Tatsuo Kawaguchi was born in 1940 in Kobe and currently lives and works in Chiba. He has remained at the forefront of contemporary art since the 1960s in Japan and was one of the core members of Group “I”, an avant-garde artist collective group founded by nine artists in Kobe in 1965. Kawaguchi has consistently created work that attempts to give form to the invisible relationships between that of substances, and substances and human beings, making use of a variety of materials, from metals such as iron, bronze, and lead, energy sources like light and heat, to fossils and seeds.
In 1974, Kawaguchi started the series of “Cosmos.” The dates indicating the birth of a galaxy’s stars are inscribed on paneled photographs of the night sky. The starlight recorded was emitted long before Kawaguchi was born. The date was calculated from the distance of each star, then written in blue, the color of the sky at daytime. Through this series, Kawaguchi materialized within his consciousness a journey into space, an impossible adventure for him.
Kawaguchi’s solo exhibitions include, “Let There Be Light! Tatsuo Kawaguchi: World after 3/11,” Iwaki City Art Museum, Fukushima (2012); “The Spiral Time,” KAKE Museum of Art, Okayama (2010); “Language, Time, Life,” The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2009); “DARK BOX 2008,” Nagoya City Art Museum, Aichi (2008) and “Japan Contemporary Art – Kawaguchi Tatsuo,” Busan Museum of Art, Korea, (2003). His artworks have been showed in exhibitions including the Setouchi Triennale 2010 “100-Day Art and Sea Adventure” (2010); The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (2009); “Magiciens de la terre,” Centre Georges Pompidou (1989); the Paris Youth Biennale (1973); the 10th Tokyo Biennale (1970).
His work is included in institutional collections, such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; National Museum of Modern Art, Osaka; Iwaki City Art Museum; Chiba City Museum of Art; Nagoya City Art Museum; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk.
