Biography

Atsuko Tanaka was a Japanese avant-garde artist best known for her Neo-Dada Electric Dress (1956), a garment made from hundreds of lightbulbs painted in primary colors. This iconic work, which she wore to exhibitions, functions as a conflation of Japanese traditional clothing with modern urbanization, bringing an unexpected and challenging interpretation to both. “I wanted to shatter stable beauty with my work,” Tanaka once said. A member of the Gutai movement along with artists such as Jiro Yoshihara, much of her work used domestic objects like lightbulbs, textiles, doorknobs, and doorbells. With these objects, the artist was able to create work about the body without a body present. She maintained a broad practice that included performance “happenings,” sculpture, and installation, while her later work focusing on two-dimensional painting, with colorful organic abstract shapes connecting circles and lines. Born on February 10, 1932 in Osaka, Japan, Tanaka studied at the Art Institute of Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, and Kyoto Municipal College of Art. She was widely exhibited nationally and abroad, notably at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, the National Museum of Art in Kyoto, and documenta 12 in Kassel, and is also included in important museum collections such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Tanaka died on December 3, 2005 at the age of 74 in Asuka, Japan.