Drawing for “Electric Dress”, 1956
- Medium
- Crayon on paper
- Dimensions
- 43 x 30 1/4 in. (109.22 x 76.84 cm)
- Accession Number
- 99.19
- Credit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Purchase with funds provided by The Gene J. Burton Acquisitions Endowment
In Tokyo in 1956, Atsuko Tanaka
donned her Electric Dress, a costume
of two hundred painted blinking light bulbs, light tubes, and dangling electrical
cords that covered her from head to toe. Electric
Dress was a response to the proliferation of technology in everyday life, which
was especially dramatic during Japan’s rapid industrial reconstruction after
World War Two. Tanaka imagined her body as a canvas and the electric outfit as
a contemporary painting, one that embraced modern aesthetics, like the neon
signs that were appearing throughout Japanese cities. This holds for the
drawing on view, which was first exhibited alongside the garment. It showcases one
of the endless configurations of color and shape made possible by the
erratically flashing dress, thus modeling a technology-driven form of
abstraction.