Ay-O
Encyclopedia
is a Japan
ese artist
, who has been associated with Fluxus
since its international beginnings in the 1960s.
. This association promoted artistic freedom and independence in making art. The influence of these values with Ay-O can be seen in a series of early paintings over which he painted a large X because he thought they were not original enough. Another independent movement was close to Democrato in Japan: Sōzō Biiku (創造美育) by the collector Sadajirō Kubo (久保貞次郞） promoting nurturing freedom when teaching art. Both movements started Fukui Prefecture
in Japan and explain the special bound Ay-O developed with the Fukui Prefecture
. Sōzō Biiku's approach is a challenge of the traditional Japanese Master-Student relationship. As such, like naive art
, the movement promotes ways independent to the culturally established ones. Kubo also created the "Small Collector Society" (小コレクターの会) to spread art collection in society.
Ay-O was introduced to George Maciunas
by Yoko Ono
in 1961 and formally joined Maciunas in Fluxus
in 1963. Ay-O was known for his Finger Boxes and for his performance events when he was active in Fluxus. He worked closely with fellow Fluxus artists Maciunas, Emmett Williams
, Dick Higgins
and Nam June Paik
.
Example with 96 gradations
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, who has been associated with Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
since its international beginnings in the 1960s.
From Democrato to Fluxus
Probably, the best reference to understand the early years of Ay-O is the autobiographical retrospective book in the references "Ay-O, Over the Rainbow, Ay-O Restrospective 1950-2006." In a nutshell: Ay-O started his career in the Demokrato Artist Association (デモクラート美術家協会), created by Ei-QEi-Q
was a renowned Japanese artist who worked in a variety of media, including photography and engraving.Ei-Q, whose early work was done under his real name of Hideo Sugita , was born in Miyazaki-machi , Miyazaki Prefecture on 28 April 1911...
. This association promoted artistic freedom and independence in making art. The influence of these values with Ay-O can be seen in a series of early paintings over which he painted a large X because he thought they were not original enough. Another independent movement was close to Democrato in Japan: Sōzō Biiku (創造美育) by the collector Sadajirō Kubo (久保貞次郞） promoting nurturing freedom when teaching art. Both movements started Fukui Prefecture
Fukui Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Fukui.- Prehistory :The Kitadani Dinosaur Quarry, on the Sugiyama River within the city limits of Katsuyama, has yielded the Fukuiraptor kitadaniensis and Fukuisaurus tetoriensis as well as an unnamed...
in Japan and explain the special bound Ay-O developed with the Fukui Prefecture
Fukui Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Fukui.- Prehistory :The Kitadani Dinosaur Quarry, on the Sugiyama River within the city limits of Katsuyama, has yielded the Fukuiraptor kitadaniensis and Fukuisaurus tetoriensis as well as an unnamed...
. Sōzō Biiku's approach is a challenge of the traditional Japanese Master-Student relationship. As such, like naive art
Naïve art
Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true...
, the movement promotes ways independent to the culturally established ones. Kubo also created the "Small Collector Society" (小コレクターの会) to spread art collection in society.
Ay-O was introduced to George Maciunas
George Maciunas
George Maciunas was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers...
by Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
in 1961 and formally joined Maciunas in Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
in 1963. Ay-O was known for his Finger Boxes and for his performance events when he was active in Fluxus. He worked closely with fellow Fluxus artists Maciunas, Emmett Williams
Emmett Williams
Emmett Williams was an American poet and visual artist.Williams was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and grew up in Virginia, and lived in Europe from 1949 to 1966...
, Dick Higgins
Dick Higgins
Dick Higgins was a composer, poet, printer, and early Fluxus artist. Higgins was born in Cambridge, England, but raised in the United States in various parts of New England, including Worcester, Massachusetts, Putney, Vermont, and Concord, New Hampshire.Like other Fluxus artists, Higgins studied...
and Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist....
.
The Rainbow Artist
Ay-O has established a reputation in the avant gardes of Japan, Europe and the United States. In Japan, he is known as the "Rainbow Man" for his use of colorful, rainbow-striped motifs in his artwork. In its purest form some paintings are simple gradations of the Rainbow with up to 192 gradations.Ay-O represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1966 and at the São Paulo Biennale in 1971. He also built the famed "Tactile Rainbow" at the Osaka World's Fair in 1970. In 1971 true to his Demokato debut he adapted 10 American Naive paintings and created a rainbow version that he called Nashville Skyline. In 1987 he did a series of Rainbow Happenings, with Rainbow Happening #17 being a 300m Rainbow Eiffel Tower project in Paris.
Recent Activities
One of his projects in English was a Collective Portrait of George Maciuanas, that he co-edited with Emmett Williams and Ann Noel. In the recent decade Ay-O has exhibited regularly at the Emily Harvey Gallery in (1996, 2001) and Gallery ItsutsujiGallery Itsutsuji
Gallery Itsutsuji is a contemporary art gallery founded in 1990 by Michiyasu Itsutsuji.- History :Expanding a tradition built over 20 years from around 1970 to 1990 by Fuji Television Gallery, Michiyasu Itsutsuji founded in the traditional cultural heart of Tokyo this contemporary art gallery in...
(1996,2005,2007) and Gallery Goto (1999,2004) in Japan. In Japan Ay-O is part of the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and Kyoto (see 2005 Tokyo exhibition in the links). In 2001 Ay-O had a room in the special exhibit "La fluxus Constellation" in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa. He was also represented in various other Fluxus exhibitions around the world as "Centraal Fluxus Festival" Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2003), "Fluxus & Non Fluxus Fluxus" Randers kunstmuseum (2006). Ay-O was one of the "Twelve Japanese Artists from the Venice Biennale 1952-2001," in Art Tower Mito ATM, Mito. At the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Ay-O was part of two exhibitions: "Tokyo-Berlin / Berlin-Tokyo" in 2005 and "All about laughter" in 2007.
Fukui Retrospective
Ay-O did his most complete retrospective exhibition in the Fukui Art Museum in 2006. This exhibition was the occasion for the artist to write a bilingual book "Over the Rainbow, Ay-O Restrospective 1950-2006," in which he provides an overview of his work.Finger boxes
The Finger Boxes are works of art by Ay-O that are the most tactile works of art in the FluxusFluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
project. Ay-O first produced them in 1964. There are rumors that they were invented before WWII, however this is unconfirmed. It is said that all of the original Finger Boxes were destroyed during the fighting. Ay-O is said to have learned of this and claimed the invention for himself. The artworks comprise largely identical hollow cubical wooden boxes with finger-sized holes in one face. As tactile works of art, it is necessary to touch them to perceive them, by placing one's finger into the hole to feel the material that is hidden within the box. The hidden contents of the boxes comprise such various things as beads, bristle brushes, hair, cotton balls, nails, and sponges.
The artist's intent, by including things such as nails, which can potentially prick the finger, in the possible contents of the box is to ensure that the user touches the box with an "enquiring, learning gesture". The finger boxes are also intended to be touched by multiple people at a time, promoting a shared, social, experience of perceiving the work.
Several versions of the Finger Box exist, including one set of boxes in a briefcase (entitled Finger Box (valise edition)) which is in the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection in Detroit, and a version (included in Fluxus I) that uses sealed envelopes that have been slit open instead of boxes.
Publications
- Mr. Fluxus: A Collective Portrait of George Maciunas 1931-1978, Thames & Hudson, 1998
- Niji: Ai O hanga zen sakuhinshu, 1954–1979, Published in English by Sobunsha
- Ouzel, Chikumasyobo Publishing, 1978
- Ay-O, Over the Rainbow, Ay-O Restrospective 1950-2006 (174 pages) (ISBN 4568103592), Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha (:ja:美術出版社), 2006
External links
- Ay-O at Emily Harvey Gallery
- Ay-O at the Tokyo MOT
- Rainbow Manifesto by Ay-O
- Tokyo Fluxus
- "The New Japan" by David ElliottDavid ElliottDavid Elliott is a British-born art gallery and museum curator and writer about modern and contemporary art.After studying history at the University of Durham, and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art Elliott worked as an exhibitions officer at the Arts Council of Great Britain, after...
- Ay-O in the Fluxus Archives, includes work examples
- The Fluxus Constellation
- Twelve Japanese Artists from the Venice Biennale 1952-2001
- Fukuoka Museum
- Fluxus: Art in Life, Urawa Art Museum http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2004/5C97
- "Fluxus, Non-Fluxus", Randers Kunstmuseum
- 2006 retrospective at the Fukui museum