Takako Saito

Takako Saito
Born	Takako Saito Fukui Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Education	Psychology
Known for	Visual Art, Artist's Multiples, Installation, Sculpture, Performance,
Movement	Fluxus

Takako Saito is a Japanese artist, born in Sabae-Shi, Fukui Province in Japan in 1929. Closely associated with Fluxus, the international collective of avant-garde artists that was active primarily in the 1960s and 1970s, Saito contributed a number of performances and artworks to the movement, which continue to be exhibited in Fluxus exhibitions to the present day. She currently lives in Düsseldorf in Germany. She is most famous for pieces like Silent Music or for her special Chess sets.

5 Years after studying psychology at the Japan Women's University, Saito became involved with Sōzō Biiku undŏ, the 'Creative Art Education' movement. Founded 1952 by Sadajirŏ Kubo, the movement focussed on encouraging creativity through free will. Whilst attending a summer camp organized by the movement, Saito met a Tokyo member Ay-O, an artist actively engaged in encouraging avant-garde groups in Japan. Ay-O became an important source of information for Saito about the avant-garde, first in Tokyo, and then, later, in New York City, where he moved in 1958. Intrigued by the reports being sent back by Ay-O, Saito also travelled to New York in 1963 ostensibly to work as a designer for a textile wholesaler and later studying at NY university, Brooklyn Museum Art School and Art Student League. It was through Ay-O that she was introduced to George Maciunas, founder and organiser of Fluxus, and one of the central members of the New York avant-garde.

George Maciunas was fascinated by Japanese craftsmanship and owned some Japanese boxes. He was so impressed with Saito's craftmanship that he asked her to contribute a series of disrupted chess sets to sell in his new Flux shop on Canal Street, SoHo, New York. Maciunas was so delighted by Spice Chess in particular that he 'even took credit for it on occasion.'. Even after developing some distance to Fluxus Saito maintained contact with him until Maciunas' death.

"After a while, Maciunas proposed having dinner together every evening. In his opinion, buying food for many was more economical than buying for one... He called it Flux Dinner Commune. So George, Paik, Takako, Shigeko and I started this part-time collective life. For the first few days, the men went shopping and the girls cooked. However we found it inconvenient, because George came back rather late from his office and then often didn't buy what we wanted to cook.... It didn't last long, because we got jobs at night. George was discouraged, but bravely said, "Well, work comes first, dinner second." Mieko Shiomi

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