Mineko Grimmer (, born 1949) is a Los Angeles-based installation sound artist. Her work is influenced by both Eastern and Western cultures. She is inspired by the chance elements of John Cage as well as notions of time in Shinto shrines and Zen Gardens. Sound and silence are key elements in her work. The sculptures are finely crafted out of materials like bamboo, redwood, stone and water.

Education and early work

Grimmer was born and raised in northern Japan and received her B.F.A and M.F.A from Otis College of Art and Design. In the 1970s as a student at Otis she photographed the passage of time by photographing natural phenomena like shadows, waves and wind. At this time Grimmer started photographing blocks of ice and then freezing objects in blocks of ice The sound element intrigued her and in 1980's Grimmer started adding the sound element of melting ice in her installations. The first ice sculpture was shown at the Japan America Community Culture Center in downtown Los Angeles.

Work and career

Grimmer collaborated with the composers

Carl Stone Carl Stone (born Carl Joseph Stone, February 10, 1953) is an American composer, primarily working in the field of live electronic music. His works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the ...

Mamoru Fujieda is a Japanese composer associated with the postminimalist movement of contemporary classical music. Biography He received a Ph.D. in music from the University of California, San Diego in 1988. His composition instructors have included Joji Yuasa ...

and

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

. Cage and Grimmer collaborated on a project at MOCA in 1993. John Cage described her work as "beautiful and beautiful to listen to". Her sculpture is also included in John Cage's

Number Pieces The term ''Number Pieces'' refers to a body of late compositions (40, or 41 if ''Seventeen'' was actually composed) by John Cage. Each piece is named after the number of performers involved: for instance, ''Seven'' is a piece for seven performers, ...

. Her work has been included in the SoundCulture Festival held in Japan in 1993.

Collections

* ''Singlewheel'', 1984, mixed media. Smithsonian Museum of Art. * ''Remembering Plato'', 1992, mixed media. Menil Collection.

Public projects

* ''CMC Medical Plaza Foundation'', 1989

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grimmer, Mineko 1949 births Living people 20th-century Japanese women artists 21st-century Japanese women artists People from Hanamaki, Iwate Japanese sound artists Japanese installation artists Otis College of Art and Design alumni