Genpei Akasegawa 1937-2014

Genpei Akasegawa (b. 1937, Kanagawa - d. 2014, Tokyo) participated in the Yomiuri Independent Exhibition from 1958 and co-founded the Neo-Dada Organizers in 1960 with Shusaku Arakawa and Ushio Shinohara. His Model 1,000-Yen Note works brought both public notoriety and critical acclaim, culminating in a highly publicized counterfeiting trial in which he was convicted and served several months in jail despite two appeals. As a co-founding member of High-Red Center, Akasegawa was known for performances including the Dropping Event and the Be Clean! Campaign to Promote Cleanliness and Order in the Metropolitan Area.Writing under the pen name Katsuhiko Otsuji, he won several awards. From 1986, he co-founded Rojo Kansatsu Gakkai (Roadway Observation Society) with architects Terunobu Fujimori and Tetsuo Matsuda, and was associated with the Leica Domei (Leica Alliance) photography collective, concurrent with his proposal of the concept of Hyperart: Thomasson. Akasegawa has been the subject of a major touring retrospective at Chiba City Museum, Chiba; Oita City Museum, Oita; and Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima (2014).
The artist’s work is held in important public collections worldwide, including British Museum, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; the National Museum of Art, Osaka; the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.