“We are not ‘Human Beings’ we are ‘Bread People”, the declaration made byhundreds, if not thousands of people; who from Tokyo to Venice, from Penzance to São Paolo. Who have been transformed into moving sculptures by the Japaneseartist Tatsumi Orimoto, born in the Summer of 1946 at Kawasaki Cityan industrial city which remained his home until February 2025.

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Tatsumi Orimoto originally thought he would be a painter and one the earliest surviving works is a still life of a baguette. In 1969 Odai Orimoto, his mother raised fees for studing painting in the USA at the California Institute of Art. In 1971 unable to tune into the West coast vibes he headed East for the more cosmopolitan New York art scene. Studing at the Art Student League and by 1972 was a studio assistant to Nam Jun Paik. The Performance art he became famous for internationally, was germinated in that ghostly topography ofdowntown Manhattan which became part mythology. Telling stories of providing food and water for the Coyote when Joseph Bueys came to New York wrapped in felt blanket in 1974 and how he refused to sell the Broken Clocks works exhibited at the Fluxus exhibition to its organiser Nam June Paik.

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Tatsumi Orimoto’s style of performance is impossible to initiate so it will perhaps not have followers in any traditional sense, however he is hugely popular with a new generation of Japanese artists who admire emotional integrity and the synthesis of a myriad of media to tell contemporary everyday stories.

 

In England there is Punch and Judy theatre similar to the dynamic Japanese tradition for puppetry with origins in the canal filled city of Osaka . Often supernatural in theme, Bunraku also known as Ningyo ̄ jo ̄ ruri, is a form in which the puppeteer is visible on stage. Tatsumi Orimoto has made more than fifty grotesque and brightly coloured finger dolls for improvised shows. These normally included conversations with Odai Orimoto about art and money but the themes were very flexible and could include the scandalous and unspeakable things that only puppets can say. That is the type of truth we seek in art, a truism hidden in plain sight.

 

In terms of reality perhaps the most radical work was, I Make up and Become Art Mama in 2018. Tasumi Orimoto performed this twice, The Venice Biennial for Venice Agendas and at his Tokyo Gallery Aoyama Meguro. Starting the event sitting in a light day dress while a professional make up artist attended to hair and maquillage, transforming a man into a woman. At the end of this process with curled hair, lipstick, eyeliner and blush the artist was in full drag. Not Kabuki Theatre but improvised performance of possession. Tatsum Orimoto spoke to his mother as if she was there while he moved around the gallery pulling dramatic poses in the famous Big Shoes. The artist created a transgressive space neither gendered or embodied but oscillating in a performative catharsis.

 

Our final collaboration was the film Tatsumi Orimoto: A Cosmic Chaos that won best short documentary at FAFF 2023. It was directed by David Bickerstaff and it captures a spontaneous creativity and subversive charm which made him one of the most loved artists to emerge from post atomic Japan.