takehisa kosugi

Takehisa Kosugi was born in Tokyo in 1938. While enrolled at Tokyo University of the Arts, he co‐founded Group Ongaku, Japan’s first collective improvisation group, with Yasunao Tone, Mieko Shiomi and others in 1960. In the 1960s, Kosugi’s event pieces were presented in Europe and US by the American art collective Fluxus. He lived in New York in 1965‐67, staging mixed‐media performances with Nam June Paik and other Fluxus members as well as holding concerts of his own works. From 1969 to 1976, he participated in numerous art festivals, music festivals, and rock festivals in Japan and abroad as a member of the band Taj Mahal Travellers. Meanwhile, on his own he gained acclaim as a composer of unique pieces employing electronics, and received commissions for environmental music for Festival Plaza at Expo ’70 Osaka and a composition for the NHK Electronic Music Studio. After moving to the US in 1977, he joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as a resident composer and musician, working with John Cage, David Tudor and others. He served as the company’s Music Director from 1995 until 2011. In addition to concerts around the world, he presented sound installations at various museums and galleries, and was consistently active at the forefront of contemporary art.

Kosugi received grants from the JDR 3rd Fund in 1966 and 1977 and DAAD in 1981, and in 1994 received the 2nd John Cage Award for Music for his achievements in music thus far.

Performances
2016: Music Expanded #1, #2 at Aichi Triennale 2016 (Aichi Arts Center)
2015: Takehisa Kosugi: Music Expanded #1, #2 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York)
2014: Tectonics Adelaide (Queen’s Theatre, Adelaide) & Tectonics Glasgow (Grand Hall, City Halls and Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow)      
2013: Transmitted Live: Nam June Paik Resounds (Talbot Rice Gallery and University of Edinburgh) at the Edinburgh International Festival
2012: BBC Proms: Prom 47 (Royal Albert Hall, London)
2009: Takehisa Kosugi: Two Concerts (National Museum of Modern Art, Osaka)
2008: Yokohama Triennale (Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No. 1)
2007: An Evening of Works by Ichiyanagi, Kosugi, Ono, and Shiomi (Harold M. Williams Auditorium, The Getty Center, Los Angeles) (Concert in conjunction with exhibition Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art – Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan 1950-1970)               
2007: Subtropics – Miami Subtropics Experimental Music and Sound Arts Festival (Studio Theater, Miami)

Exhibitions
2017: Ongaku no Pikunikku (Music Picnic) (solo exhibition at the Ashiya Museum of Art & History)
2016: Aichi Triennale 2016 (group exhibition at Nagoya City Art Museum)
2015: Spacings (solo exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK)
2012: A House Full of Music: Strategien in Musik und Kunst (group exhibition at Institut Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt)
2011: Gone with the Wind (group exhibition at Raven Row, London)
2008: Yokohama Triennale 2008 (group exhibition at BankART Studio NYK, Yokohama)
2008: Takehisa Kosugi + Yukio Fujimoto: ONGAKU (two-person exhibition at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre)
2005: Possible Futures: Japanese Postwar Art and Technology (group exhibition at NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC], Tokyo)
2004: Roppongi Crossing (group exhibition at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo)
2003: Wind (solo exhibition at Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art)
2002: Waves (solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura)
2001: Facts of Life: Contemporary Japanese Art (group exhibition at Hayward Gallery, London)
2001: Minimalismos. Un signo de los tiempos (group exhibition at Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid)

Translation by Colin Smith