Motonao Takasaki Biography

Motonao Takasaki is an artist who, since the 1950s, has been taking a methodical approach to artworks that depend on the environment they occupy. He respects the physical properties of the materials themselves while making subtle commentaries on societal structures and larger political contexts. 

Motonao Takasaki was a member of the highly influential avant-garde Gutai group, joining in 1966 until their dissolution six years later. He was one of the members participating in Gutai’s first showcase in America, the “1st Japan Art Festival,” alongside Sadamasa Motonaga, Kazuo Shiraga, and Jiro Yoshihara. Although a multi-faceted and cohesive art group, there was no “gutai-style” to speak of. Their shocking and widely-publicised exhibitions promoted individuality and resistance to authority, against the backdrop of post-war Japan and the oppression of artistic expression. While many of the Gutai methods of expressive, body-oriented artworks were highly influential on happenings, performance art, abstract painting, and environmental art of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, Takasaki’s minimalistic approach is finding new relevance now in the second decade of the 2000s.

His representative series, Apparatus, began in 1966 when he cut out squares of canvas and pasted them onto a backing of black plywood. Begun after seeing a row of computers, it refers to the interconnectedness of society, but nearly 50 years on, Takasaki is still continuing this series in a world more connected than ever. It is a systematic attempt at exhausting the creative possibilities within this self-imposed framework, and an exploration of the properties of different materials even including high-grade plastic. Gutai pioneered environmental art, with open-air exhibitions and installations that broke down the distance between artist, object, and viewer, but Takasaki’s Apparatus takes a subtle approach. The individual white squares are pasted only in the centre, allowing the edges to remain exposed. These squares enter the viewer’s space and are thus subject to the same environment the viewer occupies, its edges warping and curling based on the temperature, air circulation, and humidity exposed to it over time. These subtle variations keep them fresh, even as they slowly decay over time. Within this limited vocabulary of monochrome works, there is immense range due to the different materials and grid sizes - which he chooses, and the way the squares curl - which he has little control over. While beautifully revealing the characteristics of the raw materials, this process is a stark reminder of the artificial barriers between viewer and artwork, and indeed all elements in society. The works are too expressive to be classified purely as geometric art, but the expression is more than only his own.

Collapse, a work from 1978, was much more explicit in handing over artistic agency to others. For it, Takasaki covered the floor of the entrance of the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe, with a grid made up of shards from concrete blocks. After labouring for three days, visitors were invited to walk over it to complete the artwork. Gutai had already dissolved by this time, and Takasaki carried on their legacy of aestheticising decay and showing a love of raw materials, as well as empowering an increasingly disillusioned public in light of recent political events. The Vietnam War and the adverse effects of Japan’s economic miracle have since given way to myriad other concerns, but Takasaki’s art shows us that even in an interconnected, depersonalised and desensitised world, there are - and have always been - ways for individuals to stamp their mark in life.

Takasaki Motonao graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Tokyo Fine Arts School (now the Tokyo University of the Arts) in 1949, and received the newcomer’s prize at the 4th Exhibition of the Modern Art Association of Japan in 1954, joining as a member three years later. He joined Gutai in 1966 and participated in six Gutai Art Exhibitions in the late 1960s, including the landmark 1966 1st Japan Art Festival, in the USA held at the Union Carbide Building, New York; Gimbel Brothers, Pittsburgh; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; and the M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco, and the Garden on Garden Outdoor Section Exhibition Gutai showcase at the Expo '70 World’s Fair, Osaka. After the dissolution of Gutai in 1972, Takasaki continued with frequent group and solo exhibitions throughout the 70s and 80s especially in the Kansai region. He received the Kochi Prefecture Cultural Award in 1995 for promoting modern art, and in 2014 was featured in a Gutai retrospective at The Guggenheim Museum, New York titled Gutai: Splendid Playground.

Public Collection:
The Miyagi Museum of Art, Miyagi, Japan
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan
Osaka City Museum of Modern Art (Planning Office), Osaka, Japan
Ashiya City Museum of Art and History, Hyogo, Japan
Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo, Japan
The Museum of Art, Kochi, Japan
Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Fukuoka, Japan
Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan

Text by Ruben van Mansum.