Arakawa: Diagrams for the Imagination

Gagosian gallery, at 980 Madison Avenue, New York, hosts the exhibition “Diagrams for the Imagination”, dedicated to Japanese-born artist Arakawa, past away in 2010. In his art, Arakawa merges crucial elements from Dadaism, abstract art, Minimalism, conceptual art, Pop art, and more; he was one of the earliest practitioners of the international conceptual art movement of the 1960s.

After moving from Japan to New York in 1961, he started producing diagrammatic paintings and drawings which investigate the processes of human perception. In 1962 he met his future wife Madeline Gins, with whom he continued his research; in 1990 together they put aside the focus on painting to dedicate themselves to develop theoretical architecture projects.

His work has been exhibited extensively throughout North America, Western Europe, and Japan and is featured in institutional collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Karuizawa, Japan; and National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, as well as in numerous private and corporate collections. Arakawa represented Japan in the 35th Biennale di Venezia, Venice in 1970 and was included in Documenta IV (1968) and Documenta VI (1977).