Ei Arakawa
Study for Performance People

$850

Ei Arakawa (b. 1977, Fukushima, Japan) Japanese-born American artist Ei Arakawa’s exhibitions and performances are often created through collaborations with artists, art historians, and with audience members themselves. His activities undertake the lo-fi mimicry, duplication, and embodiment of cultural forms — be they architectural structures, art historical legacies, or organizational systems — to reanimate their potentialities anew. Since the early 2000s, Arakawa has been at the forefront of renewing the visibility and advancement of performance art internationally, and has mined both its vintage forms (such as Japanese Gutai, New York’s Fluxus, Happenings, and Judson Dance Theater, and Viennese Actionism) as well as numerous contemporary manifestations of movement, entertainment, and togetherness. For the Performance People series, Ei Arakawa conducted historical research to figure out the premiere date and time of various works of performance art to which he personally relates. The artist translated the birth data of a performance  —  here, a music piece by Julius Eastman — into an astrological chart, making the performance’s cosmic personality legible. Ei Arakawa’s selected performances and exhibitions include Tate Modern, London (2021); Honolulu Biennial (2019); Liverpool Biennial (2018); Sculpture Project Münster (2017); Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2018); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2017); The 9th Berlin Biennale (2016); Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2015); Gwangju Biennial (2014); Whitney Biennial, New York (2014). 

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Ei Arakawa (b. 1977, Fukushima, Japan) Japanese-born American artist Ei Arakawa’s exhibitions and performances are often created through collaborations with artists, art historians, and with audience members themselves. His activities undertake the lo-fi mimicry, duplication, and embodiment of cultural forms — be they architectural structures, art historical legacies, or organizational systems — to reanimate their potentialities anew. Since the early 2000s, Arakawa has been at the forefront of renewing the visibility and advancement of performance art internationally, and has mined both its vintage forms (such as Japanese Gutai, New York’s Fluxus, Happenings, and Judson Dance Theater, and Viennese Actionism) as well as numerous contemporary manifestations of movement, entertainment, and togetherness. For the Performance People series, Ei Arakawa conducted historical research to figure out the premiere date and time of various works of performance art to which he personally relates. The artist translated the birth data of a performance  —  here, a music piece by Julius Eastman — into an astrological chart, making the performance’s cosmic personality legible. Ei Arakawa’s selected performances and exhibitions include Tate Modern, London (2021); Honolulu Biennial (2019); Liverpool Biennial (2018); Sculpture Project Münster (2017); Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2018); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2017); The 9th Berlin Biennale (2016); Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2015); Gwangju Biennial (2014); Whitney Biennial, New York (2014).