Shusaku Arakawa was born in Nagoya, Japan, on 6 July 1936. He studied medicine and mathematics at Tokyo University from1954 to 1958. In 1958 he began submitting paintings to the Yomiuri Independent exhibitions and in 1961 held his first solo exhibition at Mudo Gallery, Tokyo. In the same year he moved to New York. Throughout the 1960s he had a number of solo exhibitions at Dwan Gallery, New York and Los Angeles, at Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf, and Galleria Schwartz, Milan. In 1966 he was given his first museum exhibition at the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and in 1970 represented Japan at the Venice Biennale. During the 1970s museums featured his work throughout Europe and the United States and in 1981 a large retrospective was organised by the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich. With his wife, the poet Madeline H. Gins, Arakawa has also published books which parallel the preoccupations of his paintings, notably The Mechanism of Meaning (1979). In 1991 a retrospective was organised by the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Arakawa and Gins increasingly concentrate on collaborative installation pieces and architectural design, such as the Utopian city of Reversible destiny seen at the Guggenheim Soho in 1997.