Koki Tanaka (田中功起) (born December 6, 1975) is a Japanese artist and

videographer Videography is the process of capturing moving images on electronic media (e.g., videotape, direct to disk recording, or solid state storage) and even streaming media. The term includes methods of video production and post-production. It used ...

. He was a visiting scholar at

Tokyo Zokei University is a private university in Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan, founded in 1966 by Japanese art educator, fashion designer and design journalist, Yoko Kuwasawa (1910-1977). It is a four-year art college offering both bachelor's and master's degrees in studio ...

. His work is

Minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

, and primarily focused with finding the unusual in everyday objects and situations.

Career

Tanaka was born in

Mashiko, Tochigi 270px, Kiln in Mashiko is a town located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 21,841 in 7914 households, and a population density of 240 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Mashiko is known for it ...

in 1975. In 1998, he studied abroad at the

Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...

. In 2000, he graduated from

. In 2005, he earned a master's degree from

Tokyo University of the Arts or is the most prestigious art school in Japan. Located in Ueno Park, it also has facilities in Toride, Ibaraki, Yokohama, Kanagawa, and Kitasenju and Adachi, Tokyo. The university has trained renowned artists in the fields of painting, scul ...

. After graduation, Tanaka lived in Paris, funded by the Pola Art Foundation. He later studied in Los Angeles with the support of an

Agency for Cultural Affairs The is a special body of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It was set up in 1968 to promote Japanese arts and culture. The agency's budget for FY 2018 rose to ¥107.7 billion. Overview The ag ...

program. Tanaka has held exhibitions at the

Art Tower Mito is an arts complex in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. It opened in 1990 as part of the centennial celebrations of the municipality of Mito. There is a concert hall that seats 680, a theater for up to 636, a contemporary art gallery, and a landmark tower. ...

, the

Toyota Municipal Museum of Art The is an art museum located in the city of Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. History The museum features works by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch, and others. The museum building was constructed by Yoshio Taniguchi, who also renovated ...

the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma opened in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, in 1974. The collection includes works by Monet, Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Im ...

Hara Museum of Contemporary Art The was one of the oldest contemporary art museums in Japan. The museum was in the Kita-Shinagawa district, in the Shinagawa area of Tokyo. The building was originally built as a private mansion designed by Jin Watanabe in 1938 for the grandfa ...

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

, Museum of Art, Seoul

National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto The is an art museum in Kyoto, Japan. This Kyoto museum is also known by the English acronym MoMAK (Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto). History The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK) was initially created as the Annex Museum of the National ...

, and the

Kunsthaus Graz The Kunsthaus Graz, Grazer Kunsthaus, or Graz Art Museum was built as part of the European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2003 and has since become an architectural landmark in Graz, Austria. Its exhibition program specializes in contemporar ...

. Tanaka represented Japan at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 2013. He was

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

's "Artist of the Year" in 2015. In 2017, Tanaka exhibited at the

Skulptur Projekte Münster Skulptur Projekte Münster (English: Sculpture Projects Münster) is an exhibition of sculptures in public places in the town of Münster (Germany). Held every ten years since 1977, the exhibition shows works of invited international artists for ...

. His piece was of eight

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

residents with diverse backgrounds in a workshop on how to live together. The exhibition was temporarily closed after some of the equipment used in the installation were stolen in a string of

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The term f ...

and

theft Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...

at the event. In 2018 he was a Japan Cultural Envoy as part of another Agency for Cultural Affairs program.

Style

Early in his career, Tanaka was fascinated with forms and looping video of everyday phenomenon. As his career progressed, he began making videos of ordinary objects being repetitively manipulated, focusing entirely on the object, rather than the person interacting with it. After moving to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in 2010, Tanaka began moving in a new direction where he would ask multiple people to do the same thing at once, such getting a hair cut from nine

hair stylists A hairdresser is a person whose occupation is to cut or style hair in order to change or maintain a person's image. This is achieved using a combination of hair coloring, haircutting, and hair texturing techniques. A Hairdresser may also be refe ...

at the same time, or having five pianists play on the same piano at once. This would remove the participants from their routine, and challenges the ordinary in a similar way to his earlier work. Tanaka's process involves gathering and then assembling cheap, easy to find objects, such as those found in

100-yen shop are common Japanese shops in the vein of American dollar stores. Stocking a variety of items from clothing to stationery, housewares to food, each item is priced at precisely 100 yen, which is considered attractive to Japanese consumers becau ...

s. After the

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

, Tanaka's work began to focus on the temporary communities brought together by crisis.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Kōki 1975 births Living people Japanese contemporary artists Tokyo University of the Arts alumni People from Tochigi Prefecture