Natsuyuki Nakanishi (Kanji: 中西夏之, Nakanishi Natsuyuki, b. July 14, 1935, Tokyo, d. October 23, 2016) was a Japanese visual and conceptual artist associated with the 1960s avant-garde art movement in Japan. His artworks ranged from Neo-Dadaist object-based works, happenings and performance art, to abstract painting. Nakanishi co-founded the groundbreaking artistic collective Hi-Red Center along with Jirо̄ Takamatsu and Genpei Akasegawa. Later in his career, Nakanishi would become known for painting practice featuring subdued palettes and idiosyncratic marks. He is also recognized for his pedagogical work, including his involvement with the experimental Bigakko school as well as professorship as Tokyo University of the Arts.
Early life and career
Nakanishi was born in Ōimachi, Shinagawa, Tokyo in 1935. In 1958, he graduated with a bachelor's degree from Tokyo University of the Arts, where he focused on oil painting. Jirō Takamatsu, who would become an important collaborator, was a classmate of Nakanishi’s during this time.Chong, Doryun, Mitsuda Yuri, and Reiko Tomii. “Trauma and Deliverance: Portraits of Avant-Garde Artists in Japan, 1955-1970.” Essay. In Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde, 158–77. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2012. Pg. 169 While at Tokyo University of the Arts, Nakanishi became interested in art’s ability to engage social issues when he came into contact with the “workers’ culture circle” movement. In 1960, Nakanishi was a frequent participant in the activities of the short-lived but influential "anti-art" collective Neo-Dada Organizers, of which his future Hi-Red Center compatriot Genpei Akasegawa was a member.
Nakanishi began his artistic career as a painter, creating works such as Map of Human (Ningen no Chizu) in 1959 and Rhyme ‘60 in 1960.Chong, Doryun, and Doryun Chong. Essay. In Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde, 26–93. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2012. Pg. 43 Both paintings use paint, enamel and sand.Chong, Doryun, and Doryun Chong. Essay. In Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde, 26–93. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2012. Pg. 44 The latter of these paintings was part of his “Rhyme” series, all of which employed the similar techniques, materials and imagery and which earned Nakanishi an honorable mention at the Shell Art Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Kanazawa in 1959.Chong, Doryun, Mitsuda Yuri, and Reiko Tomii. “Trauma and Deliverance: Portraits of Avant-Garde Artists in Japan, 1955-1970.” Essay. In Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde, 158–77. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2012. Pg. 162 Both the “Rhyme” series and Map of Human create a sense of topography as well as biomorphic forms on the cellular level. The result is a visual analogy between a macro perspective such as one achieve by a satellite and a micro one such as one achieve by a microscope.
Yamanote Line Incident
On October 18, 1962, Nakanishi, along with future Hi-Red Center collaborator Jirо̄ Takamatsu and other collaborators, carried out an artistic happening they titled the "Yamanote Line Incident" (山手線事件, Yamanote-sen jiken), in which they boarded a Yamanote loop line train heading counter-clockwise on its route, disrupting the normalcy of passenger's commutes with a series of bizarre performative actions.
On the Fluxus-produced map of Hi-Red Center’s activities, compiled and edited with the help of Shigeko Kubota, the Yamanote Line Incident is listed as number three. This is despite the fact that the Yamanote Line Incident is now considered to belong more properly to the pre-history of Hi-Red Center. The work is printed as such:
“18 Oct. Event on Yamate loop line street car. A continuous black string with various everyday objects attached to it at intervals was laid out on street from moving street car along its circular route. Compact objects were hung from hand straps inside street car and observed by performers at close range with battery lights. Faces of performers were painted white. Performers read newspapers with holes burned in them.”
The second of these listed components refers to Nakanishi’s “Compact Object” (Konpakuto obuje) works. These objects are ostrich egg shaped resin sculptures, filled with a jumble of various items of everyday use. The Compact Object held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art has listed as its materials, “Bones, watch and clock parts, bead necklace, hair, eggshell, lens, and other manufactured objects embedded in polyester.” As photo documentation from the Yamanote Line Incident reveal, a Compact Object was fastened by a chain to train’s a hanging passenger handle.Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art. 2012. p. 28. Another photograph shows Nakanishi squatting on a train platform in white face paint, hunched over a Compact Object which he is licking as pedestrians watch in confusion. The event was featured in the magazine Keishō, then under the editorship of Yoshihiko Imaizumi. According to Genpei Akasegawa, Nakanishi and Takamatsu’s use of the Yamanote Line “as a site for their event was to destroy the hierarchical status of art by bringing it into the ‘space of daily activities.’”Munroe, Alexandra. “Morphology of Revenge: The Yomiuri Indépendant Artists and Social Protest Tendencies in the 1960s.” Essay. In Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, edited by Alexandra Munroe, 149–63. New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994. Pg. 159 Nakanishi’s Compact Objects were also displayed in “Room as Alibi”, a group exhibition organized by Yūsuke Nakahara at Naiqua Gallery in Tokyo.Nakahara, Yusuke. “Room as Alibi: Gentle Criminals.” Essay. In Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, edited by Alexandra Munroe, 384. New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994.
Hi-Red Center See Hi-Red Center for more information.
Also featured in “Room as Alibi” were Jirо̄ Takamatsu and Akasegawa Genpei with whom Nakanishi would form Hi-Red Center with in 1963. The group's name was formed from the first kanji characters of the three artists' surnames: "high" (the "Taka" in Takamatsu), "red" (the "Aka" in Akasegawa), and "center" (the "Naka" in Nakanishi).
A notable example of Nakanishi’s work at this time is Nakanishi’s artwork/happening Clothespins Assert Churning Action (Sentaku basami wa kakuhan kodo o shucho suru), in which he attached hundreds of metal clothespins to a variety of household and other objects as well as his own body, and invited exhibition goers to attach additional clothespins themselves. As a part of this work, Nakanishi walked around in public with his entire head covered in hundreds of clothespins.Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art. 2012. p. 63. The performance was accompanied with a series of paintings, also littered with clothespins attached to their surface. Some paintings also included holes burned through their surface, reminiscent of the burned holes in the newspapers performatively read as part of the Yamanote Line Incident.Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art. 2012. p. 64. The work was a part of the fifteenth Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition, taking place at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum from March 2 to 15, 1963. This was the only year that Nakanishi participated in the Yomiuri Indépendant exhibition. Clothespins Assert Churning Action was also exhibited on May 28 of that year as part of Hi-Red Center’s “Sixth Mixer Plan” event. As Nam June Paik recounts, “It was a hideous picture that induced the viewer’s empathy, knowing how painful it would be to be bitten by the springs of numerous laundry clips.”Paik, Nam June. “To Catch Up or Not to Catch Up with the West: Hijikata and Hi Red Center.” Essay. In Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, edited by Alexandra Munroe, 77–81. New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994. Pg. 80 Akasegawa reflected on the piece with the question, “In the knowledge that this was not paint but simple, everyday objects, had we not discovered the minimum separation between painting and real life?”Akasegawa, quoted and trans. in John Clark, “The 1960s: The Art Which Destroyed Itself: An Intimate Account” in Reconstructions, p. 86. Another photo from the “Sixth Mixer Plan” iteration of the work shows Nakanishi, adorned with clothespins, holding what is presumably one of his Rhyme ‘63 objects encased in tinfoil and clothespins.Munroe, Alexandra. “Morphology of Revenge: The Yomiuri Indépendant Artists and Social Protest Tendencies in the 1960s.” Essay. In Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, edited by Alexandra Munroe, 149–63. New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994. Pg. 163 These egg shaped objects are roughly the same shape and size of his compact objects but are made of lacquer and enamel on plaster and are covered with the painted motif from his “Rhyme” paintings.Munroe, Alexandra. Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky. New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994. Pg. 171
Other activities listed on the Fluxus edition that explicitly mention Nakanishi are number two occurring September 15th,1962, “Opening day of Jiritu-Gattuko. Nakanishi gave lecture on art illustrating it on stage with pipe smoke,” number six, “1 Mar. 1963 Yomiuri andi-pandan show at Ueno museum” where “10,000 clothespins made by Nakanisi [sic] were attached to museum visitors,” and number eleven, an NHK television show on November 3rd, 1963 which included a “Foaming fountain by Nakanishi.”
From January 30 to February 15, 1964, Nakanishi was featured in the exhibition “Young Seven” curated by Yoshiaki Tōno at Minami Gallery, Tokyo.Tono, Yoshiaki. “Anti-Art: Notes on the Young Seven.” Essay. In From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan 1945-1989, edited by Doryun Chong, Michio Hayashi, Kenji Kajiya, and Fumihiko Sumityomo, 118–20. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2013. Pg. 118 Tōno used the occasion of the exhibition to further his idea of Anti-Art, which he felt arose from “an ‘everyday’ that is cut off from war memory, one that feels like an unabashedly boring, never-ending Sunday.”Tono, Yoshiaki. “Anti-Art: Notes on the Young Seven.” Essay. In From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan 1945-1989, edited by Doryun Chong, Michio Hayashi, Kenji Kajiya, and Fumihiko Sumityomo, 118–20. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2013. Pg. 119 Tōno describes Nakanishi’s works from the exhibition as “sickly casts… painted with the bloody splash of the everyday.”Tono, Yoshiaki. “Anti-Art: Notes on the Young Seven.” Essay. In From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan 1945-1989, edited by Doryun Chong, Michio Hayashi, Kenji Kajiya, and Fumihiko Sumityomo, 118–20. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2013. Pg. 120 Elsewhere, also in 1964, Atsushi Miyakawa referred to Nakanishi’s work in the “Young Seven” exhibition as a “furious ambivalence toward identity and metamorphosis.”Miyakawa, Atsushi. “Anti-Art: The Descent to the Everyday.” Essay. In From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan 1945-1989, edited by Doryun Chong, Michio Hayashi, Kenji Kajiya, and Fumihiko Sumityomo, 127–32. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2013. Pg. 131
Collaboration with Hijikata Tatsumi