Atsuko Tanaka

Atsuko Tanaka was a founding member of the landmark conceptualist Gutai group.  Following the group's dissolution in 1972, she continued to work as a painter at her atelier in Nara until her death last year.  In 1955, Tanaka made an historically significant sound work, "Bell," which was shown in the First Gutai Art Exhibition in October of that year.  The following year she created the equally important "Electric Dress," a contraption of colored lights and wires which she donned for public performances.  After 1957, her interest shifted mainly to painting, paralleling the move of Gutai as it became focused on the medium following the visit of French art critic Michel Tapié to Japan in the late 1950s.