1. Shusaku Arakawa was a Japanese conceptual artist and architect.
15 Facts About Shusaku Arakawa
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Shusaku Arakawa usually referred to himself by his surname only, which eventually came to be more commonly practiced by him during his career in the United States and Europe.
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Shusaku Arakawa was born in Nagoya on July 6,1936.
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Shusaku Arakawa spoke of himself as an "eternal outsider" and "abstractionist of the future", and was interested in a variety of disciplines including art, mathematics, and medicine.
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One of Shusaku Arakawa's neighbors was a doctor who offered the young Shusaku Arakawa professional advice on proper training for a career in medicine.
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In 1960, at the height of the massive Anpo protests against the US-Japan Security Treaty, Shusaku Arakawa became involved with the avant-garde art collective Neo-Dada Organizers, along with Genpei Akasegawa, Ushio Shinohara, Sho Kazakura, Kinpei Masuzawa, and group founder Masanobu Yoshimura.
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One of Shusaku Arakawa's stunts as a member of Neo-Dada was a work titled Site Made by the Viewer performed at Nihon University, in which Shusaku Arakawa invited 400 spectators to an auditorium but refused to allow them inside.
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When Yoshimura and five other attendees, at Shusaku Arakawa's urging, climbed a ladder that led up to the auditorium's balcony, Shusaku Arakawa removed the ladder, trapping them on the balcony for over one hour while he silently crouched in the darkness.
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Shusaku Arakawa explained he did not create an artwork but "manipulated" his audience by turning them into "actors".
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Shusaku Arakawa was eventually expelled from the Neo-Dada Organizers collective because he was deemed "too much of an aesthete", and for chaotically disrupting group events.
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Shusaku Arakawa arrived in New York in 1961 with fourteen dollars in his pocket and a telephone number for Marcel Duchamp, whom he phoned from the airport and with whom he eventually formed a close friendship.
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Shusaku Arakawa referred to them as "diagrams of the mind".
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Shusaku Arakawa died on May 19,2010, after a week of hospitalization.
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Since the 1950s, Shusaku Arakawa's artworks have been displayed in over four hundred exhibitions in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia.
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Additionally, Shusaku Arakawa was the recipient of multiple awards and honors:.