Nobuho Nagasawa

PROVENANCE: Courtesy of the Artist

“Nuke Cuisine” was created for the solo show, ‘The Atomic Cowboy: The Daze After,” which marked the
50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The original installation consisted of 835 Cloud of
Mushroom Soup cans introducing a recipe of “Split Peace Soup.” The number the soup cans
corresponded to the number of “announced” American Nuclear tests that were conducted from 1945
to1992 when the installation was created. The Atomic tests were done during the period when Pop Art
emerged in American culture and the silkscreen of Andy Warhol’s Campbell soup series appeared in
galleries. The show was critically acclaimed, and the Nuke Cuisine” was highly debated and censored. It
was reviewed by Holland Cotter in the New York Times when the work was shown in New York.

Educated in Europe and Japan, and based in New York since 2001, Nagasawa is an interdisciplinary artist whose site-specific works explore the politics, ecology, and psychological dimensions of place and people. Her projects range from sculptural installation, architectural intervention, and time-based work to activism and public art. Nagasawa views artmaking as an excavating of meanings. Practicing what I call “deep listening,” she explores the sociological and psychological content of each site in a manner similar to an archeologist or forensic scientist. Using time, process, and community participation as critical components, her environments create experiences that are both tactile and sensory. Her works respond poetically to   the architectural presence, social and cultural history, collective memory, and political consciousness of their sites. Her recent works are shaped by intersections of art, science, technology, acoustic ecology, phenomenological studies, and synesthesia, a neuro-biological condition where the experiences of the multi senses combine. She is a recipient of numerous grants, including German Academic Exchange Service, Berlin State Grant, Rockefeller Grant, California Arts Council Fellowships Award, Brody Arts Fund, Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation’s Grant, State University Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, and several Japan Foundation Grants. Nagasawa completed forty public art projects with successful interdisciplinary collaborations with architects and received Excellence in Design Award from New York City Public Design Award (2004, 2016).

Her exhibition venues include the Royal Garden of the Prague Castle (Czech Republic), Ludwig Museums (Germany, Hungary), Rufino Tamayo Museum (Mexico), Alexandria Library (Egypt), the Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities (US), Asian Art Biennial (2002), Egypt Biennial (2002, 2004, 2014), Sharjah Biennial (2003), Echigo-Tsumari Triennial (2003), Sinop Biennial (2006), Fukushima Biennial (2012, 2014, 2016), and Setouchi Triennial (2013, 2016) Nakanojo Biennial (2019), and Havana, Cuba (2020).