Artists

Norio Imai

Biography

1946: Born in Osaka.
1965: Graduates from Osaka Municipal High School of Art and Industry, department of fine art, yōga (Western-style painting) program.
Joins Gutai Art Association (until breakup in 1972).
1966: Receives 1st prize at Shell Art Award (Tokyo).
1979: Starts “Daily Portrait” series.
1991: Receives 2nd Osaka City Environment Amenity Award.
Currently Norio Imai is a professor emeritus at the Seian University of Art and Design, Ōtsu.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024: Videotape Garden, +1 art, Osaka
2023: NORIO IMAI, “Time Scape”, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong
Sounds of Norio Imai – ACG 20th Anniversary Vol. 3, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka
2019: Norio Imai - Action on Film, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka
2018: Norio Imai: Material Ecstasy, Axel Vervoordt Gallery Antwerp, Wijnegem, Belgium
2016: Norio Imai Retrospective–Time in Square, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka
2015: Norio Imai – Time Collection, Yumiko Chiba Associates viewing room Shinjuku, Tokyo
2014: Norio Imai Retrospective – Reflection and Projection, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka
Norio Imai – It Begins with White, Yumiko Chiba Associates viewing room Shinjuku, Tokyo
2013: Norio Imai – White Event, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
2012: Norio Imai - My Days at ‘Gutai University’, Seian University of Art and Design, Ōtsu
Norio Imai Retrospective – From 17 to 22 Years Old, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka
2005: Daily Portraits of a Quarter Century, Mssohkan, Kōbe
1996: Back & Forth - Norio Imai / White Space 1964-1966, galerie 16, Kyoto
1981: Solo exhibition with video works, The Bank, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Norio Imai – Videotape Performance, Video Gallery SCAN, Tokyo
1980: Rectangular Time, Galerie Kitano Circus, Kōbe
1979: Solo exhibition of self-portraits, Ban Garow, Osaka
1971: Solo Exhibition, Walker Gallery, Tokyo
1966: Solo Exhibition, Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka
1964: Testimony of a 17-Year-Old, Noonu Gallery, Osaka

Selected Group Exhibition

2023: After the Landscape Theory, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo
2022: Into the Unknown World—GUTAI: Differentiation and Integration, Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
2021: MOJIMOJIKOTONOHA, Borderless Art Museum NO-MA, Omi-Hachiman, Shiga
Movie will speak！ 2021: Thought and trial of the streaming era, Galerie 16, Kyoto
2020: Ima-koso-GUTAI, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo, continuing into 2021.
250 Years of Kyoto Art Masterpieces, The Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, Kyoto
Ashiya Time: A Large Collection Exhibition, Ashiya City Museum of Art and History, Hyogo
VITAL SIGNALS SELECTED WORKS, [on the website] Collaborative Cataloging Japan *screening the video artwork
2019: art trip vol.03 ‘in number, new world’, Ashiya City Museum of Art & History, continuing into 2020.
2018: Exposition Gutai, l'espace et le temps, Musée Soulages à Rodez, France
2017: Becoming & Dissolving: ‘The Art of Appreciating Simple Beauty in a Naturally Imperfect World’, Alice Black, London
31st Image Forum Festival “Severed Time, Connected Time: Imai Norio Special Program”, Image Forum, Tokyo, and other locations
46th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Gallery Joey Ramone, Rotterdam
Film and Video Works–Time Severed, Jointed and Stretched, BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels
2016: Fluorescent Chrysanthemum, ICA, London
Performing for the Camera, Tate Modern, London
2015: Re: play 1972/2015―Restaging “Expression in Film '72”, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
2014: PROPORTIO, Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, Italy
Image and Matter in Japanese Photography from the 1970s, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
2013: Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
2012: Festival for Water Media - Aqua Passage, Shiga Citizens’ Theatre for the Arts, Kusatsu (Shiga Prefecture)
A Visual Essay on Gutai at 32 East 69th Street, Hauser & Wirth, NY
Gutai: The Spirit of an Era, The National Art Center, Tokyo
2011: Nul=0: The Dutch Nul Group in an International Context, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, The Netherlands
2009: Vital Signals – Early Japanese and American Video Art, touring exhibition to Japan Society, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Yokohama Museum of Art; The National Museum of Art, Osaka and other locations, continuing into 2010.
2007: Radical Communication: Japanese Video Art 1968-1988, The Getty Center, Los Angeles
2004: Six artists / articulation 2004, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka
2000: The Earthquake Disaster and Art - What Has Been Created Since 9.17, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art
1997: Recommendations for an ‘I’ Art – Why I Was Painted, Itabashi Art Museum, Tokyo
1994: Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, Yokohama Museum of Art, followed by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, continuing into 1995.
1992: Photography Art in Contemporary Japan, Walker Hill Art Center, Seoul, Korea
Aesthetics of Frames – Animation Theory and Practice, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama
Japanese Video Art Special –1980s Edition, Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo
1990: European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, Germany
Private Visions – Japanese Video Art in the 1980s, touring exhibition: Instituto Giapponese di Cultura, Rome, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe and the USA
1989: On Kawara – Again and Against 1966-1989, Institute of Contemporary Art, Nagoya
1986: Video Cocktail III, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
1985: Japan – Avant-garde of the Future, Palazzo Tursi, Genoa, Italy
1983: Photography in Contemporary Art – The Works from the 1970s, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, followed by The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
12th Montreal International Festival of New Cinema, Montreal and two other cities, Canada
1982: 4th Biennale of Sydney, New South Wales Institute of Technology, Sydney, Australia
1980: Video Roma ’80, Museo del Folklore Romano, Rome, Italy
1978: From Underground Cinema to Private Films, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum
1977: 7th International Open Encounter on Video, Fundació Miró, Barcelona, Spain
1976: The Broadway, Los Angeles; Henry Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
11th Japan Art Festival Exhibition – Trends in Today’s Japanese Art ’76, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, followed by The Broadway, Los Angeles; Henry Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
1975: International Open Encounter on Video, Espace Pierre Cardin (Paris), Galleria Civaca D’arte Moderna (Ferrara) and Centro de Arte y Comunicación (Buenos Aires).
The Party - Norio Imai, Saburo Muraoka, Keiji Uematsu, galerie 16, Kyoto
1974: 11th Japan International Art Exhibition – Realism in the Age of Reproduced Images, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum
1973: 8th Japan Art Festival, Moderna Galerija, Ljubliana, Yugoslavia, followed by Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany
Kyoto Biennale - Art from Art Groups, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art
1972: “This Accidental Co-action as an Incident”, street event with sounds of three artists’ heartbeats, Midōsuji Street, Osaka. (Collaboration with Toru Kuranuki and Saburo Muraoka)
Image Expression ’72 - Equivalent Cinema, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art
1971: 10th Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition – Man and Nature, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, followed by Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art
1970: 16th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany
Gutai Group Display, Midorikan Pavilion Entrance, Expo’70 World’s Fair, Suita, Osaka
1968: Contemporary Japanese Art – Fluorescent Chrysanthemum, ICA, London, UK
8th Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, followed by Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art
1967: 5th Biennale de Paris, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, France
1st Sōgetsu Experimental Film Festival, Sōgetsu Hall, Tokyo, followed by Yasaka Hall, Kyoto
1966: From Space to Environment, Ginza Matsuya Department Store, Tokyo
Trends in Contemporary Art, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto Annex
Zero on the Sea, Internationale Galerie OREZ, The Hague, The Netherlands
1964: 14th Gutai Art Exhibition, Takashimaya Department Store, Osaka (participates in all Gutai Art Exhibition until breakup in 1972).

Major Public Artworks

2001: “From Here to Here”, Keihan Line Tenmabashi Station, Osaka
2000: “Kōi Nagata Litrature Monument”, Senpuku-ji Temple, Kakogawa City, Hyogo
1996: “Sphere Sequence”, Onidake Garden, Gotō City, Nagasaki
“Spheres of the Heart”, Ōtsu City Hall road-side, Shiga
1992: “Sound stone in Harada”, Toyonaka City Elderly Care Center, Osaka (Collaboration with Yukio Fujimoto）
1982: “Time Stones 400”, in front of Shin-Osaka Station

Major Public Collections

Ashiya City Museum of Art and History / Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka / The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto / The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga / Tokyo Photographic Art Museum / Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art / The Miyagi Museum of Art / Axel and May Vervoordt Foundation, Wijnegem / Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles / Pharmascience Collection, Canada / Rachofsky Collection, Dallas
/ By Art Matters Museum, Hangzhou