In 1956, Tanaka performed wearing Electric Dress, a sculpture made from two hundred blinking incandescent lightbulbs and tubes covered with red, blue, yellow, and green enamel paint. The concentric circles and circuitous lines of this painting were directly inspired by that performance: it brims with energy, a vivid record of the artist’s gestural application of layers and skeins of multicolored acrylic paint on a sheet of canvas on the floor. Tanaka was a member of Gutai, a group of Japanese artists active between 1954 and 1972. The group’s name means “embodiment” or “concrete,” which refers to their aim of bringing materials together with the body and physical actions.

Gallery label from

2020.

Medium Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions 10' 11 1/4" x 7' 4 3/4" (333.4 x 225.4 cm)
Credit John G. Powers Fund
Object number 612.1965
Department Painting & Sculpture

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