Atsuko Tanaka

Atsuko Tanaka was a founding member of the landmark conceptualist Gutai group, who, following the group’s dissolution in 1972, continued to work until her death last year as a contemplative painter at the atelier in Nara. In 1955, she created a new concept with her “bells” which presented twenty electric bells arranged in line. She later created the “Electric Dress of 1956,” a contraption of colored lights and wires which she donned for public performances. After 1957, her interest shifted mainly to painting, paralleling the move of Gutai as it became focused on tableaux following the visit of French art critic Michel Tapié de Celeyran to Japan in the late 1950s.