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((short description|Japanese artist))
((Infobox person
| name        = Genpei Akasegawa
| native_name = 赤瀬川 原平
| native_name_lang = jpn
| image       = File:Genpei Akasegawa bijutsu-techo Boken-ha 1961-192.jpg
| alt         = 
| caption     = Genpei Akasegawa (1961)
| birth_name  = Katsuhiko Akasegawa
| birth_date  = ((Birth date|1937|3|27))
| birth_place = [[Yokohama]], Kanagawa, Japan
| death_date  = ((Death-date and age |October 26, 2014|March 27, 1937))
| death_place = Tokyo, Japan
| nationality = 
| other_names = Katsuhiko Otsuji
| occupation  = Conceptual artist, photographer, essayist, short story writer
| known_for   = 
))
((nihongo|'''Genpei Akasegawa'''|赤瀬川 原平|Akasegawa Genpei)) was a [[pseudonym]] of [[Japanese people|Japanese]] [[artist]] ((nihongo|'''Katsuhiko Akasegawa'''|赤瀬川 克彦|Akasegawa Katsuhiko)), born March 27, 1937 – October 26, 2014 in Yokohama.<ref>((cite web |url=http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASGBV5H8TGBVUCLV00D.html| script-title=ja:赤瀬川原平さん死去 「老人力」「超芸術トマソン」 |language=ja |publisher=Asahi Shimbun |date=October 27, 2014 |access-date=October 27, 2014))</ref> He used another pseudonym, ((nihongo|'''Katsuhiko Otsuji'''|尾辻 克彦|Otsuji Katsuhiko)), for [[literary work]]s. A member of the influential artist groups [[Neo-Dada Organizers]] and [[Hi-Red Center]], Akasegawa went on to maintain a multi-disciplinary practice throughout his career as an individual artist. He has had retrospective exhibitions at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art,<ref name=":17">((Cite web|title="The Principles of Art" by Akasegawa Genpei: From the 1960s to the Present ((!)) Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art|url=https://hiroshima-moca.jp/en/|access-date=2021-06-05|website=広島市現代美術館|language=en))</ref> Chiba City Museum,<ref>((Cite web|last=Kikuchi|first=Daisuke|date=2014-10-30|title='The Principles of Art by Genpei Akasegawa'|url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2014/10/30/arts/openings-outside-tokyo/principles-art-genpei-akasegawa/|access-date=2021-06-05|website=The Japan Times|language=en-US))</ref> and Oita City Museum.<ref>((Cite web|last=大分市|title=26年度 特別展8「赤瀬川原平の芸術原論展―1960年代から現在まで」|url=http://www.city.oita.oita.jp/o210/bunkasports/bunka/1416118577181.html|access-date=2021-06-05|website=大分市美術館|language=en))</ref> His work is in the permanent collection at Museum of Modern Art in New York.<ref>((Cite web|title=Genpei Akasegawa ((!)) MoMA|url=https://www.moma.org/artists/36999|access-date=2021-06-05|website=The Museum of Modern Art|language=en))</ref> Artist [[Nam June Paik]] has described Akasegawa as “one of those unexportable geniuses of Japan.”<ref>Nam June Paik, “To Catch Up or Not to Catch Up with the West: Hijikata and Hi Red Center,” in ''Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky'' (New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994), pp. 77-81, 79.</ref>

== Biography ==
===Early life===
Akasegawa was born in 1937 in [[Yokohama]], and moved to [[Ashiya, Hyōgo|Ashiya]], [[Ōita, Ōita|Ōita]] and [[Nagoya]] during his childhood because of his father's job. The artist [[Shusaku Arakawa|Shūsaku Arakawa]] was a high school classmate in Nagoya.<ref name=":8">((Cite web|last=Stephens|first=Christopher|title=Gentle Acts of Subversion: The Genpei Akasegawa Exhibition|url=https://artscape.jp/artscape/eng/focus/1505_01.html|website=Artscape Japan))</ref> In the 1950s Akasegawa moved to Tokyo where he attended [[Musashino Art University]] in 1955 to study oil painting.<ref name=":8" /><ref>((Cite web|title=赤瀬川原平|url=https://bijutsutecho.com/artists/105|access-date=2021-06-05|website=美術手帖|language=ja))</ref><ref name=":15">((Cite web|title=赤瀬川原平 :: 東文研アーカイブデータベース|url=https://www.tobunken.go.jp/materials/bukko/247380.html?hilite=%27%E8%B5%A4%E7%80%AC%E5%B7%9D%27,%27%E5%8E%9F%E5%B9%B3%27|access-date=2021-06-05|website=www.tobunken.go.jp))</ref>

In 1956 and 1957, Akasegawa submitted artworks to the ''Nihon Indépendant'' exhibition. Being poor at the time, he “could not shut [his] eyes to the poverty around [him] and engage in the pursuit of pure artistic ideals.”<ref name="Kapur page 193">((Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=2018|isbn=978-0-674-98848-4|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=193))</ref> Akasegawa also reported his frustration with the [[socialist realism]] aesthetic that predominated at the ''Nihon Indépendant'' during these years,<ref name="Kapur page 193" /> wanting something which “linked real life and painting as closely as possible.”<ref name="Kapur page 193" />

===Neo-Dada Organizers===

In the late 1950s, Akakasegawa began submitting works to the more freewheeling and less ideological [[Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition]].<ref name=":0">((Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|pages=194|isbn=978-0-674-98848-4))</ref> He has recalled that toward the end of the 1950s a competition emerged among artists showing at the Yomiuri Indépendant to see whose painting could extend furthest from its surface.<ref name=":0" /> This, he claimed, freed him from conventional ways of approaching art-making, and may be connected to the development his art underwent in 1960.<ref name=":0" /> This year proved a turning point for the artist as it gave rise to both the massive [[Anpo protests]] and the founding of the [[Neo-Dada Organizers]].<ref>Kapur, Nick (2018). ''Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[Harvard University Press]]. p.&nbsp;193-194. ((ISBN|978-0-674-98848-4)).</ref> The group was founded officially by [[Masunobu Yoshimura]] in April 1960 with their group show at Ginza Gallery in Tokyo.<ref>Doryun Chong, “Artists’ Collectives: The City as Stage,” in ''From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan, 1945-1989: Primary Documents'' (The Museum of Modern Art, 2012), pp. 159-160, 159.</ref> The members included, along with Akasegawa, artists acquainted through the Yomiuri Indépendant such as [[Ushio Shinohara]], [[Shō Kazakura]], Kinpei Masuzawa, and [[Shusaku Arakawa|Shūsaku Arakawa]].<ref name=":16" /> Other artist frequently involved though not officially a part of the group included [[Tetsumi Kudō]], [[Tomio Miki]], and [[Natsuyuki Nakanishi]], with whom Akasegawa would later go on to form [[Hi-Red Center]].<ref name=":16">Kapur, Nick (2018). ''Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[Harvard University Press]]. p.&nbsp;195. ((ISBN|978-0-674-98848-4)).</ref>

The Neo-Dada Organizers group engaged in a series of bizarre "events" and "happenings" that blended visual and performance art, which the art critic Yoshiaki Tōno labeled “Anti-Art” (''Han-geijutsu'') and [[Ichirō Hariu]], another critic, deemed “savagely meaningless.”<ref>((Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|pages=195–197|isbn=978-0-674-98848-4))</ref> As art historian [[Reiko Tomii]] has concisely put it, “the goal of Anti-Art was to question and dismantle Art (''geijutsu'') as a cultural and metaphysical construct of modern times.”<ref>((Cite journal|last=Tomii|first=Reiko|title=State v. (Anti-)Art: Model 1,000 Yen Note Incident by Akasegawa Genpei and Company|journal=Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique|volume=10|pages=147))</ref> The activities of the Neo-Dada Organizers can be said to conform with what Akasegawa has since termed “creative destruction” in which systematic iconoclasm toward conventions and rules were meant to open possibilities for new forms of art.<ref>Kapur, Nick (2018). ''Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[Harvard University Press]]. p.&nbsp;196. ((ISBN|978-0-674-98848-4)).</ref> Such include ''Anpo Commemoration Event'' (Anpo ki’nen ebento) which they staged  on June 18, 1960, just three days after the death of [[Michiko Kanba]] at the storming of the National Diet Building during an Anpo protest.<ref name=":1">Kapur, Nick (2018). ''Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[Harvard University Press]]. p.&nbsp;197. ((ISBN|978-0-674-98848-4)).</ref> In this group performance, which included prosthetic male genitalia, a fake wound reminiscent of seppuku rituals, and other disturbing imagery, Akasegawa appeared in a head-wrap and a “grotesque, monster-like costume and took massive gulps directly from a bottle of strong ''[[shōchū]]'' alcohol while dancing around bizarrely and making awful noises.”<ref name=":1" /> ''Anpo Commemoration Event'' demonstrated the overlapping concerns of the Anpo protests and the Neo-Dada Organizers, both manifestations of social discontent with the existing institutions of Japan in 1960.<ref name=":2" />

Around this time Akasegawa also made his ''Sheets of Vagina'' (1961/1994). For this piece Akasegawa assembled tire inner tubes, sliced open, folded and sewn together.<ref name=":3">Doryun Chong, “Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde,” in ''Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde'' (New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2012), pp. 26-93, 60.</ref> The exposed, red inside of the inner tube can be said to evoke the image of human biology, in this case a female body.<ref>Kuroda Raiji, Reiko Tomii, and Justin Jesty. "A Flash of Neo Dada: Cheerful Destroyers in Tokyo (1993)." Review of Japanese Culture and Society 17 (2005): 51-71, 60.</ref> Centered near the top of the composition he placed a hub cab, producing a strange, semi-organic and semi-machinic assemblage. Through the use of discarded industrially manufactured materials, Akasegawa pointed to both the rapid development of postwar Japanese society to which he was responding as well as a “version of the mechanistic woman and the erotic machine, explored by Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp earlier in the century.”<ref name=":3" /> This latter theme can also be found in the photo-montage works of Akasegawa from around the same time.<ref name=":3" /> Another work from Akasegawa's so-called tire-works is ''Present Arrived Too Early'' (Hayaku tsukisugita purezento), a work whose relation to Man Ray's ''Gift'' (1921) Kuroda Raiji has cited to claim that “no matter how unusual his materials and themes may be, Akasegawa faithfully observed the orthodox constructs of ‘painting’ and ‘making.’”<ref>Kuroda Raiji, Reiko Tomii, and Justin Jesty. "A Flash of Neo Dada: Cheerful Destroyers in Tokyo (1993)." Review of Japanese Culture and Society 17 (2005): 51-71, 65.</ref>

===Hi-Red Center===

In 1963, Akasegawa formed the art collective [[Hi-Red Center]] with [[Jiro Takamatsu|Jirō Takamatsu]] and [[Natsuyuki Nakanishi]]. The group's name was formed from the first [[kanji]] characters of the three artists' surnames: "high" (the "Taka" in Takamatsu), "red" (the "Aka" in Akasegawa), and "center" (the "Naka" in Nakanishi).<ref name=":2">((Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|pages=198|isbn=978-0-674-98848-4))</ref> Hi-Red Center's founding may be traced to a symposium on the relationship between art and political action that occurred November 1962 titled ''Signs of Discourse on Direct Action'', in which all three members participated.<ref>Jaimey Hamilton Faris; Rooms in Alibi: How Akasegawa Genpei Framed Capitalist Reality. ARTMargins 2015; 4 (3): 40–64, 46.</ref> The three artists of Hi-Red Center were all featured in ''Room in Alibi'' (Fuzai no Heya, July 1963), the Yusuke Nakahara-curated inaugural exhibition of Naiqua Gallery in Tokyo, where they all exhibited works as individual artists.<ref>Yusuke Nakahara, “Room As Alibi: Gentle Criminals,” in ''From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan, 1945-1989: Primary Documents'', ed. Michio Hayashi et al. (New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art, 2012), pp. 138-139, 138.</ref> For this exhibition, Akasegawa presented a chair, electric fan, radio and carpet, items symbolic of Japan's growth as a modern, capitalist society, all wrapped in brown paper.<ref>((Cite journal|last=Faris|first=Jaimey Hamilton|title=Rooms in Alibi: How Akasegawa Genpei Framed Capitalist Reality|journal=ARTMargins|volume=4|issue=3|pages=43))</ref> This wrapping gesture was intended to provoke new forms of engagement with everyday objects, a curious way of “seeing” objects anew by obscuring them.<ref>((Cite journal|last=Faris|first=Jaimey Hamilton|title=Rooms in Alibi: How Akasegawa Genpei Framed Capitalist Reality|journal=ARTMargins|volume=4|issue=3|pages=49))</ref> The piece was also titled ''Room in Alibi'' (1963/1995).<ref name=":17" />

All three artists had begun as painters but had turned to methods of “direct action” through Hi-Red Center, a term taken from prewar socialist agitators.<ref name=":4" /> With “direct action,” the artists meant to raise to consciousness the absurdities and contradictions of Japanese society.<ref name=":4" /> They achieved this through a variety of "events," "plans," and "happenings" such as ''Dropping Event'' (October 10, 1964), in which they heaved various objects front he roof of Ikenobo Kaikan hall.<ref name=":9">Alexandra Munroe, ''Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky'' (New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994), 178.</ref> After dropping the objects they collected and packed them all into a suitcase, placing it in a public locker and sending the key to the locker to someone chosen at random from a phone book.<ref name=":9" /> For ''Shelter Plan'' (1964), they booked a room at the [[Imperial Hotel, Tokyo|Imperial Hotel]] and invited guests to have themselves custom-fitted for a personal nuclear fallout shelter.<ref name=":8" /> Participants included [[Yoko Ono]] and [[Nam June Paik]], and were photographed from six sides to create a quasi-medical document ostensibly meant for the outfitting of personal fallout shelters.<ref name=":8" /> ''The Movement for the Promotion for a Clean and Organized Metropolitan Area'' (abbreviated as ''Cleaning Event'') occurred October 16, 1964, in which they dressed in goggles and lab coats, roped off small areas of public sidewalk and meticulously cleaned them to mock the efforts to beautify the streets in anticipation of the [[1964 Tokyo Olympics]].<ref name=":4">((Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|pages=199|isbn=978-0-674-98848-4))</ref><ref>Alexandra Munroe, ''Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky'' (New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994), 179.</ref> The group would dissolve only a year and a half after its inception, with Akasegawa recounting cryptically that “after ''Cleaning Event'' there was simply nothing left to do.”<ref name=":4" />

Another notable event of Hi-Red Center's was the June 1964 ''Great Panorama Exhibition'' held at Naiqua Gallery.<ref>((Cite journal|last=Faris|first=Jaimey Hamilton|title=Rooms in Alibi: How Akasegawa Genpei Framed Capitalist Reality|journal=ARTMargins|volume=4|issue=3|pages=59))</ref> While this project took the more conventional form of an art exhibition than some of their other events, the exhibition itself blurred the boundaries between art and everyday life in ways that engaged the artists’ interest in “direct action.” For five days the exhibition was closed, with two pieces of wood nailed over the gallery door in an X-shaped barricade. The word “Closed” was written on a piece of paper and fastened to one of the pieces of wood. The exhibition remained this way until the final day on which an “opening” event was held.<ref name=":11">((Cite journal|last=Faris|first=Jaimey Hamilton|title=Rooms in Alibi: How Akasegawa Genpei Framed Capitalist Reality|journal=ARTMargins|volume=4|issue=3|pages=60))</ref> Members of the Tokyo art community as well as others, including [[Jasper Johns]], attended this opening event in which the gallery was revealed to be full of empty cans.<ref name=":11" /> Among them were Akasegawa's ''Canned Universe'' (1964/1994) pieces, in which Akasegawa removed the labels of cans and placed them in the can's inner wall as to invert the can's “contents” to become the entire universe in a simple but clever gesture.<ref name=":12">((Cite journal|last=Faris|first=Jaimey Hamilton|title=Rooms in Alibi: How Akasegawa Genpei Framed Capitalist Reality|journal=ARTMargins|volume=4|issue=3|pages=61))</ref><ref name=":8" /> Of these works, some cans were soldered shut and at other times their lids were left ajar, revealing the label lining the inner wall.<ref name=":12" /> For Akasegawa these canned universe pieces were necessarily part of a set.<ref name=":18">Faris, Jaimey Hamilton. "Rooms in Alibi: How Akasegawa Genpei Framed Capitalist Reality". ''ARTMargins''. 4 (3): 62.</ref> Because the cans “enclosed” the universe, including his other inverted cans within that universe, he created a paradoxical situation in which the cans “contained” each other simultaneously.<ref name=":18" />

In March 1965, with the help of [[Fluxus]] member [[Shigeko Kubota]], Hi-Red Center's activities were documented on a map of Tokyo and published through Fluxus newspaper no. 5.<ref name=":10">((Cite journal|last=Faris|first=Jaimey Hamilton|title=Rooms in Alibi: How Akasegawa Genpei Framed Capitalist Reality|journal=ARTMargins|volume=4|issue=3|pages=55))</ref> This ''Bundle of Events'' was sold as a crumpled bundle of paper tied together by rope.<ref name=":10" />

=== "Model One Thousand-Yen Note Incident" ===

In May 1963, Akasegawa sent out invitations to ''The Fifth Mixer Plan'', Hi-Red Center's first gallery exhibition at Dai-Ichi Gallery in Tokyo.<ref name=":5">Yoshiko Shimada, “The Undercurrent of Art and Politics in the 1960s: On Gendai Shichosha,” in ''The Red Years: Theory, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Japanese '68'', ed. Gavin Walker (London: Verso, 2020), pp. 160-180, 174.</ref><ref>Alexandra Munroe, ''Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky'' (New York, NY: H.N. Abrams, 1994), 395.</ref> The announcement was delivered to several close friends in a cash envelope sent through the postal service.<ref>((cite journal |last1=Tomii |first1=Reiko |date=February 1, 2002 |title=State v. (Anti-)Art: ''Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident'' by Akasegawa Genpei and Company |url=https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-10-1-141 |journal=Positions: Asia Critique |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=147|doi=10.1215/10679847-10-1-141 |s2cid=144997715 ))</ref> The announcement itself was a 1,000-[[yen]] note reproduced in monochromatic colors on the front with relevant information regarding the exhibit on the back. Thereafter, he used printed sheets of the copied note as wrapping paper to wrap a variety of everyday objects for a series of artworks called ''Packages.''<ref name="Kapur page 200">((Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|pages=200|isbn=978-0-674-98848-4))</ref>

Akasegawa's note was first discovered by the Japanese authorities during a raid on the houses of members of the radical leftist group Hanzaisha Domei (League of Criminals).<ref name=":5" /> The police were investigating an allegedly pornographic photograph in a book titled ''Akai Fusen Aruiwa Mesuokami No Yoru'' (Red Balloon, or Night of the She-Wolf).<ref name=":5" /> During the raid the police found Akasegawa's printed note, which was also featured in the book. As the book was only printed to be circulated among friends, the evidence should not have been prosecuted.<ref name=":5" /> However, because Hanzaisha Domei was monitored by the authorities as “ideologically perverse” (shisoteki henshitsu-sha), members of the group were arrested and the news was publicized in major newspapers and weekly magazines.<ref name=":5" /> Hi-Red Center was also labeled as ideologically perverse by Japanese authorities.<ref name=":5" /> Asahi newspaper reported Akasegawa's case as a headlining story on January 26, 1964, connecting it to the recent and high-profile “Chi-37” case of banknote counterfeiting discovered in circulation in the Japanese economy.<ref name=":5" />

Akasegawa was indicted for creating imitations of banknotes, in violation of the 1895 Law to Regulate the Imitation of Currency and Bond Certificates.<ref name="Tomii page 149">((cite journal |last1=Tomii |first1=Reiko |date=February 1, 2002 |title=State v. (Anti-)Art: ''Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident'' by Akasegawa Genpei and Company |url=https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-10-1-141 |journal=Positions: Asia Critique |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=149|doi=10.1215/10679847-10-1-141 |s2cid=144997715 ))</ref> He was charged with the crime of "copying" (''mozō''), i.e. the simulation of currency, which was a lesser charge than actual counterfeiting, but nonetheless quite serious.<ref name="Kapur page 200"/> The language of the law was vague, prohibiting any manufacture or sale of objects with an exterior front that might “be confused for currency or securities.” Akasegawa countered that rather than "copying" (''mozō''), he was merely "modeling" (''mokei'') the notes, just as one would create a model airplane.<ref name="Tomii page 149"/> He developed this theory of “modeling” in response to the concept of counterfeiting as defined by Japanese law immediately after he gave depositions to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police in January 1964.<ref>((Cite journal|last=Tomii|first=Reiko|title=State v. (Anti-)Art: Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident by Akasegawa Genpei and Company|journal=Positions: East Asian Cultures Critique|volume=10|pages=149))</ref>

In August 1966, Akasegawa's initial trial and numerous appeals began; the entire process would last until 1970.<ref name="Kapur page 200"/> Akasegawa treated the entire incident as a work of performance art or a happening, and spoke of it as he would speak of his physical artworks, dubbing it the ''Model Thousand-Yen Note Incident''. Resulting from the trial was also the so-called ''Exhibition Event at the Courtroom'', which occurred August 1966.<ref name=":13">((Cite journal|last=Tomii|first=Reiko|title=State v. (Anti-)Art: Model 1,000 Yen Note Incident by Akasegawa Genpei and Company|journal=Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique|volume=10|pages=144))</ref> Here, the evidence exhibited during the thirty five minute review turned the courtroom into a kind of gallery space.<ref name=":13" /> This happening of sorts was documented by a court photographer.<ref name=":13" /> During the trial, numerous well-known artists who were Akasegawa's friends and associates testified on his behalf. Together, they appropriated the courtroom as a space for artistic production and debate on the meaning of art.<ref name="Kapur page 200"/> Akasegawa recorded his thoughts and experiences as the trials were proceeding in a series of essays published in 1970 in the collection titled ''Obuje o motta musansha'' (The Proletarian Carrying an ''Objet'').<ref>((cite book |first=Genpei |last=Akasegawa |title=Obuje o motta musansha |year=1970 |publisher=Gendai Shisōsha |place=Tokyo |language=ja))</ref>

The case also produced the 1,000-Yen Note Incident Discussion Group, where intellectuals and artists could discuss the questions raised by the trial and the strategy of Akasegawa's defense.<ref>((Cite journal|last=Tomii|first=Reiko|title=State v. (Anti-)Art: Model 1,000 Yen Note Incident by Akasegawa Genpei and Company|journal=Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique|volume=10|pages=153))</ref> The case hinged on two difficult questions: first, whether Akasegawa's model thousand-yen note constituted "art," and second, whether that art was protected free expression and therefore not a crime.<ref name="Kapur page 200"/> The argument taken up by Akasegawa's defense, that the reproduction of the banknote constituted an act of art, ironically contradicted his prior artistic activities that had actively tried to escape the confines of art through the concept of public invisibility he called “namelessless” (''mumeisei'').<ref>Yoshiko Shimada, “The Undercurrent of Art and Politics in the 1960s: On Gendai Shichosha,” in ''The Red Years: Theory, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Japanese '68'', ed. Gavin Walker (London: Verso, 2020), pp. 160-180, 175.</ref><ref>((Cite journal|last=Tomii|first=Reiko|title=State v. (Anti-)Art: Model 1,000 Yen Note Incident by Akasegawa Genpei and Company|journal=Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique|volume=10|pages=158))</ref> Ultimately, the court decided that the note was in fact art, but that producing that art also constituted a criminal act.<ref>((Cite book|last=Kapur|first=Nick|title=Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=2018|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ|pages=200–01|isbn=978-0-674-98848-4))</ref> In June 1967, Akasegawa was found guilty and given a lenient three-month [[suspended sentence]]. He appealed twice but exhausted his final appeal when the [[Supreme Court of Japan]] ruled against him in 1970.<ref>((cite journal |last1=Tomii |first1=Reiko |date=February 1, 2002 |title=State v. (Anti-)Art: ''Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident'' by Akasegawa Genpei and Company |url=https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-10-1-141 |journal=Positions: Asia Critique |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=155|doi=10.1215/10679847-10-1-141 |s2cid=144997715 ))</ref><ref name="Kapur page 200"/>

Following the guilty verdict of the Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident, Akasegawa's first project was to produce 0 yen notes which he exchanged for 300 yen.<ref name=":14">((Cite journal|last=Tomii|first=Reiko|title=State v. (Anti-)Art: Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident by Akasegawa Genpei and Company|journal=Positions: Asia Critique|volume=10|pages=160–161))</ref> This ''Greater Japan Zero-Yen Note'' (1967) project was a playful, law-abiding response on the charges of which he had just been convicted.<ref name=":14" /> The gesture, however, contained a radical idea in that the exchange of 0 yen notes for his price of 300 yen would, when brought to its logical conclusion, cause the economy to malfunction.<ref name=":14" />

===Photographic Activity and Thomassons===
In 1970 Akasegawa was appointed to teach at the Bigakkō art school. Here with his students he began to explore what he referred to as ''chōgeijutsu'' ("hyperart") and what would later lead to the coining of "[[Hyperart Thomasson|Thomassons]]."<ref name=":6">Thomas Daniell, "Just Looking: The Origins of the Street Observation Society." AA Files, no. 64 (2012), pp. 59-68, 63.</ref> These activities arose from jokingly likening odd urban phenomena to conceptual art gestures, such as stairs leading to an entrance that had since been removed.<ref name=":6" /> The term "Thomasson" was a jocular reference to the baseball player [[Gary Thomasson]], who was recruited to the [[Yomiuri Giants|Tokyo Giants]] on an exorbitant salary but was rarely able to hit the ball.<ref name=":6" /> These Thomassons were often categorized by Akasegawa, such as “Atomic Thomassons” to describe the ghostly traces of things removed from their contexts, or “[[Sada Abe]] Thomassons” ascribed to truncated telephone poles and named after an infamous Japanese woman who had severed her lover's genitalia with a kitchen knife.<ref name=":6" /> The term “Thomasson” was even used by science fiction writer [[William Gibson]] to describe a bridge that had become taken over by squatters, turning it into a “junk sculpture.”<ref name=":6" /> The classes Akasegawa taught at Bigakkō produced the Thomasson Observation Center, whose activity was serially published in Super Photo Magazine (Shashin Jidai).<ref>((cite magazine|last=99% Invisible|date=2014-08-27|title=There's a Name for Architectural Relics That Serve No Purpose|url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/08/27/roman_mars_99_percent_invisible_on_thomassons_architectural_relics_that.html|access-date=2014-09-02|magazine=Salon))</ref><ref name=":6" /> Here Akasegawa also invited readers to submit their own Thomassons, promising a reward of a zero-yen note.<ref name=":6" />

That Thomassons were rooted in a lighthearted game of discovering “art” within the everyday inverted the artistic development of the readymade. Akasegawa commented upon in his “The Objet after Stalin,” writing that although “we usually think of a urinal as something whose sole mission is to receive our urine and conduct it to the sewage,” [[Marcel Duchamp]]’s gesture of bringing a urinal into an art context “stripped us from our intrinsic power as managers and rulers of the urinal, thus setting it free.”<ref>Akasegawa, Genpei. “Stalin iko no obuje [The objet after Stalin].” ''Obuje o motta musansha [An objet-carrying Proletarian]''. Tokyo: Gendai Shinchosha, 1970.</ref> By this liberation of the urinal, Duchamp “consequently fills up with freedom also his own head. The title objet was born under this condition of reciprocal liberation.”<ref>Thomas Daniell, "Just Looking: The Origins of the Street Observation Society." AA Files, no. 64 (2012), pp. 59-68, 69.</ref> Through this reciprocal liberation, art and ordinary life permeate each other through their conventional divide.

In January 1986, Akasegawa and his collaborators, [[Terunobu Fujimori]], [[Shinbo Minami]], [[Tetsuo Matsuda]], [[Tsutomu Ichiki]], and [[Joni Hayashi]], met with Geijutsu Shincho editor [[Takeshita Tachibana]] to announce the formation of a new group: Rojō Kansatsu Gakkai (Street Observation Society), abbreviated as Rojō.<ref name=":7">Thomas Daniell, "Just Looking: The Origins of the Street Observation Society." AA Files, no. 64 (2012), pp. 59-68, 66.</ref> The group combined its members’ individual affinities with “modernology,” a term coined by [[Wajiro Kon]] and Kenkichi Yoshida in their ''Kogengaku'' (Modernology).<ref name=":7" /> This placed Rojō in a “Japanese lineage of amateur investigators of material culture and everyday life,” such as Kon's documentation of the “behaviors and living environments of a rapidly modernising Japanese society.”<ref>Thomas Daniell, "Just Looking: The Origins of the Street Observation Society." AA Files, no. 64 (2012), pp. 59-68, 60.</ref> As such, Rojō broadened the scope of inquiry to incorporate Akasegawa's interest in Thomassons into the broader context of modern Japanese life.

Akasegawa was fond of old cameras, especially [[Leica Camera|Leica]]s, and from 1992 to around 2009, he joined [[Yutaka Takanashi]] and [[Yūtokutaishi Akiyama]] in the photographers' group [[Raika Dōmei]], which held numerous exhibitions.

===Fiction, Manga, and Other Pursuits===

As "Katsuhiko Otsuji," he received the [[Akutagawa Prize]] in 1981 for his short story, "Chichi ga kieta" (Father Disappeared).<ref name=":15" /> In addition to fiction, Akasegawa is known for his essays and manga written with characteristic humor and style.<ref name=":8" /> He is perhaps best known by the general public for his 1998 book ''Rōjin Ryoku'' (Geriatric Power), which was a bestseller in Japan.<ref name=":8" /> In this book he argues that the physical and mental decline that accompanies old age is in fact proof of increased strength.<ref name=":8" />

Akasegawa also produced manga, most notably ''The Sakura Illustrated'' (Sakura Gaho) in the 70s.<ref name=":8" /> This manga was first serialized in the weekly ''Asahi Journal'' from August 1970 to March 1971.<ref>((Cite journal|last=Tomii|first=Reiko|title=Akai Akai Asahi Asahi—Red, Red Is the Rising Sun: Wartime Memory in Akasegawa Genpei's "The Sakura Illustrated"|journal=Review of Japanese Culture and Society|volume=15|pages=109))</ref>

== Works ==
<!-- Paintings and Sculptures -->
<!-- Exhibitions -->

===Publications===
((dynamic list))
* ''Obuje o motta musansha'' (オブジェを持った無産者). Tokyo: Gendai Shisōsha, 1970.
* ''Tuihō sareta yajiuma'' (追放された野次馬). Tokyo: Gendai Hyōronsha, 1972.
* ''Sakura gahō gekidō no sen nihyaku gojū ichi'' (桜画報・激動の千二百五十日). Tokyo: Seirindō, 1974.
* ''Yume dorobō: Suimin hakubutsushi'' (夢泥棒：睡眠博物誌). Tokyo: Gakugei Shorin, 1975.
* ''Chōgeijutsu Tomason'' (超芸術トマソン). Tokyo: Byakuya Shobō, 1985.  Revised: Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1987. ((ISBN|4-480-02189-2)).  English translation: ''Hyperart: Thomasson''. New York: Kaya Press, 2010. ((ISBN|978-1-885030-46-7)).
* ''Tōkyō mikisā keikaku'' (東京ミキサー計画). Tokyo: Parco, 1984.  Reissue: Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1994. ((ISBN|4-480-02935-4)).
* ''Rōjinryoku'' (老人力). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1998, ((ISBN|978-4-480-81606-1)).  Reissue: Chikuma Shobō, 2001, ((ISBN|978-4-480-03671-1)).

== References ==
((reflist))

===Bibliography===
* ((cite book |last = Akasegawa |first = Genpei |year = 2010 |title = Hyperart: Thomasson |publisher = Kaya Press |location=Los Angeles|isbn=978-1-885030-46-7 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aKx4PgAACAAJ))
* ((cite book |last = Kapur |first = Nick |year = 2018 |title = Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo |publisher = [[Harvard University Press]] |location = Cambridge, MA |isbn=978-0-674-98442-4 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ))
* ((cite journal |last1=Tomii |first1=Reiko |date=February 1, 2002 |title=State v. (Anti-)Art: ''Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident'' by Akasegawa Genpei and Company |url=https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-10-1-141 |journal=Positions: Asia Critique |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=141–172 |doi=10.1215/10679847-10-1-141|s2cid=144997715 ))

== External links ==
* [http://www.scaithebathhouse.com/en/artists/genpei_akasegawa/ Profile] by [[SCAI The Bathhouse]].
* [http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2013/01/30/exhibiting-fluxus-mapping-hi-red-center-in-tokyo-1955-1970-a-new-avant-garde-2 Exhibiting Fluxus: Mapping Hi Red Center in Tokyo 1955–1970: A New Avant-Garde] at [[Museum of Modern Art|The Museum of Modern Art]]
* [http://sfaq.us/2014/03/sfaq-review-hi-red-center-traces-of-direct-action-at-the-shoto-museum-tokyo/ SFAQ Review: “Hi-Red Center: Traces of Direct Action” at the Shoto Museum, Tokyo.] (San Francisco Arts Quarterly)

((Authority control))

((Akutagawa Prize winners))
((Fluxus))

((DEFAULTSORT:Akasegawa, Genpei))
[[Category:1937 births]]
[[Category:2014 deaths]]
[[Category:Fluxus]]
[[Category:Artists from Yokohama]]
[[Category:Japanese photographers]]
[[Category:Japanese essayists]]
[[Category:Akutagawa Prize winners]]
[[Category:Japanese contemporary artists]]
[[Category:20th-century novelists]]
[[Category:Neo-Dada]]
[[Category:20th-century essayists]]

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