Collection: Hi-Red Center

Into the city. Into everyday life. Questioning the familiar.

Hi-Red Center was an avant-garde group formed in 1963 around Jiro Takamatsu, Genpei Akasegawa and Natsuyuki Nakanishi. Its name combines English translations of the first characters of their surnames: high, red and center. Working in streets, hotels and other settings, the group staged actions that drew on seemingly ordinary activities such as cleaning and taking bodily measurements.

Unsettling the boundary between art and everyday life

Projects carried out in Tokyo in 1963–64, including the Shelter Plan and the Metropolitan Area Cleaning Event, extended art beyond finished objects into actions, places and relationships. Amid a changing city, these projects questioned ordinary behavior and the ways we perceive our surroundings.

Following three individual practices

This collection takes Hi-Red Center as a starting point for exploring the individual work of its artists. Group activities and individual works are presented with their respective dates and contexts.

Jiro Takamatsu's Shadows explore presence and perception through the absence of the objects that would cast them. Individual works allow us to trace ideas that emerged during the group's activities and continued to develop afterward.