Akiko Ichikawa

Born in Sagamihara, Kanagawa,{{cite web|url=http://akikoichikawa.info/rIchikawa.pdf|title=Resumé|website=akikoichikawa.com}} Akiko Ichikawa emigrated to the United States with her family, via San Francisco, when she was three. Her brother is menswear designer Kenshin Ichikawa. Ichikawa and her siblings grew up in the suburbs of Boston and Nashville,{{cite news|url=http://www.artslant.com/ny/events/show/27093-homecoming|title=ABC NO RIO, Akiko Ichikawa, Vandana Jain, Jayson Keeling, Rahul Saggar, Martina Secondo, Chanika Svetvilas: 2nd October 2008 – 29th October 2008|publisher=ArtSlant|access-date=March 6, 2011|archive-date=July 28, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180728040728/https://www.artslant.com/ny/events/show/27093-homecoming|url-status=dead}} ArtSlant, Inc. and she took courses in photography, painting, and drawing at Vanderbilt University while still in high school.

Ichikawa attended Brown University concentrating in Visual Art under Annette Lemieux, Leslie Bostrom, and Walter Feldman, graduating with honors. She moved to New York City four days later, using the award money from the college's Roberta Joslin Art award to pay for her first month's rent on a studio apartment in the East Village. After working in academic publishing for 18 months, she entered Hunter's MFA program where she studied under Gretchen Bender, Robert Morris, and Andrea Blum, among others, and earned a scholarship to study in the MA Sculpture department at the Slade School of Art in London and an award to organize a panel on new painting.

Ichikawa's conceptually-based artwork exists as performance, installation{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/18/arts/art-in-review-the-reality-of-things.html|date= June 18, 2004|last=Johnson|first=Ken|title= Art in Review: The Reality of Things|work=The New York Times}} and net.art. The performances{{cite news|url=http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artnetnews/fake-warhol-brillo-boxes-caa-art-awards-anthony-haden-guest1-11-11.asp|title=Artnet News|date=January 11, 2011|last=Nathan|first=E.|publisher=Artnet}}[http://05.performa-arts.org/artists/akiko-ichikawa- PERFORMA05: Akiko Ichikawa biography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101107025026/http://05.performa-arts.org/artists/akiko-ichikawa- |date=November 7, 2010 }} Performa 05 website include a series of site-specific gifting work titled Limited, Limited Edition in which she paints t-shirts with Japanese text informed by the neighborhood in which she gives the shirts away at low-cost: either translations of message shirts she saw in or inspired by the area.{{cite web|url=http://akikoichikawa.info/timeOut1.htm|title=Don't Miss! |publisher=TimeOut New York |access-date=August 29, 2019}}{{cite web|url=https://www.instagram.com/p/C-IFT4dxJUr/?img_index=1|title=Saturday and for the next 2, I'll be up on a great spot on 125th St. |website=Instagram}} She presented the first iteration of this work at Socrates Sculpture Park, in Long Island City, Queens;{{cite web|url=http://www.socratessculpturepark.org/exhibitions/artist/akiko-ichikawa |title=Akiko Ichikawa |publisher=Socrates Sculpture Park |access-date=December 25, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131226201023/http://www.socratessculpturepark.org/exhibitions/artist/akiko-ichikawa |archive-date=December 26, 2013 }} then in PERFORMA at Artists Space,{{cite web |title=Akiko Ichikawa CV |url=http://akikoichikawa.info/rIchikawa.pdf |website=akikoichikawa.info |access-date=9 May 2023}} the next in Jamaica, Queens; then at the Incheon Women Artists' Biennale in Incheon, South Korea;{{cite web|url=http://iwabiennale.org/2009_new/eng/sub02/sub02_03.php|title=Exhibition Tuning, Incheon Women Artists' Biennale|publisher=IWA Biennale}} at On Stellar Rays gallery in the Lower East Side; in three locations in Newark, New Jersey for Aljira Center for Contemporary Art,{{cite web|url=http://aljira.org/exhibitions/archive/page/4/|title=Exhibitions: Limited, Limited Edition (Newark)|website=Aljira.org}} in a school yard in East Harlem; on 14th Street, Manhattan, as a part of the Art in Odd Places performance festival, and on H Street NE in Washington D.C.{{cite web|url=http://akikoichikawa.info/work.htm|title= Performances|website=akikoichikawa.com}} For Bad Kanji, she painted temporary kanji tattoos on viewers at the Spring/Break Art Show in 2015, held in the historic office spaces above New York City's James A. Farley Post Office. The work was reviewed favorably.{{cite news|url=http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150305/midtown/super-trippy-art-show-takes-over-post-offices-main-branch|title='Super-Trippy' Art Show Takes Over Post Office's Main Branch|date=March 5, 2015|last=Goldensohn|first=Rosa|publisher=Hyperallergic|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321215659/http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150305/midtown/super-trippy-art-show-takes-over-post-offices-main-branch|archive-date=March 21, 2015}} She has additionally exhibited her work in The Hague, Berlin, Philadelphia,{{cite web|url=http://asianartsinitiative.org/event/pearl-street-block-party-2|title=Pearl Street Block Party|website=Asian Arts Initiative|access-date=December 4, 2019|archive-date=November 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114054347/http://asianartsinitiative.org/event/pearl-street-block-party-2|url-status=dead}} St. Paul, Minnesota, and in Sweden, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn.{{cite web|url=http://www.anthology-of-art.net/bio/09/ischikawa.html|title=Biobiblio, Akiko Ichikawa|publisher=Jochen Gerz's Anthology of Art|access-date=December 13, 2013}}

Ichikawa also operates as an art historian, having enacted two of Fluxus-member Alison Knowles's event scores, namely #5 Wounded Furniture and #3 Nivea Cream Piece.{{cite web|url=http://www.aknowles.com/eventscore.html|last=Knowles|first=Alison|title=Event Scores|website= aknowles.com}} The latter was live-blogged online{{cite news|url=http://hyperallergic.com/16816/liveblogging-maximum-perception-sat-night/|title=Live Blogging Maximum Perception Sat Night|last=Vartanian|first=Hrag|publisher=Hyperallergic|date=January 15, 2011}} and well-received, with Hyperallergic's Kyle Chayka writing that it was "definitely among [his] favorites."{{cite news|url=http://hyperallergic.com/17222/reflections-maximum-perception/|last=Chayka|first=Kyle|title=Reflections on 2011 Maximum Perception|publisher=Hyperallergic|date=January 20, 2011}} In 2015, Ichikawa wrote about the Japanese American incarceration through the photography of Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Toyo Miyatake for Hyperallergic, which became popular, shared over 8,000 times on Facebook.{{cite news|url=http://hyperallergic.com/204807/the-images-and-stories-of-japanese-american-internment/|title=The Images and Stories of Japanese American Internment|last=Ichikawa|first=Akiko|date=May 8, 2015|publisher=Hyperallergic}}{{cite news|url=http://hyperallergic.com/229260/how-the-photography-of-dorothea-lange-and-ansel-adams-told-the-story-of-japanese-american-internment/|last=Ichikawa|title=How the Photography of Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams Told the Story of Japanese American Internment|date=September 1, 2015|publisher=Hyperallergic}} In 2018, she reminded New York art world readers about the Golden Venture incident, which marked the start of contemporary punitive U.S. immigration policies at the presidential level, under President Clinton.{{cite news|url=https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/craft-survival-golden-venture-paper-sculptures-museum-chinese-america/|title=The Craft of Survival: Golden Venture Paper Sculptures at the Museum of Chinese in America|last=Ichikawa|date=March 14, 2018|publisher=Art in America}} In 2020, she wrote on newly revealed information on the life of Abstract Expressionist Clyfford Still for Art in America.{{cite news|url=https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/lifeline-clyfford-still-dennis-scholl-abstract-expressionism-1202680523/|last=Ichikawa|date=25 March 2020|publisher= Art in Americas|title=A New Clyfford Still Documentary Explores the Life and Work of the Enigmatic Abstract Expressionist}}

In the Aughts, Ichikawa created an Internet art piece that simulated a series of imagined art installations. The multi-hyphenate has also created a series of Facebook groups themed around food organized by color, touching upon issues of cultural identity, food sourcing, gentrification, environmental concerns, and greenwashing while sharing nutrition and cost-cutting tips: I ♥ Yellow Food, I ♥ Orange Food, I ♥ Red Food, I ♥ Green Food, and I ♥ Blue Food.{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/groups/420895108043294/|title=Asians Not Brainwashed By Media Lapping Up Amy Chua|last=Ichikawa|website=Facebook}}{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/?sk=group_305375342285|title=I ♥ Yellow Food|last=Ichikawa|website=Facebook}}{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/groups/1488986394664435/|title=I ♥ Blue Food|last=Ichikawa|website=Facebook}} While not supportive of Facebook's history of massive online-privacy violations, its carrying the 2016 Republican National Convention, and, along with other mainstream media outlets, its other roles in the empowerment of Trump's 2016 presidential candidacy,{{cite news|url=http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/the-trouble-with-facebooks-fake-news-data.html|title=The Trouble With Facebook's Fake-News Data|last=Feldman|first=Brian|date=November 17, 2016|publisher=New York magazine}}{{cite news|url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Facebook-stock-plunge-not-expected-to-hurt-Bay-13109011.php#photo-15924633|title=Facebook's stock plunge not expected to hurt Bay Area economy|last=Li|first=Roland|publisher=San Francisco Chronicle|date=26 July 2018}} she nevertheless viewed the social media platform as an effective, user-friendly way to include as many participants as possible, in as short a time as possible. She has lately turned to Instagram, bought by Facebook in 2012.{{cite web|url=https://www.instagram.com/akikoichik/|last=Ichikawa|website=Instagram|title=Akiko Ichikawa}}

Ichikawa's artwork before 2005 was primarily in installation art, built around the placement and assembly of basic construction materials in galleries and other spaces. She presented one such piece as her solo exhibition at Momenta Art{{cite web|url=http://www.momentaart.org/momenta-art-past-projects-2000.html|title=Past Projects, 2000|publisher=Momenta Art|access-date=December 13, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213172220/http://www.momentaart.org/momenta-art-past-projects-2000.html|archive-date=December 13, 2013|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}{{cite news|url=http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/reviews/garcia-fenech/garcia-fenech10-4-00.asp|last=Garcia-Fenech|first=Giovanni|publisher=Artnet|title=Brooklyn Spice|date=4 October 2000}} and another at Andrew Kreps gallery in a group exhibition curated by Dean Daderko,{{Cite web |url=http://www.re-title.com/artists/Akiko-Ichikawa.asp |title=Akiko Ichikawa (Artist) in New York, NY (New York) from Re-title.com |access-date=March 6, 2011 |archive-date=July 15, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110715160336/http://www.re-title.com/artists/Akiko-Ichikawa.asp |url-status=usurped }} Re-title.com{{cite web|url=http://www.akikoichikawa.info/exhibitions1.htm|title=list of installation work|website=akikoichikawa.com}} now a curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.{{cite web|url=http://camh.org/about/staff-board|title=Staff & Board|publisher=Contemporary Arts Museum Houston website}} The series evolved into a Net.art piece, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? that was stored on Rhizome.org.{{cite web|url=http://rhizome.org/art/artbase/artwork/where-do-we-come-from-what-are-we-where-are-we-going/|title=Where Do We Come From What Are We Where Are We Going?|website=Rhizome.org}}{{Cite web|url=http://akikoichikawa.info/Wheredowe.htm|title=Untitled Document|website=akikoichikawa.info|accessdate=May 9, 2023}}

Ichikawa has written on contemporary art for Flash Art on the work of Ken Lum,{{cite news|url=http://www.akikoichikawa.info/writing_Lum.htm|last=Ichikawa|title=Hyperreal Insubordinate: Ken Lum|publisher=New York Arts magazine|date=September 2001}} Laurel Nakadate, Dan Peterson, Yasue Maetake, and, for NY Arts magazine, the work of British artists Jane and Louise Wilson{{cite web|url=http://www.303gallery.com/docs/Wilsons-bio.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110712104252/http://www.303gallery.com/docs/Wilsons-bio.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 12, 2011 |title=Jane and Louise Wilson (resume) |publisher=303 Gallery|access-date=December 19, 2013 }} and for zingmagazine, the work of Iranian-American public artist Siah Armajani.{{cite web|url=http://zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/73|title=Table of contents|issue=7|website=zingmagazine|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-date=December 22, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131222030715/http://zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/73|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.akikoichikawa.info/writing.htm |title=Writing|website=akikoichikawa.com}}

In 2015, Ichikawa wrote about the photography of Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Toyo Miyatake and the Japanese American incarceration for Hyperallergic. The article received its biggest spike in interest (about 5,000 more Facebook shares, totaling 8,000) after the spokesman of a Trump-supporting PAC, in early November 2016, cited the incarceration as precedent for a Muslim registry on Fox News.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/17/japanese-internment-is-precedent-for-national-muslim-registry-prominent-trump-backer-says/|title=Japanese American internment is 'precedent' for national Muslim registry, prominent Trump backer says|last=Hawkins|first=Derek|newspaper=Washington Post|date=November 17, 2016}} In 2018, she reviewed an exhibition of folded paper work by the Golden Venture migrants who were held in York, Pennsylvania that was presented at Chinatown's Museum of Chinese in America.

Ichikawa also wrote about the closing of the Manhattan Tekserve store, the performance by a group of young area Native American musicians at Rutgers University in 2016, and cowrote about the work of young artists of Asian descent in a New York City-based performance art festival the next year.{{cite web|url=https://hyperallergic.com/author/akiko-ichikawa/|title=Author: Akiko Ichikawa|website=Hyperallergic|date=March 29, 2022 }} In 2018, in addition to writing about the paper-folding work of the Golden Venture migrants for Art in America online,{{cite news|url=https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/craft-survival-golden-venture-paper-sculptures-museum-chinese-america/|title=The Craft of Survival: Golden Venture Paper Sculptures at the Museum of Chinese in America|last=Ichikawa|publisher=Art in America|date=14 March 2018}} she served as the social media writer for #callresponse during its New York City exhibition run at EFA Project Space.{{cite web|url=https://www.instagram.com/p/BhKtLapBMkt/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/iarchive/s/instagram/BhKtLapBMkt |archive-date=December 26, 2021 |url-access=registration|publisher=Instagram|last=Ichikawa|date=14 March 2018|title=Thinking about my new friends in #CallResponse & having to deal w/the frustrations of working in US hyper capitalism}}{{cbignore}}

In 2019, Ichikawa wrote about her experience of being sexually harassed at a neighborhood laundromat undergoing gentrification pressure for a Chinatown-based teen activist zine.{{cite web|url=https://www.instagram.com/p/B1OpvvxlRLT/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/iarchive/s/instagram/B1OpvvxlRLT |archive-date=December 26, 2021 |url-access=registration|publisher=Instagram|last=Ichikawa|date=16 August 2019|title=The gorgeous 34-page AYA zine from the h.s. summer youth at @caaavnyc is out! Edited by @ramijaalam, it features interviews w/Gary Lum of @wingonwoandco & State Assemblymember Yuhline Niou, on-the-street interviews w/area & #queensbridge residents}}{{cbignore}} Ichikawa also opined to the New York Times on American environmentalist and leader of 350.org Bill McKibben's critique of Tatiana Schlossberg’s book, Inconspicuous Consumption. She wrote that "his insistence on the 'correct' way to fight what we now know to be impending world disaster is laughable."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/books/review/letters-to-the-editor.html|title = Letters to the Editor|newspaper = The New York Times|date = October 4, 2019}}

The next year, Ichikawa wrote on the life of Clyfford Still for Art in America as seen though a documentary released that year on the Abstract Expressionist and on a 2018 performance work by African-American multimedia artist Ama Be (Nana Ama Bentsi-Enchill).{{Cite web|url=https://www.afreecan.me/about|title = About}}{{cite web | url=https://www.instagram.com/p/CIl9puClQE0/ | title=Akiko Ichikawa 市川明子 on Instagram: "I have 2 written pieces in a book that launches on Zoom Saturday. "Institution is a Verb" published by @the_operating_system covers some of the activity at @panoplylab in e. Williamsburg 2012-18, and is edited by Esther Neff (PPL's founder), @ayana.m.evans @tsedaye , and Elizabeth Lamb. The party will showcase video documentation from performances from that times as well as discussion and toasts! I wrote about Nana Ama Bentsi-Enchill's performance there on May 26, 2018, as well as documentation with @jean__carla__rodea of the "think tank" we participated in with Neff. @thefenserf" }}

• 2020 Brown Arts Initiative Protest Art Microgrant, Brown University, Providence
• 2013 Cuts and Burns Residency, Outpost Artists Resources, Ridgewood, Queens
• 2003 Longwood Arts Project and Residency, the Bronx
• 2002 Middlebrook-Sugano Fellowship, Djerassi Artists Residency, California
• 2002 Change Inc. Emergency Grant, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
• 2000 Independent Project Grant, Artists Space, New York City

• {{cite book| title=The 21st Century, the Feminine Century, the Century of Diversity and Hope | publisher=Incheon Women Artists' Biennale Organizing Committee, South Korea| year=2009| isbn= }}{{cite web|url=http://akikoichikawa.info/catalogs.htm|title=Catalogues|website=akikoichikawa.info}}
• {{cite book| title=Jamaica Flux '07: Workplaces & Windows|publisher=JCAL, Queens| year=2008| isbn= 978-0976285366}}
• {{cite book| title=Performa: New Visual Art Performance|editor=Jennifer Liese| publisher=Performa| year=2007| isbn= 978-1424314980}}
• {{cite book| title=Momenta Art: 1999 to 2004|editor=Michael Ashkin|editor-link=Michael Ashkin|publisher=Momenta Art| year=2005| isbn= 0-9678868-1-3}}
• {{cite book| title=Jamaica Flux|publisher=JCAL, Queens| year=2004| isbn= 0-9762853-0-4}}
• {{cite book| title=De Anthologie der Kunst|editor=Jochen Gerz|editor-link=Jochen Gerz| publisher=Dumont Verlag, Cologne| year=2004| isbn= }}
• {{cite book| title=Art Projects International: Ten Years|editor=Jung Lee Sanders| publisher=API, New York| year=2003| isbn= 0-9746915-9-3}}

Akiko Ichikawa's younger sister, Yoko, is an Oakland, California-based part-time graphic designer, dance instructor, and microblogger.{{cite web|url=https://www.instagram.com/artbeatf/?hl=en|title=Artbeat Feats|website=Instagram}} Ichikawa's younger brother, Kenshin Ichikawa,{{cite news|url=http://www.xxlmag.com/lifestyle/2013/03/rocksmith-designer-kenshin-ichikawa-discusses-brand-success-and-wu-tang-collaborations/|title=Rocksmith Designer Kenshin Ichikawa Discusses Brand Success and Wu-Tang Collaborations|date=March 26, 2013|access-date=December 13, 2013|publisher=XXL}}{{cite web|url=http://www.intelius.com/Find-Phone-Address/New%20York-NY/Kenshin-Ichikawa.html|title=Search results for Kenshin Ichikawa in New York, NY|publisher=Intelius.com|access-date=December 19, 2013}} founded and designed Rocksmith streetwear, which has done collaborative lines with the Wu Tang Clan, Malcolm X's daughters, and a music video with Future. The label has also been worn by all of the major male American hip-hop stars.{{cite web|url=http://www.rocksmithnyc.com/blogs/news/15040033-seent-it-p-diddy-seen-in-rocksmith-summer-2-gs-up-shorts|title=SEENT IT: P. DIDDY SEEN IN ROCKSMITH SUMMER 2 G'S UP SHORTS|date=August 4, 2014|website=Rocksmith NYC|access-date=November 24, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161124221930/http://www.rocksmithnyc.com/blogs/news/15040033-seent-it-p-diddy-seen-in-rocksmith-summer-2-gs-up-shorts|archive-date=November 24, 2016|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}{{cite news|url=http://heartymagazine.com/blog/jay-z-x-notorious-81|title=My Blog_|date=May 25, 2009|publisher=Hearty Magazine}} Yoko is a graduate of Wesleyan University, where she majored in West African dance; Kenshin is a graduate of Columbia University and is married to former UC Berkeley Food Institute executive director Nina F. Ichikawa.{{cite web|url=http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/magazine/issue-22-throwback/back-future-farming |title=Nina Kahori Fallenbaum|date=December 18, 2010|publisher=Hyphen magazine}}{{cite web|url=https://food.berkeley.edu/who-we-are/our-team/|title=Who We Are: Our Team|website=food.berkeley.edu}}{{cite web|url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/ninafichikawa/|title=Nina F. Ichikawa|website=LinkedIn}}

Akiko (given name)
Culture of New York City

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [http://www.vimeo.com/15367998 Limited, Limited Edition (Incheon) on Vimeo]
• [http://www.vimeo.com/3400325 Sharing Kanji on Vimeo]
• [http://www.nativeartdepartment.org/index2015.html Interview] by Native Art Department International
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFrahTfsnp4 Audience reaction] to a 2011 performance of Alison Knowles's #3 Nivea Cream Piece on YouTube

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