for acquisition was recreated in 1993 and consists of twelve bells and a 3000 centimeter long cord; the original included twenty bells and a cord length of one hundred feet.

Congruent with the ideologies of Gutai, Tanaka’s Work-Bells and Electric Dress sought to break with traditions of the past and create a new beginning for life in post-war Japan. These works brought a level of conceptual sophistication to the Gutai that encouraged the group to further question the boundaries of art.  Work-Bell and Electric Dress (1956) are prime examples of the artist’s interest in the application of intangible materials in art, and Gutai’s reaction to a modernizing Japan.

In 1965 Tanaka left the Gutai Association and established a studio in a detached house at the Myohoji Buddhist temple in Osaka, where she worked until her death in 2005. 

1. Atsuko Tanaka, “Concerning the Creative Process, ” Monthly Journal of the National Museum of Art, Osaka 81 (June 1999): 3.

2. “Highlighting Something Out of the Ordinary, ” Mainichi Shimbun (June 9, 1955).

3. Jiro Yoshihara, On the First Gutai Exhibition, ” Gutai 4 (January 7, 1956).

4. “Twenty Bells Take You by Surprise: A Young Lady ’s Work Accepted to Genbi ’s Exhibition Without Problem, ” Asahi Shimbun (November 24, 1955, evening edition).

Dr. Jeffrey Grove, DMA unpublished material.

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