Untitled

Tanaka Atsuko was a member of the acclaimed Gutai group of experimental and performance artists in the mid 1950s in Japan. Her work entitled Electric dress of 1956 has become one of the best-known pieces associated with the innovative movement. Tanaka appeared in several Gutai events draped in electric light bulbs painted in primary colors that flashed on and off as she walked. Risking electrocution, she made a feminist statement regarding the restrictive nature of women's fashion. The present painting may be a continuation in two dimensions of the bulbs and wires of the dress design. Tanaka had solo exhibitions of paintings from this period at the Minami Gallery, Tokyo, in 1963, and at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Tokyo, in 1985. The latter exhibition was entitled Tanaka Atsuko 1960: Ten to sen no uzumaki (Tanaka Atsuko 1960: The Vortex of Points and Lines). For a similar painting see Alexandra Munroe, Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, exh. cat. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994), pl. 11, p. 108.