Shusaku Arakawa - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

was a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

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...

and architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

. He had a personal and artistic partnership with writer and artist Madeline Gins

Madeline Gins

Madeline Gins is an American artist, architect, and poet.Madeline Gins met her partner, the artist Arakawa, in 1963. Together, they founded the Architectural Body Research Foundation. They have designed and built residences and parks...

that spanned more than four decades.

Life

Arakawa studied mathematics and medicine at the University of Tokyo

University of Tokyo

, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...

, and art at the Musashino Art University

Musashino Art University

is a university in Kodaira, western Tokyo founded in 1962 and has roots going back to 1929.Teikoku Art School was founded in 1929; in 1948 it became Musashino Art School , and in 1962 it became Musashino Art University...

. Initially he worked with printmaking

Printmaking

Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...

, using abstract dada

Dada

Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...

and Neo-Dada

Neo-Dada

Neo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...

styles. He had lived in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

since 1961.

Arakawa met his partner Madeline Gins

Madeline Gins

in 1963. Together, they founded the Architectural Body Research Foundation. They designed and built residences (Reversible Destiny Houses, Bioscleave House, Shidami Resource Recycling Model House) and parks (Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro). They developed an original theory and practice of the relation of the human being to the exterior world, elaborated most extensively in their book, Architectural Body. Arakawa and Gins were, together and separately, the authors of several books and exhibition volumes, most recently Making Dying Illegal (ISBN 1931824223).

Books by Arakawa and Gins

Word Rain (Gins, 1969)
The Mechanism of Meaning (Arakawa & Gins, 1971)
Intend (Gins, 1973)
What the President Will Say and Do (Gins, 1984)
To Not to Die (Gins, 1987)
Architecture: Sites of Reversible Destiny (Arakawa & Gins, 1994)
Hellen Keller or Arakawa (Gins, 1994)
Reversible Destiny (Arakawa & Gins, 1997)
Architectural Body (Arakawa & Gins, 2002)
Making Dying Illegal (Arakawa & Gins, 2006)

External links

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