An extraordinary personality and a great artist has passed away.
Her magnificent works of art will keep her playful spirit alive for us.

The artistic work of Takako Saito is imbued with the idea of playfulness. Already in the 1950s, as a young teacher in Japan, Saito realized how important playing is in society and joined the local art education movement “Sozo Biiku Undou”. The aim of this reform movement was to infuse post-fascist, post-war Japan with a playful subtext and involve people in creative dialog. Playing, chance and the participation of the viewer are also part of the principles of the Fluxus movement, which Takako Saito joined in New York in the 1960s. Saito has developed a unique artistic language in which she creates a space for herself, her viewers, and fellow players where age, gender, cultural differences, and language barriers do not play a role. With her chess games, do-it-yourself works, and performances, she opens up participatory possibilities free of any kind of achievement-oriented thinking for the audience, who usually are only observers.

Takako Saito (斉藤 陽子, Saitō Takako, born 1929 in Fukui, Japan) lived and worked in Düsseldorf since 1979. She studied child psychology at the Japanese Women’s University in Tokyo (Nihon Joshi Daigaku) and worked as a teacher in Sabae (鯖江 市, Sabae-shi) before starting her career as an artist. Saito has participated in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad. Her works can be found in important private and public collections such as the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein- Westfalen, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Center Pompidou, Paris, and the M+, Hong Kong.