Norio Imai

Born in 1946 in Osaka, Norio Imai studied under Jiro Yoshihara, founder of Gutai Art Association while attending high school. He was a member of the Gutai group from 1965 until 1972 when the group dissolved. His earliest solo exhibition was Testimony of a 17-Year-Old at Noonu Gallery, Osaka in 1964. The same year, as the youngest member of the Gutai group, he exhibited in the 14th Gutai Art Exhibition when he was 17.

Imai’s range of practice include painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video, and performance. Imai’s slides and films works of the 1960s and ’70s illustrate Imai’s testing of, and his interaction with the new medium of moving image, while his videos of the 1980s document his playful performances.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include: Testimony of a 17-Year-Old (1964, Noonu Gallery, Osaka), 14th Gutai Art Exhibition (1964, Takashimaya Department Store, Osaka), From Space to Environment (1966, Ginza Matsuya Department Store, Tokyo), Fluorescent Chrysanthemum–Contemporary Japanese Art (1968, ICA, London), Gutai Group Display (1970, Midorikan Pavilion Entrance, Expo’70 World’s Fair, Suita, Osaka), 16th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (1970, Oberhausen, Germany), 10th Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition – Man and Nature (1971, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, followed by Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art), Image Expression ’72 - Equivalent Cinema (1972, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art), From Underground Cinema to Private Films (1978, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum), Norio Imai – Videotape Performance (1981, Video Gallery SCAN, Tokyo), Video Cocktail III (1986, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), Radical Communication: Japanese Video Art 1968-1988 (2007, The Getty Center, Los Angeles), Vital Signals – Early Japanese and American Video Art (2009-2010, 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), Gutai: Splendid Playground (2013, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York), Severed Film / Jointed Film (2017, Gallery Joey Ramone, Rotterdam), White Event x moving images 1966 – 2016 (2016, Yumiko Chiba Associates viewing room Shinjuku), Norio Imai - Action on Film (2019, ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka), among others.

Circle / 円 (En)｜1967, 4 min, 16mm, sound, b&w
Echoing his work in white relief sculptures, Imai’s debut film is entirely composed of circular flashes made using a hole punch on each frame of 16mm black film leader. The circles appear to shake dramatically due to slight variations in the position of the holes.

Floor, 1972, 3 min, 16mm, silent, color
Imai films the floor of a room. A 16mm home movie that gives a small impression of how an artist’s mind works when toying with a medium new to him., that of a recording camera. Subtle shifts suggest a drama unfolding out of seemingly nothing.

Severed Film / 切断されたフィルム｜1972, discarded 16mm film and 80x 35mm slides
Beginning his career as the youngest member of Japanese art collective Gutai, Imai’s slides, films, and video works from the 1960s to the 1980s, show him testing the limits of each medium through playful misuse and displacement. His installation Severed Film (1972) involves discarded 16mm film dumped on the floor and placed inside a slide projector. At a time when most images are compressed onto digital screens, Imai’s hands-on relationship with the image apparatus presents a timely counterpoint to the age of swipe and scroll.

Jointed Film / ジョインティッド・フィルム｜1973, 19:28 min, spliced 16mm film, silent, b&w and color
The film version of his Severed Film installation. Imai’s found-footage film is a collage made from discarded 16mm film he collected from a local television station. Ranging in subject from samurais to local news, the random assortment of images call our attention to film as material.

The Braun Tube｜1974, 18:21 min, sound, b&w

Video Snap｜1974-1975, 20 min, sound, color

The Heart Beat｜1975, 10 min, sound, b&w

Video Tape Performance—Kyoto / ビデオテープ・パフォーマンス-京都｜1977, 31:51 min, sound, color

Video Tape Performance—On Air / ビデオテープ・パフォーマンス-オンエア｜1977, 22 min, sound, color

Abeno-suji Street / 阿倍野筋｜1977, 21:26 min, silent, color

Pinning Up / ピンナップ｜1978, 17:50 min, sound, color

Time for F. / F 氏のための時間｜1978, 37:40 min, sound, color

Time Clothing / 時間の衣裳(オリジナル版)｜1978, 12:13 min, sound, color

On Air / オン・エア｜1980, 16:32 min, sound, color
Describing videotape as a “tape measure of time,” Imai wraps open-reel videotape around a television monitor in this performative intervention. Visually silencing the broadcast of animated cartoons, the performance is a playful deconstruction of the video apparatus.

On Air—Kyoto / オン・エア/京都｜1980, 21 min, sound, color

Time in Rectangle / 矩形の時間｜1980, 21:18 min, sound, color

Video Circle / ビデオ・サークル｜1980, 25:33 min, sound, color

6/8 Time / 八分の六拍子｜1981, 6:11 min, sound, b&w

Marlene Dietrich / マレーネ・ディートリヒ｜1982, 11 min, sound, color

Self Portrait｜1982, 21:18 min, sound, color

Pizza Time/ ピザタイム｜1983, 10 min, sound, color
One of several performances where he used the Polaroid, Imai’s performance involves him eating slices of pizza while remarking it in picture form. While enjoying his dinner, Imai playfully captures the unique qualities of Polaroid photography in his table-top performance.

Video Performance 1978-1983 / ビデオ・パフォーマンス 1978-1983｜1978-1983, 15:35 min, sound, color

Includes: Time Clothing, On Air, Time in Rectangle, Self Portrait, Pizza Time

A Day in the Terminal Building / ターミナルビルの一日｜1984, 2 min, sound, color

Time in Square / 方形の時間｜1984, 9 min, sound, color
Four plant pots provide the corners around which Imai wraps open-reel videotape to form a square shape, juxtaposing contrasting embodiments of time. Live playback simultaneously presents his actions on a monitor, adding further layers to the experience of time as image.

Tree Performance / ツリー・パフォーマンス｜1984, 12 min, sound, color

Drama / ドラマ｜1985, 2 min, silent, color

Step Stones Performance (Hyappo-ishi) / 百歩石｜1986, 11:11 min, sound, color

Table in September, or Part of an Incident / 九月のテーブルまたは部分の異変｜1987, 5:48 min, sound, color

A Daily Portrait of a Quarter-century 1979-2004 / ときの重奏:デイリーポートレイト 1979-2004｜2005, 11:11 min, sound, color

ON THE TABLE｜2012, 24 min, sound, color

ON THE PIANO｜2013, 16:20 min, sound, color

Time in Square 2 / 方形の時間 2｜2016, Approx. 30 min, sound, color

Time Clothing—Wall Man / 時間の衣裳/壁男｜2016, Approx. 30 min, sound, color

Scattering Words—On the Body / ことのは散華—身体に｜2016, Approx. 20 min, sound, color

Scattering Words—On the Sound / ことのは散華—音に｜2016, Approx. 20 min, sound, color

Time Clothing—Cello / 時間の衣装/チェロ｜2019, 30 min, sound, color

ON THE TABLE—ASHIYA｜2020, Approx. 30 min, sound, color