Atsuko Tanaka (1932–2005)

Atsuko Tanaka joined Gutai in 1955 and remained in the group until 1965. She studied modern art at the Osaka Municipal Institute of Art. Her work involves the conceptual reinterpretation of painting and is most well known for sculptural installations made from non-art materials. Her most famous example of this was Electric Dress, 1956, a wearable sculpture made of short and long painted light bulbs and a mass of wires.1 Such experiments with electricity as art, were part of Gutai’s response to a rapidly modernising Japan.2

After 1956 Tanaka focused entirely on painting, with circles and lines becoming her singular concern.

1. For a 1956 photograph of Electric Dress in The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, go to http:/search.artmuseums.go.jp/search_e/records. php?sakuhin=181178
2. Ming Tiampo and Alexandra Munroe, Gutai: Splendid Playground, exhibition catalogue, Guggenheim Museum, (New York, 2013), p. 192-3.