Takehisa Kosugi

Takehisa Kosugi (March 1938 – October 2018)

Takehisa Kosugi was a Japanese composer, musician – a pioneer of experimental music – and performer. Kosugi co-founded Group Ongaku in 1960 with Mieko Shiomi and Yasunao Tone, which was “famously the first ensemble in Japan to explore collective group improvisation and multi-media Happenings”.

Kosugi is also well known for his work with the peripatetic/itinerant octet Taj Mahal Travellers (1969-1975), which he co-founded in 1969. He toured performances with the improvisation troupe between 1971-1972 throughout Europe, the Middle East and at the Taj Mahal in India.

In 1964, George Maciunas published Kosugi’s Events, a set of 18 cards consisting of text-based instruction works.

“The incidental or indeterminate nature of sounds has been one of the major characteristics of my music through improvisational performances and sound installations. In an attempt to transcend conventional musical concepts, I have been introducing electronic territory to my music including both audio frequency waves and non-audio frequency ones such as infrasonic, radio frequency, and light waves.”

– Takehisa Kosugi (2014)

Biographies:

Biography: https://whitney.org/exhibitions/takehisa-kosugi

Foundation for Contemporary Arts biography: https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/takehisa-kosugi/

MoMA biography & works: https://www.moma.org/artists/3227

Biography: https://monoskop.org/Takehisa_Kosugi

Biography: https://www.nts.live/artists/13151-takehisa-kosugi

Short biography: https://roulette.org/event/takehisa-kosugi-simone-forti-2/

Biography & discography: http://www.lovely.com/bios/kosugi.html?fbclid=IwAR3cjDqz_u4PmVqXG9cCENhfKeDFnkIqlEHoztK_WbGtaN_PWbe-9tup8aI 

Short biography: https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/takehisa-kosugi/

Works:

Untitled (1988) & commentary (German): http://forschung-kuenstlerpublikationen.de/Untitled-1988.html

Organic Music (1963), performed live by Kosugi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYRmDky1xUI&ab_channel=GettyResearchInstitute

Mano-Dharma ‘74: https://boomkat.com/artists/takehisa-kosugi

Wave Code E-1: https://boomkat.com/artists/takehisa-kosugi

Cycles II (1981/2007): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmC0gqsLmVk&ab_channel=GettyResearchInstitute

Op. Music (2003): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuC8mgBq3JI&ab_channel=GettyResearchInstitute

Recording of ‘Mano Dharma ‘74’: https://www.glass-bead.org/audio-research/takehisa-kosugi/?lang=enview

Articles:

Artforum article on Kosugi: https://www.artforum.com/passages/takehisa-kosugi-1938-8211-2018-77672

Exhibitions:

SPACINGS exhibition & biography: https://www.ikon-gallery.org/event/takehisa-kosugi/ 

‘Adventures in Sound’ exhibition & commentary: https://artscape.jp/artscape/eng/focus/1802_02.html

Obituaries:

Short obituary: https://www.thewire.co.uk/news/52752/takehisa-kosugi-1938-2018

Obituary, New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/obituaries/takehisa-kosugi-dead.html

Live Performance:

Live performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF6RGIAt_9Q&t=95s&ab_channel=%EA%B2%BD%EA%B8%B0%EB%AC%B8%ED%99%94%EC%9E%AC%EB%8B%A8

Images of Kosugi during performance: https://www.gettyimages.de/fotos/takehisa-kosugi