Artists
Tatsuo Kawaguchi
Selected Works
About Tatsuo Kawaguchi
Born in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, in 1940. Kawaguchi graduated from the Department of Painting at Tama Art University in 1962. In 1965, he took part in the formation of the artist collective Group I (pronounced ee), and from early in his career developed a distinctive practice through both painting and collective activities.
For more than five decades, Kawaguchi has explored “relation”—understood as something underlying all phenomena—as the central theme of his work. He has focused on relations between light and darkness, the forces of nature, the individual and society, history and the present, and life itself—as well as on those arising between the visible and the invisible, and between phenomena and matter. Through a wide range of materials and media, including metal, cloth, wood, paper, soil, seeds, and water, he has sought to make such relations perceptible in his work.
In his practice, not only visible things but also entities that cannot be directly apprehended—such as time, memory, and energy—play an important role. Rather than privileging either human thought and concepts or the existence of matter itself, Kawaguchi has sought to understand the world through the “relations” that emerge between them. By attending to the relations that arise between such differing realms as the visible and the invisible, matter and consciousness, and nature and humanity, he continues to question the nature of the world and of our existence within it.
In 1970, Kawaguchi participated in the “10th Tokyo Biennale: Between Man and Matter,” for which Yusuke Nakahara served as commissioner, and presented one of his major works, Land and Sea. He subsequently exhibited widely in Japan and abroad, taking part in numerous important international exhibitions, including “Japon des Avant-Gardes 1910–1970” at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 1986, and “Magiciens de la Terre” in 1989.
Kawaguchi has also been involved in education for many years, teaching younger generations at institutions including the University of Tsukuba. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Tsukuba.
For more than five decades, Kawaguchi has explored “relation”—understood as something underlying all phenomena—as the central theme of his work. He has focused on relations between light and darkness, the forces of nature, the individual and society, history and the present, and life itself—as well as on those arising between the visible and the invisible, and between phenomena and matter. Through a wide range of materials and media, including metal, cloth, wood, paper, soil, seeds, and water, he has sought to make such relations perceptible in his work.
In his practice, not only visible things but also entities that cannot be directly apprehended—such as time, memory, and energy—play an important role. Rather than privileging either human thought and concepts or the existence of matter itself, Kawaguchi has sought to understand the world through the “relations” that emerge between them. By attending to the relations that arise between such differing realms as the visible and the invisible, matter and consciousness, and nature and humanity, he continues to question the nature of the world and of our existence within it.
In 1970, Kawaguchi participated in the “10th Tokyo Biennale: Between Man and Matter,” for which Yusuke Nakahara served as commissioner, and presented one of his major works, Land and Sea. He subsequently exhibited widely in Japan and abroad, taking part in numerous important international exhibitions, including “Japon des Avant-Gardes 1910–1970” at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 1986, and “Magiciens de la Terre” in 1989.
Kawaguchi has also been involved in education for many years, teaching younger generations at institutions including the University of Tsukuba. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Tsukuba.