(1936 – 1998), Japan

Jiro Takamatsu Biography

Engaging with histories of Dadaism and Surrealism through a minimalist visual language, Jiro Takamatsu's art centers on metaphysical ideas and concepts related to time, space, and emptiness.

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Over the span of his four-decade career, the artist engaged with a wide range of mediums, including sculpture, photography, painting, drawing, and performance art through which he explored concepts related to perception, space, and objecthood. Takamatsu nurtured an interest in mathematics and physics, especially quantum mechanics, as evidenced in his early 'point' and 'string' works, which meditate on the relationships between elementary particles, probing the ways in which they are at once material and immaterial, tangible and imaginary, present and absent.

Takamatsu studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he cultivated an interdisciplinary artistic practice after graduating in 1958. In the following years, he established the collective Hi Red Center (1963–64) alongside fellow artists Genpei Akasegawa and Natsuyuki Nakanishi. Presenting politically minded actions in public spaces throughout postwar Tokyo, Hi Red Center sought to dissolve boundaries between art and life—producing what the collective called a 'descent into the everyday'—through experimental and unorthodox approaches to art making. In 1966, the group reproduced a thousand-yen note as part of the work Model 1000-Yen Note (1963), for which they were famously tried and found guilty of counterfeiting, marking one of the most significant episodes in the history of 20th century Conceptualism. Takamatsu was also a leading figure in the Mono-Ha (School of Things) movement, which reacted against what it saw as unchecked industrialization and technologization in Japan through non-representational art centering on materiality and material conditions.

Takamatsu's works and series were often directly informed and related to one another. The expansive and generative nature of his process is perhaps most apparent between 1977 and 1982, an especially prolific period during which he developed the interrelated bodies of work that he called Space in Two Dimensions, Space, and Poles and Space. His most well-known and enduring series, which he began in 1964 and continued to create for the rest of his life, is his Shadow Paintings, which probe the formal properties of painting and conditions of representation. Inspired by the portrayal of shadows in 19th century Japanese paintings and woodcuts as well as his everyday encounters, Takamatsu investigated how painting could serve as a tool for critical inquiry, questioning the role of perceptual and visual phenomena in constructing notions of reality. Takamatsu drew attention to absence through the depiction of silhouetted, illusionistic shadows of figures and household items, sometimes cast from multiple implied light sources.

Though he presented his first solo exhibition at Gallery Hiroshi in 1959, Takamatsu considered his 1962 Yomiuri Independent exhibition the true start of his career as an artist. In 1966, he had his first solo exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery—where he would continue to show work in the 1970s and 80s. He went on to represent Japan at the 34th Venice Biennale in 1968 alongside Tomio Miki, Kumi Sugai, and Katsuhiro Yamaguchi. Teaching at Tokyo's Tama Art University from 1968 to 1972, Takamatsu introduced pioneering ways of seeing and thinking about art to the next generation of artists in Japan.

An influential figure of the Japanese avant-garde, presented with numerous solo exhibitions during his lifetime, Takamatsu is once again the subject of international attention, his practice lauded by scholars and curators across institutions globally. In 2014, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo opened Jiro Takamatsu: Mysteries, which traced three distinct phases of his career; and, in 2015, the National Museum of Art in Osaka mounted the major retrospective Jiro Takamatsu: Trajectory of Work. Takamatsu has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Henry Moore Institute, Wakefield, England (2017) and the Royal Society of Sculptors, London (2019). The artist's work is held in important public collections worldwide, including Aomori Museum of Art, Japan; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Tate, London, among others.

Text courtesy Pace Gallery.

Jiro Takamatsu
featured artworks

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Shadow of Brush No. 178 by Jiro Takamatsu contemporary artwork painting
Jiro Takamatsu Shadow of Brush No. 178, 1967 Oil on board
65.1 x 53.7 x 10.5 cm
Pace Gallery Request Price & Availability
Perspective by Jiro Takamatsu contemporary artwork works on paper, drawing
Jiro Takamatsu Perspective, 1968 Pencil and colored pencil on colored paper
37.6 x 27.5 cm
Pace Gallery Request Price & Availability
Space in Two Dimensions by Jiro Takamatsu contemporary artwork works on paper, drawing
Jiro Takamatsu Space in Two Dimensions, 1977 Pencil, coloured pencil, Kent paper
79 x 109.2 cm
Yumiko Chiba Associates Request Price & Availability
Space in Two Dimensions by Jiro Takamatsu contemporary artwork works on paper, drawing
Jiro Takamatsu Space in Two Dimensions, Late 1970s Pencil, coloured pencil, graph paper
27 x 37.9 cm
Yumiko Chiba Associates Request Price & Availability
Book Design: Space in Two Dimensions by Jiro Takamatsu contemporary artwork works on paper, drawing
Jiro Takamatsu Book Design: Space in Two Dimensions, 1977 Pencil, Kent paper
44.2 x 35.8 cm
Yumiko Chiba Associates Request Price & Availability
Form No.1342 by Jiro Takamatsu contemporary artwork painting
Jiro Takamatsu Form No.1342, 1992 Oil on canvas
162 x 130 cm
Whitestone Gallery Request Price & Availability
Shadow No. 1438 by Jiro Takamatsu contemporary artwork painting
Jiro Takamatsu Shadow No. 1438, 1997 Acrylic on canvas
227.5 x 181.8 cm
Whitestone Gallery Request Price & Availability
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Jiro Takamatsu
recent exhibitions

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Represented by these
Ocula Member Galleries

Pace Gallery contemporary art gallery in 540 West 25th Street, New York, United States
Pace Gallery Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo +2
Whitestone Gallery contemporary art gallery in Taipei, Taiwan
Whitestone Gallery Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei +2
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