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Takehisa Kosugi (小杉 武久, Kosugi Takehisa, March 24, 1938 – October 12, 2018) was a Japanese composer, violinist and artist associated with the Fluxus movement.

Biography

Kosugi studied musicology at the Tokyo University of the Arts and graduated in 1962. He first became drawn to music through to his father play harmonica and listening to violin recordings of Mischa Elman and Joseph Szigeti while as a child in post-war Japan. Later influences include the experimentation from Europe and the US and Jazz, citing Charlie Parker’s “spontaneity and freedom.” He was also influenced by traditional Japanese music and Noh theater, particularly the concept in Noh of “ma”, the empty spaces between sounds. In 1963 he assisted on the soundtrack for the Japanese animation television show “Tetsuwan Atomu”, or, “Astro Boy.”

Kosugi is probably best known for the experimental music that he created in from 1960 until 1975. Kosugi's primary instrument was the violin, which he sent through various echo-chambers and effects to create a bizarre, jolting music quite at odds with the drones of other more well-known Fluxus affiliated artists, such as Tony Conrad, John Cale and Henry Flynt. In 1958 he started Tokyo-based seven-member ensemble Group Ongaku (1958-1962) with his first improvisation partner Shuku Mizuno. Their first concert was the “Concert of Improvisational Music and Sound Object” at the Sōgetsu Art Center on September 15, 1961. His 1960s career with Group Ongaku is extensively explained in the 32-page essay "Experimental Japan," which appears in the book Japrocksampler (Bloomsbury, 2007), by author/musician/occultist Julian Cope. While in Japan he also worked with butoh dance originator Tatsumi Hijikata and Hi-Red Center. Along with Natsuyuki Nakanishi and Jiro Takamatsu of Hi-Red Center and the sculptor Hiroshi Kobatake, Kosugi participated in “Kuroku fuchidorareta bars no nureta kushami” (Wet Sneeze of a Black-lined Rose), a 1962 theater even organized by the radical leftist group Hanzaisha Domei (League of Criminals). Kosugi also performed in the 1963 Yomiyuri Independent Exhibition, its final iteration.

Kosugi’s involvement with the Fluxus artists began through the introduction of Toshi Ichiyanagi. Yanagi, who had studied in New York with John Cage had noticed the performance of Group Ongaku at their Sōgetsu Art Center performance and subsequently invited them to perform with him at the same venue two months later. Yanagi subsequently introduced the group to the “event scores” of George Brecht and sent recordings of Kosugi and his peers to George Maciunas, the founder of the Fluxus group. Maciunas began to sell the “complete works of Kosugi” for two dollars in 1963 and would go on to include him in many more Fluxus editions. In 1963 Kosugi composed for Fluxus 1 a musical piece called Theatre Music in the form of a rectangle of cardstock that bore the trace of a spiral of moving feet. This was paired with the instructions: "Keep walking intently". Other works from this period include “Anima 1” (1961), which was performed by Alison Knowles and Ben Vautier in 1964 as the 359 Canal street loft that Maciunas had made the Fluxus headquarters. In 1965 he moved to New York City. Here he also collaborated with Fluxus affiliates Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman during the 1960s on projects the “Music Expanded” program at Town Hall in Manhattan in 1967. One collaborative work was “Instrumental Music” in which Kosugi attempted to cut out the silhouette of Moorman projected onto a screen by a spotlight.

Moving back to Japan in 1967, Kosugi continued his experimentation in collectivist creativity. Prompted by the idea to “stay in Taj Mahal for 24 hours and return” as a kind of event score, in 1969 Kosugi formed another improvisational group, the Taj Mahal Travellers. This itinerant group performed travelled in a Volkswagen van from the Netherlands to India, stopping in the UK, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia and Iran staging outdoor performances and happenings. Cope’s Japrocksampler also features a detailed 12-page biography of Kosugi's Taj Mahal Travellers, the music of which Cope describes as being "reminiscent of the creaking rigging of the un-manned Mary Celeste". In the late 1970s and early 1980s Kosugi conducting a workshop and bringing his violin with him to cafes and bars so he could be prepared for any opportunity to improvise with strangers.

Beginning in 1995, Kosugi served as music director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and lived in Osaka, Japan. He held this position from 1995 to 2012.

In 1999 Kosugi worked with Sonic Youth on their album “SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century.” Responding to Kosugi’s death in 2018, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth wrote on Twitter, “The times spent playing music with you will never fade. You are and were the real deal.” Other notable musical collaborators include David Tudor, Peter Kowald, and saxophonist Steve Lacy.

Kosugi received grants from The JDR 3rd Fund in 1966 and 1977. He also received a DAAD fellowship grant to reside in West Berlin in 1981. In 1975 Kosugi released the solo album Catch-wave (CBS/Sony). Kosugi received a John Cage Award for Music from Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts in 1994. Venues at which Kosugi has performed include Museum of Contemporary Art in Toyko, Edinburgh International Festival, Royal Albert Hall, The Getty Center, Miami Subtropics Experimental Music and Sound Arts Festival, Kushiro Art Museum, Lincoln Center Festival, and Biennale d'Art Contemporaine de Lyon. Venues that have exhibited Kosugi’s sound installations include Raven Row, Deutzer Brücke, the Mori Art Museum, the Venice Biennale, and the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art. In 2015, the Whitney Museum of American Art opened a performance retrospective of Kosugi’s work titled, “Takehisa Kosugi” Music Expanded” curated by Jay Sanders. 2015 also saw the first major solo exhibition of Kosugi’s work at Ikon Gallery titled “SPACINGS.”

At the time of his death, Kosugi was survived by his longtime partner and manager, Takako Okamoto, and three brothers.

Works

• Anima 1 (1961)
• Micro 1 (1961)
• Organic Music (1962)
• Anima 2 (1962)
• Chironomy 1 (1962)
• Ear Drum Event (1962)
• South No. 1 (1962)
• Theater Music (1963)
• Malika 5 (1963)
• To W (1964)
• South No. 2 (1964)
• Anima 7 (1964)
• South No. 3 (1965)
• Tender Music (1965)
• Film & Film No. 4 (1965)
• Instrumental Music (1965)
• Piano (1966)
• Music G (1966)
• Eclipse (1967)
• Catch-Wave (1967)
• South No. 5 (1971)
• Catch-Wave '71 (1971)
• Piano-Wave-Mix (1972)
• Heterodyne (1972)
• Wave Code #e-1 (1974)
• Numbers/Tones (1976)
• S. E. Wave/E. W. Song (1976)
• South No. 8 (1979)
• Interspersion (1979)
• Untitled Piece (1980)
• Interspection for 54 Sounds (1980)
• Cycles (1981)
• Cycles for 7 Sounds (1981)
• The Fly (1982)
• Walking (1983)
• Intersection (1983)
• Spacings (1984)
• Melodies (1984)
• Assemblage (1986)
• +- (1987)
• 75 Letters and Improvisation (1987)
• Rhapsody (1987)
• Loops No. 1, No. 2 (1988)
• Spectra (1989)
• Violin Improvisations CD (1989)
• Module (1990)
• Parabola (w/ Fast Forward) (1990)
• Streams (1991)
• Modulation (1991)
• Islands (1991)
• Reflections (1992)
• Metal Interspersion (1992)
• Transfigurations (1993)
• Streams (1993)
• Zoom (1993)
• Streams No. 2 (1994)
• Imitated Summer (1996)
• Illuminated Summer (1996)
• Tetrafeed (1997)
• Wave Code A-Z (1997)

Festival performances

• Festival d'Automne (Paris, 1978, 1979)
• The Festival at La Sainte-Baume (1978, 1979, 1980)
• The Holland Festival (1979)
• Opening Concert (Rome, 1980)
• Workshop Freie Musik (Berlin, 1984)
• Pro Musica Nova (Bremen, 1984)
• Almeida International Festival of Contemporary Music (London, 1986)
• Welt Musik Tage `87 (Cologne, 1987)
• Experimentelle Musik (München, 1986, 1988)
• Inventionen (Berlin, 1986, 1989, 1992)
• Biennale d'art contemporain (Lyon, 1993)

Sound installations

• Für Augen und Ohren (Berlin, 1980)
• Ecouter par les yeux (Paris, 1980)
• Soundings at Purchase (New York, 1981)
• New Music America Festival (Washington, 1983)
• Im Toten Winken (Hamburg, 1984)
• Klanginstallationen (Bremen, 1987)
• Kunst als Grenzbeschreitung: John Cage und die Moderne (München, 1991)
• Iventionen (Berlin, 1992)
• Musik Tage (Donaueschingen, 1993)

External links

• Takehisa Kosugi - List of Works
• Takehisa Kosugi biography from Lovely Music site

References

1. Artforum
2. https://ikon-gallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Takehisa-Kosugi-SPACINGS-Ikon-22-July-–-27-September-2015.pdf
3. https://ikon-gallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Takehisa-Kosugi-SPACINGS-Ikon-22-July-–-27-September-2015.pdf
4. "Artforum.com". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
5. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
6. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
7. Stephens, Christophers. "Adventures in Sound: The Takehisa Kosugi Exhibition". Artscape Japan. Retrieved 2021-01-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
8. Shimada, Yoshiko (2020). The Red Years. New York, NY: Verso. pp. 167–169. ISBN 978-1-78863-722-2. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
9. Tomii, Reiko (2012). From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan 1945-1989. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-8223-5368-3.
10. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
11. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
12. WRAL (2018-10-18). "Takehisa Kosugi, Composer for Merce Cunningham, Dies at 80 :". WRAL.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
13. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
14. https://ikon-gallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Takehisa-Kosugi-SPACINGS-Ikon-22-July-–-27-September-2015.pdf
15. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
16. ^ Genzlinger, Neil. "Takehisa Kosugi, Composer for Merce Cunningham, Dies at 80". New York Times. Retrieved 1/30/2021. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
17. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
18. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
19. "The Riotous Inventiveness of Takehisa Kosugi | Frieze". Frieze. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
20. "Takehisa Kosugi (1938–2018)". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
21. "The Riotous Inventiveness of Takehisa Kosugi | Frieze". Frieze. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
22. Kim, Michelle. "Japanese Avant-Garde Composer Takehisa Kosugi Dead at 80". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
23. https://ikon-gallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Takehisa-Kosugi-SPACINGS-Ikon-22-July-–-27-September-2015.pdf
24. "REVIEW: Takehisa Kosugi, Catch-Wave - self-titled". Retrieved 2021-01-31.
25. WRAL (2018-10-18). "Takehisa Kosugi, Composer for Merce Cunningham, Dies at 80 :". WRAL.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
26. https://ikon-gallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Takehisa-Kosugi-SPACINGS-Ikon-22-July-–-27-September-2015.pdf

• 1938 births
• 2018 deaths
• 20th-century classical composers
• 20th-century Japanese composers
• 20th-century Japanese male musicians
• 21st-century classical composers
• 21st-century Japanese composers
• 21st-century male musicians
• Contemporary classical music performers
• Fluxus
• Japanese classical composers
• Japanese contemporary classical composers
• Japanese male classical composers
• Japanese sound artists
• Musicians from Tokyo