Takako Saito: DREAMS TO DO Kat. Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen

Takako Saito has become internationally known for her objects, artist books, performances, and actions in the context of Fluxus. She has always been interested in the world of things and everyday life, to which she adds her individual artistic gesture through interventions and small actions. Natural materials such as stones, mussels, onion peels, and chestnuts are her preferred materials, alongside various kinds of paper, plastics, foams, and wood pieces. Unmistakable are her carefully crafted object boxes that she has been creating since the 1960s, as well as the numerous free chess games, which were first sold at George Maciunas’s FluxShop. A rather playful approach is characteristic of many of Saito’s works; she is always looking for new game variants beyond fixed rules. The viewers are involved as co-players and co-designers, since the artist has a penchant for the participation strategy, particularly in her Me and You-Shops—market stall-like shops where the artist as a saleswoman interacts with the audience. The exhibition and the book Takako Saito: DREAMS TO DO are designed retrospectively and present works from all important phases.

Takako Saito was born in 1929 in Sabae-Shi (Fukui, Japan). In 1963 she moved to New York where she made the acquaintance of George Maciunas, spiritus rector of the FLUXUS movement. Takako worked constantly together with him for FLUX-shop and created out of the knowledge of this practice her own varying games, performances, clothing, shops, and artists books. She now lives in Dusseldorf, Germany. Eva Schmidt is an art historian and a curator. Since 2004 she has served as Director of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen. She has curated numerous monographic exhibitions of Lucian Freud, Sigmar Polke, Bridget Riley, Antoni Tapies, Niele Toroni, and others. Johannes Stahl is an art historian and freelance curator, author, teacher, and consultant living in Cologne. His interest focuses on street art and art in public space as well as interaction process and art education.

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