Genpei Akasegawa - Japanese Avant-garde art
Genpei Akasegawa was a pseudonym of Japanese artist Katsuhiko Akasegawa (March 27, 1937 – October 26, 2014).He used another pen name, Katsuhiko Otsuji, for literary works. In January 1963, Akasegawa sent out invitations to a solo exhibition at a gallery in Tokyo. The announcement was delivered to several close friends in a cash envelope sent through the postal service. 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. He produced four more during the next year.Akasegawa was born in 1937 in Yokohama, and moved to Ashiya, Ōita and Nagoya in his childhood because of his father's job. Shusaku Arakawa was a high school classmate in Nagoya.In 1960, Akasegawa became involved within the Neo-Dada Organizers, along with Ushio Shinohara, Shusaku Arakawa, and Masanobu Yoshimura. He formed the Hi-Red Center with Jiro Takamatsu and Natsuyuki Nakanishi in 1963, which was a group of artists that presented their works as a collective in Japan; they performed happenings within the Hi-Red Center.
