Ei Arakawa

Ei Arakawa-Nash is a performance artist based in Los Angeles. His performances are created through collaborations with various people including contemporary artists and art historians. The means of these collaborations are diverse, with such figures physically participating as performers, and in other instances their works themselves making appearances. Arakawa-Nash also invalidates the boundary between the performers and the audience by inviting the audience to participate in an improvisational manner, thus converting them from the role of passive viewers to active subjects of the performance. In the context of contemporary art that is based on notions of individualism as articulated in western modern ideology, Arakawa-Nash’s act of establishing the intersection between collaborations with other artists and the audience as his very practice, can be seen as an intention to liberate his works from the subjective framework of the “self.”


Moon As A Performer (28 Min) D（Taupe） .LED strips on hand-dyed fabric, metal, LED transmitters, power supplies, SD cards, speaker.170×145 cm.2019. The series of works Moon As A Performer, created in 2018, is a comprehensive art piece that combines LED painting, hand-dyed fabric, meditative sound, and the surrounding social context. When presented at the CC Foundation Art Centre in Shanghai in 2020, the works were situated within a makeshift hut with translucent curtains. Each Moon animates and fluctuates for 28 minutes of the moon’s cycle, 1 minute per moon phase. Placing the moon LED on the wheeled wooden structure suggested the moon as a dancer, celebrating the transitory, feminine, and emotive symbolism of the planet. The artist was inspired by the monochrome landscape paintings of Silke Otto Knapp (1970 - 2022), for whom Arakawa-Nash frequently contributed dance performances for Knapp’s works during the mid-2010s. Moon As A Performer delves deep into integrating the concepts of magic and contemporary art creation, as in his other series, Performance People. Working with the Chinese American artist Sarah Chow, the two artists borrowed elements from astrology and other magical practices to present a unique system of knowledge that influences human behavior and interpersonal relationships. Both Moon As A Performer and Performance People offer alternative entries in opposition to the systems of patriarchy in Western art history.
Moon As A Performer (28 Min) C（Navy Blue）.LED strips on hand-dyed fabric,metal,LED transmitters,power supplies,SD cards, speaker.170×145 cm.2019
Moon As A Performer (28 Min) B（Emerald）.LED strips on hand-dyed fabric,metal,LED transmitters,power supplies,SD cards, speaker.170×145 cm.2019
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Ei Arakawa-Nash is a performance artist based in Los Angeles. His performances are created through collaborations with various people including contemporary artists and art historians. The means of these collaborations are diverse, with such figures physically participating as performers, and in other instances their works themselves making appearances. Arakawa-Nash also invalidates the boundary between ...
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