Sayako Kishimoto

Sayako Kishimoto
Born(1939-10-01)October 1, 1939
Nagoya, Japan
DiedDecember 1, 1988(1988-12-01) (aged 49)
Nagoya, Japan
NationalityJapanese
Alma materTama Art University
MovementNeo-Dada

Sayako Kishimoto (岸本 清子, Kishimoto Sayako, October 1, 1939 – December 1, 1988) was a Japanese artist who worked across mediums including paintings, drawings, and performances. Best known as one of the few female members in the short-lived art collective Neo-Dada Organizers, Kishimoto investigated female identity and the definition of a female avant-garde artist through destruction-oriented practices in the 1960s.[1] Beginning in the 1970s, Kishimoto's interests shifted toward examining and questioning the political power structure of Japanese society as well as that of the U.S.-Japan relations, and she briefly adopted the style of Pop Art.[2] Later on, she expanded the scope of her artistic inquiry and began to invent a worldview of her own. Kishimoto envisioned a society in which everyone would strive to reach the bottom of a hierarchy instead of the top as in real life. Kishimoto translated her utopian view onto several canvases in the 80s, where motifs of animals and expressive strokes constituted modern allegories.[3][4] While combatting cancer on the sickbed during the last few years of her life, Kishimoto continued to probe the personal and the political through expressive works on paper as well as performances.[5]

  1. ^ Yoshimoto, Midori (2005). Into Performance: Japanese Woman Artists in New York. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. pp. 27–29.
  2. ^ Yoshimoto, Midori (Spring–Summer 2006). "Women Artists in the Japanese Postwar Avant-Garde: Celebrating a Multiplicity". Woman's Art Journal. 27 (1): 27–28.
  3. ^ "Sayako KISHIMOTO". Shumoku Gallery.
  4. ^ "Sayako Kishimoto, 21c. Erotical Flying Machines− A Trip to the Galaxy (Original Drawing)". 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
  5. ^ Takao, Taniguchi (1990). "Chronology". In Sayako Kishimoto Retrospective Preparatory Committee (ed.). Sayako Kishimoto 1939 - 1988. Sayako Kishimoto Retrospective Preparatory Committee. p. 75.