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Horio, Sadaharu (°1939)
1939 Born in Kobe, Japan
Lives and works in Kobe, Japan
1939
April 5: Born as the first son of Toshiharu and Masa Horio in Hamanaka-cho, Hyogo Ward, Kobe. (Eventually, he will be joined by three siblings – two brothers and one sister.) Toshiharu later serves in the military as a cameraman during the attack on Pearl Harbor that led to the Pacific War. After the war, he is detained for several months in Sugamo Prison as a war criminal. Following his release, he begins working in the photography section at the _Kobe Shimbun_ newspaper.
1944
Evacuated to his father's hometown in Tottori Prefecture.
1945
April: Enters Kobe Municipal Hamayama Elementary School.
1949
October: During a game of "Cops and Robbers" with some friends, Horio hides in the art classroom, where he is found by the art teacher, Mr. Kioka. After the teacher shows him some books of paintings by the Impressionists and van Gogh, he says, "Anybody could paint this kind of lame picture!" To which Kioka replies, "Well, why don't you try making something better then?" Trying to make fun of the teacher, Horio turns in a painting of a dead fig tree for his winter homework, but instead the picture ends up being displayed at the entrance to the school. Surprised to find this out from a friend who ribs him about the special treatment given to the picture, Horio discovers that his name had been written incorrectly on the label for the painting, and attempting to hide his embarrassment, says, "That's not my picture; there's somebody else's name on it." This event inspires Horio's interest in art and he maintains contact with Mr. Kioka even after graduation.
1951
April: Enters Kobe Municipal Susano Junior High School and joins the painting club. Being quite athletic, Horio also takes part in the sprinting division of the track-and-field club and the soccer club.
Around this time he is commended by his uncle Mikio Horio for his good penmanship. This is a surprise because until then he had dreaded calligraphy practice. Besides being employed at the national railroad, his uncle is a strong supporter of the Mingei (folk art) movement, and later serves on the board of directors at the Osaka Mingei Association. He is also on intimate terms with the ceramist Shoji Hamada, one of the key figures in Mingei, and collects countless works. (The Mikio Horio Collection, consisting of some 200 works, is later donated to the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, making up the core of the facility's Japanese ceramics holdings.)
1953
In his third year of junior high school, Horio is one of several students who represent the school in an English speech contest.
Noticing how absorbed Horio is in painting, his homeroom teacher takes him to meet the Western-style painter Shin Furuya at the Art Research Center in the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art. Furuya gives him an invitation letter to meet Masaru Nakanishi, a Western-style painter in the influential Kobe art group Niki-kai, but feeling that his artistic direction is a bit different, Horio ultimately never goes to meet the artist.
1955
Starts working at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' Kobe shipyard. Though Horio had actually hoped to continue on to high school and art university, he is forced to obey his father's policy that after completing his compulsory education, the eldest son will go to work and support the family. After studying for three years at the shipyard training school, Horio is assigned to the mold loft, where he makes full-scale, cross-sectional diagrams of ship hulls.
He also joins the company's Western-painting club, CPM (a name derived from the first initials of the names Cezanne, Picasso, and Matisse). There is another painting club in the company called Mokuyokai (Thursday Group), but unlike CPM, which allows its members to paint whatever they like, this group invites outside instructors to teach them, so the choice is simple for Horio.
1956
April: Shows his work in the 1st Section of the Shinko Independent Exhibition (held in the third-floor hall of the _Shinko Shimbun_ newspaper). In a review of the event that appeared in the newspaper, Jiro Yoshihara writes of Horio's work, "Though fairly technically proficient, the pictures are plagued with obvious imitations of other artists." Horio doesn't notice the article at the time. In the 2nd Section of the exhibition, focusing on sculpture, there is also a Gutai Group Room, in which the group's early experimental works are shown, but Horio has no recollection of seeing this either.
1957
June: Horio's first abstract painting is selected inclusion in the 10th Ashiya City Exhibition (Seido Elementary School, Ashiya. Continues to participate in the event until the dissolution of the Ashiya Art Association in 2008), where he meets Yoshihara, then director of the Ashiya Art Association, for the first time. The canvas has rags and other pieces of fabric attached to it and paint tossed across it. Hoping to see more of his work, Yoshihara asks to visit Horio's studio, but as this is really his only abstract work, he refuses, giving some suitable reason. As Gutai and the Ashiya City Exhibition are seen by Horio's Kobe painter friends as rich posers who make absurd pictures, he keeps the fact that he has participated in the event a secret.
October: Around the same time, he also submits his work to the Jiyu Bijutsu and the Dokuritsu Bijutsu exhibitions, both held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. At a party for one of the groups, Horio happens to mention that he has also submitted something to the other group, which is seen as an attempt to "play both sides." The closed and sectarian nature of these group exhibitions makes him deeply disillusioned.
The "International Contemporary Art" exhibition, held at the Bridgestone Museum of Art (Tokyo), has a great impact on Horio. Among the artists are American Abstract Expressionists (Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, etc.), European Art Informal artists (Georges Mathieu, etc.), and Gutai members like Yoshihara, Shozo Shimamoto, and Kazuo Shiraga.
1960
Around this time, Horio's uncle Mikio, the Mingei patron, invites the textile-dyeing artist Keisuke Serizawa to Azo (Tottori), asking him to add his designs to some of Shoji Hamada's ceramic works. Horio is also invited to watch, but due to Serizawa's poor heath, the visit is cancelled. Mikio is the sort of person who when seeing something beautiful in front of a general store from the window of a bus will quickly get off and go back and buy it. Until that point, Horio has the idea that Mingei is preoccupied with antiques, and therefore, isn't interested, but gradually he falls under the influence of his uncle, who is notable for his unbiased and direct way of looking at things. Mikio also uses many of Hamada's masterpieces in his daily life. Years later, when Horio sees his uncle's collection in the museum, he is surprised to find that he has actually drunk tea from most of the works on display.
1964
March: Carries a truckload of his works to Yoshihara's house to get his assessment. Yoshihara unexpectedly instructs him to bring the two or three unfinished paintings he has left in the truck to the Gutai Pinacotheca (the group's museum, which was opened in a refurbished storehouse owned by the Yoshihara family in 1962). Shocked by Yoshihara's response, Horio tries to change the older man's mind, but in retrospect he admits that Yoshihara's judgment was sound.
1965
July: Shows first work with Gutai at the 15th Gutai Art Exhibition (Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka). Continues to show with the group until its breakup.
August: Experiences doubt in the middle of producing a work for the 16th Gutai Art Exhibition (Keio Department Store, Tokyo), and consults with Kazuo Shiraga. Though he follows Shiraga's advice regarding the structural composition of the painting, he senses that the approach is not really his, and ends up with something completely different. As expected, Yoshihara rejects the work, but finally, after making several changes, Horio is allowed to show only one painting, which he is very reluctant about.
Around this time, bringing some works for Yoshihara to see at the Gutai Pinacotheca, Horio is stunned when the group's leader declares, "I really don't know what to do with this kind of stuff." Horio destroys all of the works in the garden behind the building. Convinced he doesn't have talent, he decides to quit painting.
December: Though he had decided to quit Gutai, Horio is urged to bring several small works with caved-in centers to the Gutai Small Works Exhibition (Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka). But he is discouraged again when Sadamasa Motonaga says, "These are just imitations of Castellani." After Horio tells him that in fact he doesn't even know who Castellani is, Yoshihara says, "These are interesting. Put them all up."
1966
Around this time, Horio is invited by Shozo Shimamoto to teach together at Kyoto University of Education, Horio seriously considers quitting Mitsubishi and taking up teaching as a profession, but Shiraga discourages the idea. Unable to buy the materials he needs due to his low salary, and also lacking sufficient time, he is forced to throw something together using scraps that he has collected at the shipyard.
September: Holds his first solo exhibition at Shinanobashi Gallery (Osaka). The event is organized by the art critic Toru Takahashi, who saw Horio's work in the Gutai Small Works Exhibition the previous December.
Becomes a member of the Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai, and remains with the group until its dissolution in March 1972.
October: Fails to be selected for the 1st Mainichi Art Competition for French Government-Selected Foreign Study (Gutai member Takesada Matsutani, however, wins the grand prize to study in France). Around this period, while other Gutai members of the same generation are winning a succession of awards, Horio is passed over and falls into a deep depression. Rejected by the Mainichi Art Competition, at a rundown Osaka bar Horio whines to Saburo Murakami, "I don't have any talent." The artist suddenly grabs him by the lapels and exclaims, "A great artist like you? What are you talking about?" Too late to get home, he spends the night at Murakami's house in Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi. On the way home in the morning, Murakami hands him a copy of Rilke's _The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge_, but even today Horio's still not sure why. He begins to develop a close relationship with Murakami around this time.
1968
June: Holds a solo exhibition (Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka) featuring his series of paintings with caved-in centers.
July 7: Marries Akiko Kimura, who has also shown her work with Gutai.
1969
June: Recommended for membership in the 22nd Ashiya City Exhibition (Ashiya Community Center). Remains a member until the dissolution of the Ashiya Art Association in 2008.
1970
March: Helps produce the "Astrorama" film presentation in the Midori-kan (Green Pavilion) at Expo '70 (Osaka).
August: Provides artistic support for the Gutai Art Festival (Expo Omatsuri Square, Osaka).
October 12: Horio's first son, Masaji, is born.
1972
March 31: The Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai breaks up.
1973
January 9: Horio's first daughter, Aya, is born.
May: Begins a series of exhibitions with Masaya Sakamoto at the Kyoto Kita-Shirakawa Art Village. In the middle of the mountains on the way from Kyoto to Mt. Hiei, the two create installations, Horio often uses fabric, in the forest near Sakamoto's studio. Difficult to access, the events fail to attract many viewers, but even without an audience, the experience is worthwhile, as it allows the artists to do whatever comes to mind and form a close connection with the site.
1975
April: Travels abroad for the first time. Visiting Takesada Matsutani in Paris with Sakamoto, Horio stays in Europe for about one month.
From around this time, with Keiichi Nagai, Shigekatsu Matsushima, Toyoharu Miyazaki, and Hideo Mori, Horio begins to hold regular monthly exhibitions at a bar called Bonkura (Kobe). Adopting an open-door policy, the group is also frequently joined by artists such as Chu Enoki, Tatsuo Kawaguchi, Satoshi Saito, and Makio Yamaguchi. After holding exhibitions as the Bonkura Group at Mitsukoshi Department Store and other venues, and developing the "Triangle" Exhibition series with artists from Kobe, Okayama, and Shikoku, the group stalls after about three years.
From around this time, Horio starts to record ideas for works in a sketch book. He has continued this process ever since and at present has amassed over 30,000 sketches.
1976
June: Serves as a judge in the 29th Ashiya City Art Exhibition (Ashiya Civic Center).
1977
After seeing a sign that Horio had written in calligraphy for Tor Road Gallery, the doctor and art collector Yukio Tsunemi hires him to create a nameplate for his house. This leads to a close friendship between the two. Unafraid to express a contrary view, Tsunemi becomes one of Horio's most trusted associates.
1979
January: Opens Higashimon Gallery in a cheap rental space on the second floor of an antique shop on Higashimon-suji (one of the main streets in Kobe's entertainment district). Planning to run the gallery with his friends from Bonkura, who hoped to find a place to show their work freely, Horio is ultimately left to his own devices. The inaugural exhibition, a solo show of Horio's work, only manages to attract seven visitors in five days.
Deeply disappointed by the gallery's dismal opening, despite all of his effort and enthusiasm, Horio begins to suffer from insomnia. An observant coworker at Mitsubishi invites him to a church affiliated with a new religion called Shinto Shindo-kyo, but Horio criticizes the group's leader of the Kobe branch, saying, "All you're doing is ripping off your followers at the expense of a god that you can't even see." The man quickly retorts, "If you're going to deny things that you can't see, why not start with air? As an experiment, plug your nose and mouth, and see what happens when you roll around over there for an hour or so." Though unpersuaded by the religion's teachings, this war of words eventually inspires Horio's interest in visualizing "air," a normally invisible element, and considering what it means to "live."
By the time it closes in 1985, Higashimon Gallery is thriving as an experimental art space without precedent. (In principle, Horio selects the artist, and lend the space to the young creator at a low rate that is equivalent to the actual cost of the rent. In addition to Horio's solo exhibitions, the gallery hosts numerous experimental exhibitions such as Kazuhiro Takemura's rice-paddy installation (1979), Chu Enoki's fictional bar _Bar Rose Chu_ (1979), and a three-person show of paintings and art objects by Hiroshi Iwao, Masayo Koizumi, and Naomi Okayama that makes use of human excrement as a "new" material (1982).
1980
January: Transferred to Nagoya for his job, Horio works at Mitsubishi's airplane manufacturing division until June.
June: Holds a solo show titled "Synchronized Spaces – Black Paint" (Box Gallery, Nagoya). This new experiment dealing with the question of "air," as it exists between a variety of disused articles with a smattering of black paint on them, serves as the basis for the _ironuri_ ("paint placements") Horio begins in 1985.
In the early 80s, Horio is transferred to Mitsubishi's nuclear-power evaluation and management division. The job, revolving around accounting and pressuring subcontractors, doesn't agree with Horio, and causes him to develop a neurotic condition.
1982
September: Holds his first solo show at Art Space Niji (Kyoto).
1985
January: From this point on, Horio holds a solo show at Art Space Niji (Kyoto) at the outset of each year.
Diagnosed with acute cataracts, Horio undergoes an operation to remove the lens from his left eye. Warned by his doctor that because the cause of the disease is unknown, he may also lose the vision in his right eye, he is haunted by the fear of going blind.
Horio begins to paint a variety of objects with one color per day before going to work in the morning. He has continued this activity and at this point some of the older items are covered with a layer of paint that is several dozen centimeters high.
February: Shows his _ironuri_ ("paint placements") works for the first time in the Kyoto Independent Exhibition (Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art).
March 3: Participates at the spur of the moment in the "Dotombori Performance Hour" (a street-performance event in one of Osaka's entertainment districts), which is organized by Kojiro Yamaguchi. Suffering at the time from the fear of going blind and work-related stress, Horio's action – diving into the river – is in part an act of desperation. As the weather is cold and the sides of the river are shallow, the performance is also life-threatening. (Coincidentally, in October of this year, the local professional baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers, known for their overly zealous followers, manages to win the league championship for the first time in 21 years, causing excited fans to celebrate by diving into the same river.)
April: Holds first solo exhibition called _Atarimae no koto_ (A Matter of Course) at Higashimon Gallery (Kobe). Originally considering _A Matter of Air_ as a title, Horio decides that this is too obvious and opts instead for something more ambiguous.
December: At the owner's request, Higashimon Gallery closes.
Carrying on in the same spirit, Rokken Gallery opens in the Rokken Shopping Arcade on the south side of JR Shin-Nagata Station. The artist-cum-dentist Yoshimi On makes a space on the first floor of his practice available and Horio provides indirect support for him. A variety of experimental exhibitions are held in the gallery over the next three years.
1986
Transferred to Ryoin, a printing subcontractor affiliated with Mitsubishi's Kobe shipyard, Horio becomes friends with a coworker named Hisaki Shuji. Discovering that Shuji has an interest in carving, he asks him to carve some woodblocks based on his designs and the two begin experimenting with prints.
1987
Asked by the City of Kobe to manage Gallery Portico, a new venue opening on the second floor of the Kobe International Conference Center on Port Island (an artificial island located in Kobe Harbor). Horio continues to oversee the gallery until the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995.
1989
Deeply impressed by one of Horio's works at the Rokken Gallery, Katsuhiko Yamashita, the manager of a ceramics school, becomes active in Bonkura. He documents all of the group's activities with snapshots, and at present, continues to distribute Xerox copies of the pictures to its members at no cost.
Around this time, Bonkura adopts a solo-exhibition format but the number of members is decreasing and the group is losing its vitality. At the end of the year, one of the members, Kiyoharu Haji, proposes a new theme-based system in which all of the participants show their work on the second Saturday of each month. This flexible approach is appropriate for the bar, which is different from regular exhibition venues, and creates a sense of independence by allowing each of the members to take turns deciding on a theme, which in turn leads to a gradual revitalization of the group. Moreover, Haji also begins to keep a record of the proceedings which, even today, he continues to distribute to the members at no cost. With its extremely free and open atmosphere, Bonkura functions as a wholly original outlet for brainstorming.
1990
Builds new house based on a design by Gotaro Matsumoto. Without any wallpaper and leaving all of the wood exposed, the three-story structure is highly unique. Later, Horio and Yamashita add a singular touch to Horio's work space by covering all the walls and beams with chisel marks.
Receiving scraps from an acquaintance who runs a home-wrecking company, Horio and his friends begin to build a cottage on a lot owned by Matsumoto in Takahata-cho, Miki City, Hyogo Prefecture.
1991
October: Horio and Shuji's woodblock prints (of Kakogawa landscapes) are shown for the first time at the Rokko Coffee Shop Gallery (Kobe).
1992
January: Begins work on the _Myokonin-den_, a large-scale woodblock print series. With Horio in charge of the pictures and Shuji the carving, the two complete 100 works over the next approximately ten years. Initially, the series is set for 100 works, but as Shuji has a strong interest in depicting all of the episodes in the original book, it ultimately encompasses 150 prints (completed in 2009). The work was inspired by a book of the same name that is a collection of biographies of Buddhist devotees of the Jodo Shinshu sect. These are based on the actual stories of people who, though uneducated and illiterate, and relegated to the lowest levels of society, found spiritual awakening through their faith. Not particularly interested in the content at first, both Horio and Shuji are merely looking for a story that will be suitable for serialization. Yet, the impact of this collaboration between the self-taught Horio and the complete amateur Shuji is perfectly suited to the concept of the book.
October: The artist Masaaki Shimizu opens Gallery 2001 (renamed Atelier 2001 in May 2000) beneath the elevated tracks of the Hankyu Railway in Nada Ward, Kobe. As Shimizu is also active in Bonkura, the gallery hosts countless experimental exhibitions by the group's members, and ultimately, carries on the tradition begun at Higashimon Gallery and Rokken Gallery.
1993
Yamashita is always looking for scenes that closely resemble Horio's works or that might catch Horio's eye. Yamashita photographs these scenes and begins a daily routine of attaching them to postcards that he sends to Horio. Initially, the legend "Sadaharu Horio" is applied to each of the cards with a rubber stamp, but later, this is abbreviated to only four letters, "Sada." Continuing the operation to the present, Horio maintains an enormous store of postcards.
March: Holds first solo show at Gallery 2001 (Kobe). Horio continues to hold solo shows in December of each year at the gallery until 2000.
June: Travels to Toulouse, France to take part in the "Gutai..suite?" exhibition (Palais des Arts, Toulouse) with Akira Kanayama, Atsuko Tanaka, Takesada Matsutani, and Saburo Murakami.
1994
October: Paints the cottage that he has been building with friends since 1990 for the "Iroboke Renkei" (Color-Stupid Coordination) exhibition (Takahata-cho, Miki, Hyogo Prefecture). This marks a kind of turning point, as one of the Bonkura members, Tsutomu Nakajima, begins to take care of the cottage project and continues to do so today.
1995
January 17: Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake occurs. A solo show by Horio that happened to be underway at the time consisted merely of an empty space with only two pushpins (_ironuri_ or "paint placements") stuck in the walls facing each other.
February: Memorial event held in which Horio and his friends apply red paint to the ruins of Bonkura, which was destroyed in the earthquake.
March: Around this time, Horio's uncle Mikio encourages him to document the disaster-stricken Kobe area. Though he can't initially bring himself to depict the devastated area where he has brought up, he eventually overcomes the frustration of not being able to draw, and his memories of scenes from the quake come flooding out in a huge volume of drawings.
April: Horio and his friends rebuild Bonkura by hand based on a design by Gotaro Matsumoto. The temporary wooden structure is completed in about ten days.
July: Horio didn't originally intend to show his earthquake drawings to anyone, but when Shinji Nishi visits his house, he notices a huge amount of the works and at his suggestion, this leads to a solo show at Riran's Gate (Kobe), which in turn provides encouragement to many victims of the disaster.
November: Due to the efforts of Masaaki Shimizu at Gallery 2001, Horio's "Earthquake Landscapes" exhibition travels to four junior high schools in Fukui Prefecture.
1997
Dubbing his technique of executing a drawing in less than a minute the _One-Minute Hitting Method_, Horio embarks on a daily routine to carry out this project every morning (still ongoing). The name is inspired by Sadaharu Oh (who shares a first name with the artist), the home-run king who played professional baseball with the Yomiuri Giants and was famed for his distinctive "flamingo-kick" batting style in the 1960s and 70s.
1998
March: Retires from his job at Mitsubishi. Until this point, the average number of events Horio participated in each year, even when limited to easily tabulated things like solo and group shows, amounted to about 60. Since his retirement, the number has continued to increase.
Travels to Toulouse and Figeac, France to take part in the "Art contemporain du Japon" exhibition (Espace Ecreuil, Toulouse, and others).
2000
October: Takes part in the "'Machi' ga museum" (The Town is a Museum) exhibition (Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi Prefecture) held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Fujiyoshida City. (Continues to participate in similar events in the city.)
2002
July: Holds first museum-scale solo show at the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History (Hyogo Prefecture). Horio does a series of performances every day during the 38-day event, gradually altering the aspect of the venue and summing up his career until that point. During the event, he meets Kenji Haraguchi, a visitor to the exhibition, who later becomes one of the core members of the On-Site Art Squad "Kuki" (meaning "air").
November: Takes part in the "Theatre of Our Lives" exhibition (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe). Horio not only makes use of an exhibition room but a variety of spaces in the facility, which has just opened in this new location, and does numerous performances.
2003
April: Holds an event called "Museum of the Air" (Hyogo Canal, Kobe), an outdoor exhibition using a canal near his house that runs for about a year until the following March.
Horio dubs a group that was spontaneously formed to support and enjoy his activities following the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History solo show the previous year the On-Site Art Squad "Kuki," during the "Museum of the Air" event. The word _kuki_ (air), which has long been concealed in Horio's concept of _atarimae no koto_ ("a matter of course"), finally takes center stage. The group's members are notable for their flexible attitude; some of them are also members of Bonkura.
September: The _Myokonin-den_ exhibition of works by Horio (as painter) and Hisaki Shuji (as woodblock carver) opens at the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History, marking the first time that all 100 works in the series have been shown at once. The actual woodblocks are also lined up on the floor as part of the installation.
The France-based Polish artist Janusz Stega, who was invited to Japan by the Institut Franco-Japonais du Kansai's Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto) visits Horio after a handmade poster for the _Myokonin-den_ exhibition catches his eye in a garbage can at Kyoto Station. Later, others artists from his hometown of Lille develop a relationship with Horio and "Kuki."
2004
September: Invited to perform at the Rencontre internationale d'art performance de Quebec (Le Lieu, Quebec, Canada) with Yoshio Shirakawa.
November: Travels to Lille, France at the invitation of artconnexion (Lille). Gives performances at Wazemmes, the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Arras, and a local art school with seven artists from "Kuki."
2005
September: Participates in Yokohama Triennale 2005 (Yamashita Pier No. 3 and No. 4 Warehouses, Yokohama) with "Kuki." Over the 82-day exhibition period, the group paints _Wall_ (with a width of approximately 35 meters and at its highest, a height of ten meters) a different color every day in the No. 4 Shed, shows and sells hundreds of "thumb-hole" works by the "Kuki" members (all priced at ¥1,000 each), gives a daily performance at 14:00, and produces countless _¥100 Paintings_.
2007
March 10: Invited to take part in a live-art festival in connection with an event called "Resounding Spirit: Japanese Contemporary Art of the 1960s" (Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Canada) with Ushio Shinohara and Takesada Matsutani.
2008
January 13: Prepares to move out of his house, which is set to be demolished as part of a land readjustment plan, with the help of members from Bonkura and "Kuki." Many of Horio's massive store of works are given to the members in exchange for their assistance. The empty house is used as an exhibition space for Horio and "Kuki" until early February.
February 2: Stages an event with Bonkura to paint dots all over the house with India ink that is held immediately prior to its demolition. The work crew is surprised to find an endless number of dots as they destroy the house.
May: The Bonkura bar is closed after its owner, Takeshi Togo, falls ill. The Bonkura group, meanwhile, adopts a new form, constantly changing venues as the situation allows.
August 10: Stages a performance with "Kuki" called "Everything is OK If It's a Square," in which squares of color are applied to the exterior wall of the Tsuchimi Paint Store, a shop near Horio's house which is also set to be demolished.
December 7: Moves to new house. Holds a Bonkura event based on the theme of "moving."
2009
January 11 & 12: Holds workshops as part of the "Minna no Museum 2009" (Everyone's Museum 2009) event at the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama.
June: Invited along with Masaaki Shimizu, Kenji Haraguchi, and Katsuhiko Yamashita to take part in the "In-Finitum" exhibition (Palazzo Fortuny, Venice), and stages a series of performances during the three-day press preview. Many Gutai works, including some by Akiko Horio (the artist's wife), are also shown in the event.
August: Shows work for the first time in Okinawa at the "Sadaharu Horio and the On-Site Art Squad 'Kuki': A Matter of Course in Okinawa" exhibition (Gallery Rougheryet, Okinawa Prefectural Museum of Art).
The owner of Bonkura, Takeshi Togo, dies on the 22nd.
Takes part in the Suito Osaka 2009 (Aquapolis Osaka 2009) event (Nakanoshima Park, Osaka) with "Kuki," giving numerous performances.
2010
September: Holds "Sadaharu Horio and On-Site Art Squad 'Kuki': A Matter of Course (Synchronized Spaces/Interconnecting Squares)" exhibition. Installing works throughout the Former Kobe Municipal Raw Silk Inspection Agency, a historical structure built in 1927, Horio and the members of "Kuki" stage performances on weekends during the event.
October: Participates in the "Vacant Lot of Gose" exhibition, held as part of the Nara Art Prom 2010 exhibition to commemorate the 1,300th anniversary of the Nara Heijo-kyo capital.
1939 Born in Kobe, Japan
Lives and works in Kobe, Japan
1939
April 5: Born as the first son of Toshiharu and Masa Horio in Hamanaka-cho, Hyogo Ward, Kobe. (Eventually, he will be joined by three siblings – two brothers and one sister.) Toshiharu later serves in the military as a cameraman during the attack on Pearl Harbor that led to the Pacific War. After the war, he is detained for several months in Sugamo Prison as a war criminal. Following his release, he begins working in the photography section at the _Kobe Shimbun_ newspaper.
1944
Evacuated to his father's hometown in Tottori Prefecture.
1945
April: Enters Kobe Municipal Hamayama Elementary School.
1949
October: During a game of "Cops and Robbers" with some friends, Horio hides in the art classroom, where he is found by the art teacher, Mr. Kioka. After the teacher shows him some books of paintings by the Impressionists and van Gogh, he says, "Anybody could paint this kind of lame picture!" To which Kioka replies, "Well, why don't you try making something better then?" Trying to make fun of the teacher, Horio turns in a painting of a dead fig tree for his winter homework, but instead the picture ends up being displayed at the entrance to the school. Surprised to find this out from a friend who ribs him about the special treatment given to the picture, Horio discovers that his name had been written incorrectly on the label for the painting, and attempting to hide his embarrassment, says, "That's not my picture; there's somebody else's name on it." This event inspires Horio's interest in art and he maintains contact with Mr. Kioka even after graduation.
1951
April: Enters Kobe Municipal Susano Junior High School and joins the painting club. Being quite athletic, Horio also takes part in the sprinting division of the track-and-field club and the soccer club.
Around this time he is commended by his uncle Mikio Horio for his good penmanship. This is a surprise because until then he had dreaded calligraphy practice. Besides being employed at the national railroad, his uncle is a strong supporter of the Mingei (folk art) movement, and later serves on the board of directors at the Osaka Mingei Association. He is also on intimate terms with the ceramist Shoji Hamada, one of the key figures in Mingei, and collects countless works. (The Mikio Horio Collection, consisting of some 200 works, is later donated to the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, making up the core of the facility's Japanese ceramics holdings.)
1953
In his third year of junior high school, Horio is one of several students who represent the school in an English speech contest.
Noticing how absorbed Horio is in painting, his homeroom teacher takes him to meet the Western-style painter Shin Furuya at the Art Research Center in the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art. Furuya gives him an invitation letter to meet Masaru Nakanishi, a Western-style painter in the influential Kobe art group Niki-kai, but feeling that his artistic direction is a bit different, Horio ultimately never goes to meet the artist.
1955
Starts working at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' Kobe shipyard. Though Horio had actually hoped to continue on to high school and art university, he is forced to obey his father's policy that after completing his compulsory education, the eldest son will go to work and support the family. After studying for three years at the shipyard training school, Horio is assigned to the mold loft, where he makes full-scale, cross-sectional diagrams of ship hulls.
He also joins the company's Western-painting club, CPM (a name derived from the first initials of the names Cezanne, Picasso, and Matisse). There is another painting club in the company called Mokuyokai (Thursday Group), but unlike CPM, which allows its members to paint whatever they like, this group invites outside instructors to teach them, so the choice is simple for Horio.
1956
April: Shows his work in the 1st Section of the Shinko Independent Exhibition (held in the third-floor hall of the _Shinko Shimbun_ newspaper). In a review of the event that appeared in the newspaper, Jiro Yoshihara writes of Horio's work, "Though fairly technically proficient, the pictures are plagued with obvious imitations of other artists." Horio doesn't notice the article at the time. In the 2nd Section of the exhibition, focusing on sculpture, there is also a Gutai Group Room, in which the group's early experimental works are shown, but Horio has no recollection of seeing this either.
1957
June: Horio's first abstract painting is selected inclusion in the 10th Ashiya City Exhibition (Seido Elementary School, Ashiya. Continues to participate in the event until the dissolution of the Ashiya Art Association in 2008), where he meets Yoshihara, then director of the Ashiya Art Association, for the first time. The canvas has rags and other pieces of fabric attached to it and paint tossed across it. Hoping to see more of his work, Yoshihara asks to visit Horio's studio, but as this is really his only abstract work, he refuses, giving some suitable reason. As Gutai and the Ashiya City Exhibition are seen by Horio's Kobe painter friends as rich posers who make absurd pictures, he keeps the fact that he has participated in the event a secret.
October: Around the same time, he also submits his work to the Jiyu Bijutsu and the Dokuritsu Bijutsu exhibitions, both held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. At a party for one of the groups, Horio happens to mention that he has also submitted something to the other group, which is seen as an attempt to "play both sides." The closed and sectarian nature of these group exhibitions makes him deeply disillusioned.
The "International Contemporary Art" exhibition, held at the Bridgestone Museum of Art (Tokyo), has a great impact on Horio. Among the artists are American Abstract Expressionists (Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, etc.), European Art Informal artists (Georges Mathieu, etc.), and Gutai members like Yoshihara, Shozo Shimamoto, and Kazuo Shiraga.
1960
Around this time, Horio's uncle Mikio, the Mingei patron, invites the textile-dyeing artist Keisuke Serizawa to Azo (Tottori), asking him to add his designs to some of Shoji Hamada's ceramic works. Horio is also invited to watch, but due to Serizawa's poor heath, the visit is cancelled. Mikio is the sort of person who when seeing something beautiful in front of a general store from the window of a bus will quickly get off and go back and buy it. Until that point, Horio has the idea that Mingei is preoccupied with antiques, and therefore, isn't interested, but gradually he falls under the influence of his uncle, who is notable for his unbiased and direct way of looking at things. Mikio also uses many of Hamada's masterpieces in his daily life. Years later, when Horio sees his uncle's collection in the museum, he is surprised to find that he has actually drunk tea from most of the works on display.
1964
March: Carries a truckload of his works to Yoshihara's house to get his assessment. Yoshihara unexpectedly instructs him to bring the two or three unfinished paintings he has left in the truck to the Gutai Pinacotheca (the group's museum, which was opened in a refurbished storehouse owned by the Yoshihara family in 1962). Shocked by Yoshihara's response, Horio tries to change the older man's mind, but in retrospect he admits that Yoshihara's judgment was sound.
1965
July: Shows first work with Gutai at the 15th Gutai Art Exhibition (Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka). Continues to show with the group until its breakup.
August: Experiences doubt in the middle of producing a work for the 16th Gutai Art Exhibition (Keio Department Store, Tokyo), and consults with Kazuo Shiraga. Though he follows Shiraga's advice regarding the structural composition of the painting, he senses that the approach is not really his, and ends up with something completely different. As expected, Yoshihara rejects the work, but finally, after making several changes, Horio is allowed to show only one painting, which he is very reluctant about.
Around this time, bringing some works for Yoshihara to see at the Gutai Pinacotheca, Horio is stunned when the group's leader declares, "I really don't know what to do with this kind of stuff." Horio destroys all of the works in the garden behind the building. Convinced he doesn't have talent, he decides to quit painting.
December: Though he had decided to quit Gutai, Horio is urged to bring several small works with caved-in centers to the Gutai Small Works Exhibition (Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka). But he is discouraged again when Sadamasa Motonaga says, "These are just imitations of Castellani." After Horio tells him that in fact he doesn't even know who Castellani is, Yoshihara says, "These are interesting. Put them all up."
1966
Around this time, Horio is invited by Shozo Shimamoto to teach together at Kyoto University of Education, Horio seriously considers quitting Mitsubishi and taking up teaching as a profession, but Shiraga discourages the idea. Unable to buy the materials he needs due to his low salary, and also lacking sufficient time, he is forced to throw something together using scraps that he has collected at the shipyard.
September: Holds his first solo exhibition at Shinanobashi Gallery (Osaka). The event is organized by the art critic Toru Takahashi, who saw Horio's work in the Gutai Small Works Exhibition the previous December.
Becomes a member of the Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai, and remains with the group until its dissolution in March 1972.
October: Fails to be selected for the 1st Mainichi Art Competition for French Government-Selected Foreign Study (Gutai member Takesada Matsutani, however, wins the grand prize to study in France). Around this period, while other Gutai members of the same generation are winning a succession of awards, Horio is passed over and falls into a deep depression. Rejected by the Mainichi Art Competition, at a rundown Osaka bar Horio whines to Saburo Murakami, "I don't have any talent." The artist suddenly grabs him by the lapels and exclaims, "A great artist like you? What are you talking about?" Too late to get home, he spends the night at Murakami's house in Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi. On the way home in the morning, Murakami hands him a copy of Rilke's _The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge_, but even today Horio's still not sure why. He begins to develop a close relationship with Murakami around this time.
1968
June: Holds a solo exhibition (Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka) featuring his series of paintings with caved-in centers.
July 7: Marries Akiko Kimura, who has also shown her work with Gutai.
1969
June: Recommended for membership in the 22nd Ashiya City Exhibition (Ashiya Community Center). Remains a member until the dissolution of the Ashiya Art Association in 2008.
1970
March: Helps produce the "Astrorama" film presentation in the Midori-kan (Green Pavilion) at Expo '70 (Osaka).
August: Provides artistic support for the Gutai Art Festival (Expo Omatsuri Square, Osaka).
October 12: Horio's first son, Masaji, is born.
1972
March 31: The Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai breaks up.
1973
January 9: Horio's first daughter, Aya, is born.
May: Begins a series of exhibitions with Masaya Sakamoto at the Kyoto Kita-Shirakawa Art Village. In the middle of the mountains on the way from Kyoto to Mt. Hiei, the two create installations, Horio often uses fabric, in the forest near Sakamoto's studio. Difficult to access, the events fail to attract many viewers, but even without an audience, the experience is worthwhile, as it allows the artists to do whatever comes to mind and form a close connection with the site.
1975
April: Travels abroad for the first time. Visiting Takesada Matsutani in Paris with Sakamoto, Horio stays in Europe for about one month.
From around this time, with Keiichi Nagai, Shigekatsu Matsushima, Toyoharu Miyazaki, and Hideo Mori, Horio begins to hold regular monthly exhibitions at a bar called Bonkura (Kobe). Adopting an open-door policy, the group is also frequently joined by artists such as Chu Enoki, Tatsuo Kawaguchi, Satoshi Saito, and Makio Yamaguchi. After holding exhibitions as the Bonkura Group at Mitsukoshi Department Store and other venues, and developing the "Triangle" Exhibition series with artists from Kobe, Okayama, and Shikoku, the group stalls after about three years.
From around this time, Horio starts to record ideas for works in a sketch book. He has continued this process ever since and at present has amassed over 30,000 sketches.
1976
June: Serves as a judge in the 29th Ashiya City Art Exhibition (Ashiya Civic Center).
1977
After seeing a sign that Horio had written in calligraphy for Tor Road Gallery, the doctor and art collector Yukio Tsunemi hires him to create a nameplate for his house. This leads to a close friendship between the two. Unafraid to express a contrary view, Tsunemi becomes one of Horio's most trusted associates.
1979
January: Opens Higashimon Gallery in a cheap rental space on the second floor of an antique shop on Higashimon-suji (one of the main streets in Kobe's entertainment district). Planning to run the gallery with his friends from Bonkura, who hoped to find a place to show their work freely, Horio is ultimately left to his own devices. The inaugural exhibition, a solo show of Horio's work, only manages to attract seven visitors in five days.
Deeply disappointed by the gallery's dismal opening, despite all of his effort and enthusiasm, Horio begins to suffer from insomnia. An observant coworker at Mitsubishi invites him to a church affiliated with a new religion called Shinto Shindo-kyo, but Horio criticizes the group's leader of the Kobe branch, saying, "All you're doing is ripping off your followers at the expense of a god that you can't even see." The man quickly retorts, "If you're going to deny things that you can't see, why not start with air? As an experiment, plug your nose and mouth, and see what happens when you roll around over there for an hour or so." Though unpersuaded by the religion's teachings, this war of words eventually inspires Horio's interest in visualizing "air," a normally invisible element, and considering what it means to "live."
By the time it closes in 1985, Higashimon Gallery is thriving as an experimental art space without precedent. (In principle, Horio selects the artist, and lend the space to the young creator at a low rate that is equivalent to the actual cost of the rent. In addition to Horio's solo exhibitions, the gallery hosts numerous experimental exhibitions such as Kazuhiro Takemura's rice-paddy installation (1979), Chu Enoki's fictional bar _Bar Rose Chu_ (1979), and a three-person show of paintings and art objects by Hiroshi Iwao, Masayo Koizumi, and Naomi Okayama that makes use of human excrement as a "new" material (1982).
1980
January: Transferred to Nagoya for his job, Horio works at Mitsubishi's airplane manufacturing division until June.
June: Holds a solo show titled "Synchronized Spaces – Black Paint" (Box Gallery, Nagoya). This new experiment dealing with the question of "air," as it exists between a variety of disused articles with a smattering of black paint on them, serves as the basis for the _ironuri_ ("paint placements") Horio begins in 1985.
In the early 80s, Horio is transferred to Mitsubishi's nuclear-power evaluation and management division. The job, revolving around accounting and pressuring subcontractors, doesn't agree with Horio, and causes him to develop a neurotic condition.
1982
September: Holds his first solo show at Art Space Niji (Kyoto).
1985
January: From this point on, Horio holds a solo show at Art Space Niji (Kyoto) at the outset of each year.
Diagnosed with acute cataracts, Horio undergoes an operation to remove the lens from his left eye. Warned by his doctor that because the cause of the disease is unknown, he may also lose the vision in his right eye, he is haunted by the fear of going blind.
Horio begins to paint a variety of objects with one color per day before going to work in the morning. He has continued this activity and at this point some of the older items are covered with a layer of paint that is several dozen centimeters high.
February: Shows his _ironuri_ ("paint placements") works for the first time in the Kyoto Independent Exhibition (Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art).
March 3: Participates at the spur of the moment in the "Dotombori Performance Hour" (a street-performance event in one of Osaka's entertainment districts), which is organized by Kojiro Yamaguchi. Suffering at the time from the fear of going blind and work-related stress, Horio's action – diving into the river – is in part an act of desperation. As the weather is cold and the sides of the river are shallow, the performance is also life-threatening. (Coincidentally, in October of this year, the local professional baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers, known for their overly zealous followers, manages to win the league championship for the first time in 21 years, causing excited fans to celebrate by diving into the same river.)
April: Holds first solo exhibition called _Atarimae no koto_ (A Matter of Course) at Higashimon Gallery (Kobe). Originally considering _A Matter of Air_ as a title, Horio decides that this is too obvious and opts instead for something more ambiguous.
December: At the owner's request, Higashimon Gallery closes.
Carrying on in the same spirit, Rokken Gallery opens in the Rokken Shopping Arcade on the south side of JR Shin-Nagata Station. The artist-cum-dentist Yoshimi On makes a space on the first floor of his practice available and Horio provides indirect support for him. A variety of experimental exhibitions are held in the gallery over the next three years.
1986
Transferred to Ryoin, a printing subcontractor affiliated with Mitsubishi's Kobe shipyard, Horio becomes friends with a coworker named Hisaki Shuji. Discovering that Shuji has an interest in carving, he asks him to carve some woodblocks based on his designs and the two begin experimenting with prints.
1987
Asked by the City of Kobe to manage Gallery Portico, a new venue opening on the second floor of the Kobe International Conference Center on Port Island (an artificial island located in Kobe Harbor). Horio continues to oversee the gallery until the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995.
1989
Deeply impressed by one of Horio's works at the Rokken Gallery, Katsuhiko Yamashita, the manager of a ceramics school, becomes active in Bonkura. He documents all of the group's activities with snapshots, and at present, continues to distribute Xerox copies of the pictures to its members at no cost.
Around this time, Bonkura adopts a solo-exhibition format but the number of members is decreasing and the group is losing its vitality. At the end of the year, one of the members, Kiyoharu Haji, proposes a new theme-based system in which all of the participants show their work on the second Saturday of each month. This flexible approach is appropriate for the bar, which is different from regular exhibition venues, and creates a sense of independence by allowing each of the members to take turns deciding on a theme, which in turn leads to a gradual revitalization of the group. Moreover, Haji also begins to keep a record of the proceedings which, even today, he continues to distribute to the members at no cost. With its extremely free and open atmosphere, Bonkura functions as a wholly original outlet for brainstorming.
1990
Builds new house based on a design by Gotaro Matsumoto. Without any wallpaper and leaving all of the wood exposed, the three-story structure is highly unique. Later, Horio and Yamashita add a singular touch to Horio's work space by covering all the walls and beams with chisel marks.
Receiving scraps from an acquaintance who runs a home-wrecking company, Horio and his friends begin to build a cottage on a lot owned by Matsumoto in Takahata-cho, Miki City, Hyogo Prefecture.
1991
October: Horio and Shuji's woodblock prints (of Kakogawa landscapes) are shown for the first time at the Rokko Coffee Shop Gallery (Kobe).
1992
January: Begins work on the _Myokonin-den_, a large-scale woodblock print series. With Horio in charge of the pictures and Shuji the carving, the two complete 100 works over the next approximately ten years. Initially, the series is set for 100 works, but as Shuji has a strong interest in depicting all of the episodes in the original book, it ultimately encompasses 150 prints (completed in 2009). The work was inspired by a book of the same name that is a collection of biographies of Buddhist devotees of the Jodo Shinshu sect. These are based on the actual stories of people who, though uneducated and illiterate, and relegated to the lowest levels of society, found spiritual awakening through their faith. Not particularly interested in the content at first, both Horio and Shuji are merely looking for a story that will be suitable for serialization. Yet, the impact of this collaboration between the self-taught Horio and the complete amateur Shuji is perfectly suited to the concept of the book.
October: The artist Masaaki Shimizu opens Gallery 2001 (renamed Atelier 2001 in May 2000) beneath the elevated tracks of the Hankyu Railway in Nada Ward, Kobe. As Shimizu is also active in Bonkura, the gallery hosts countless experimental exhibitions by the group's members, and ultimately, carries on the tradition begun at Higashimon Gallery and Rokken Gallery.
1993
Yamashita is always looking for scenes that closely resemble Horio's works or that might catch Horio's eye. Yamashita photographs these scenes and begins a daily routine of attaching them to postcards that he sends to Horio. Initially, the legend "Sadaharu Horio" is applied to each of the cards with a rubber stamp, but later, this is abbreviated to only four letters, "Sada." Continuing the operation to the present, Horio maintains an enormous store of postcards.
March: Holds first solo show at Gallery 2001 (Kobe). Horio continues to hold solo shows in December of each year at the gallery until 2000.
June: Travels to Toulouse, France to take part in the "Gutai..suite?" exhibition (Palais des Arts, Toulouse) with Akira Kanayama, Atsuko Tanaka, Takesada Matsutani, and Saburo Murakami.
1994
October: Paints the cottage that he has been building with friends since 1990 for the "Iroboke Renkei" (Color-Stupid Coordination) exhibition (Takahata-cho, Miki, Hyogo Prefecture). This marks a kind of turning point, as one of the Bonkura members, Tsutomu Nakajima, begins to take care of the cottage project and continues to do so today.
1995
January 17: Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake occurs. A solo show by Horio that happened to be underway at the time consisted merely of an empty space with only two pushpins (_ironuri_ or "paint placements") stuck in the walls facing each other.
February: Memorial event held in which Horio and his friends apply red paint to the ruins of Bonkura, which was destroyed in the earthquake.
March: Around this time, Horio's uncle Mikio encourages him to document the disaster-stricken Kobe area. Though he can't initially bring himself to depict the devastated area where he has brought up, he eventually overcomes the frustration of not being able to draw, and his memories of scenes from the quake come flooding out in a huge volume of drawings.
April: Horio and his friends rebuild Bonkura by hand based on a design by Gotaro Matsumoto. The temporary wooden structure is completed in about ten days.
July: Horio didn't originally intend to show his earthquake drawings to anyone, but when Shinji Nishi visits his house, he notices a huge amount of the works and at his suggestion, this leads to a solo show at Riran's Gate (Kobe), which in turn provides encouragement to many victims of the disaster.
November: Due to the efforts of Masaaki Shimizu at Gallery 2001, Horio's "Earthquake Landscapes" exhibition travels to four junior high schools in Fukui Prefecture.
1997
Dubbing his technique of executing a drawing in less than a minute the _One-Minute Hitting Method_, Horio embarks on a daily routine to carry out this project every morning (still ongoing). The name is inspired by Sadaharu Oh (who shares a first name with the artist), the home-run king who played professional baseball with the Yomiuri Giants and was famed for his distinctive "flamingo-kick" batting style in the 1960s and 70s.
1998
March: Retires from his job at Mitsubishi. Until this point, the average number of events Horio participated in each year, even when limited to easily tabulated things like solo and group shows, amounted to about 60. Since his retirement, the number has continued to increase.
Travels to Toulouse and Figeac, France to take part in the "Art contemporain du Japon" exhibition (Espace Ecreuil, Toulouse, and others).
2000
October: Takes part in the "'Machi' ga museum" (The Town is a Museum) exhibition (Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi Prefecture) held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Fujiyoshida City. (Continues to participate in similar events in the city.)
2002
July: Holds first museum-scale solo show at the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History (Hyogo Prefecture). Horio does a series of performances every day during the 38-day event, gradually altering the aspect of the venue and summing up his career until that point. During the event, he meets Kenji Haraguchi, a visitor to the exhibition, who later becomes one of the core members of the On-Site Art Squad "Kuki" (meaning "air").
November: Takes part in the "Theatre of Our Lives" exhibition (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe). Horio not only makes use of an exhibition room but a variety of spaces in the facility, which has just opened in this new location, and does numerous performances.
2003
April: Holds an event called "Museum of the Air" (Hyogo Canal, Kobe), an outdoor exhibition using a canal near his house that runs for about a year until the following March.
Horio dubs a group that was spontaneously formed to support and enjoy his activities following the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History solo show the previous year the On-Site Art Squad "Kuki," during the "Museum of the Air" event. The word _kuki_ (air), which has long been concealed in Horio's concept of _atarimae no koto_ ("a matter of course"), finally takes center stage. The group's members are notable for their flexible attitude; some of them are also members of Bonkura.
September: The _Myokonin-den_ exhibition of works by Horio (as painter) and Hisaki Shuji (as woodblock carver) opens at the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History, marking the first time that all 100 works in the series have been shown at once. The actual woodblocks are also lined up on the floor as part of the installation.
The France-based Polish artist Janusz Stega, who was invited to Japan by the Institut Franco-Japonais du Kansai's Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto) visits Horio after a handmade poster for the _Myokonin-den_ exhibition catches his eye in a garbage can at Kyoto Station. Later, others artists from his hometown of Lille develop a relationship with Horio and "Kuki."
2004
September: Invited to perform at the Rencontre internationale d'art performance de Quebec (Le Lieu, Quebec, Canada) with Yoshio Shirakawa.
November: Travels to Lille, France at the invitation of artconnexion (Lille). Gives performances at Wazemmes, the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Arras, and a local art school with seven artists from "Kuki."
2005
September: Participates in Yokohama Triennale 2005 (Yamashita Pier No. 3 and No. 4 Warehouses, Yokohama) with "Kuki." Over the 82-day exhibition period, the group paints _Wall_ (with a width of approximately 35 meters and at its highest, a height of ten meters) a different color every day in the No. 4 Shed, shows and sells hundreds of "thumb-hole" works by the "Kuki" members (all priced at ¥1,000 each), gives a daily performance at 14:00, and produces countless _¥100 Paintings_.
2007
March 10: Invited to take part in a live-art festival in connection with an event called "Resounding Spirit: Japanese Contemporary Art of the 1960s" (Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Canada) with Ushio Shinohara and Takesada Matsutani.
2008
January 13: Prepares to move out of his house, which is set to be demolished as part of a land readjustment plan, with the help of members from Bonkura and "Kuki." Many of Horio's massive store of works are given to the members in exchange for their assistance. The empty house is used as an exhibition space for Horio and "Kuki" until early February.
February 2: Stages an event with Bonkura to paint dots all over the house with India ink that is held immediately prior to its demolition. The work crew is surprised to find an endless number of dots as they destroy the house.
May: The Bonkura bar is closed after its owner, Takeshi Togo, falls ill. The Bonkura group, meanwhile, adopts a new form, constantly changing venues as the situation allows.
August 10: Stages a performance with "Kuki" called "Everything is OK If It's a Square," in which squares of color are applied to the exterior wall of the Tsuchimi Paint Store, a shop near Horio's house which is also set to be demolished.
December 7: Moves to new house. Holds a Bonkura event based on the theme of "moving."
2009
January 11 & 12: Holds workshops as part of the "Minna no Museum 2009" (Everyone's Museum 2009) event at the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama.
June: Invited along with Masaaki Shimizu, Kenji Haraguchi, and Katsuhiko Yamashita to take part in the "In-Finitum" exhibition (Palazzo Fortuny, Venice), and stages a series of performances during the three-day press preview. Many Gutai works, including some by Akiko Horio (the artist's wife), are also shown in the event.
August: Shows work for the first time in Okinawa at the "Sadaharu Horio and the On-Site Art Squad 'Kuki': A Matter of Course in Okinawa" exhibition (Gallery Rougheryet, Okinawa Prefectural Museum of Art).
The owner of Bonkura, Takeshi Togo, dies on the 22nd.
Takes part in the Suito Osaka 2009 (Aquapolis Osaka 2009) event (Nakanoshima Park, Osaka) with "Kuki," giving numerous performances.
2010
September: Holds "Sadaharu Horio and On-Site Art Squad 'Kuki': A Matter of Course (Synchronized Spaces/Interconnecting Squares)" exhibition. Installing works throughout the Former Kobe Municipal Raw Silk Inspection Agency, a historical structure built in 1927, Horio and the members of "Kuki" stage performances on weekends during the event.
October: Participates in the "Vacant Lot of Gose" exhibition, held as part of the Nara Art Prom 2010 exhibition to commemorate the 1,300th anniversary of the Nara Heijo-kyo capital.
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