Taki Bluesinger

Taki Bluesinger (Takao Sekiguchi) (Japanese, Canadian, 1943-2004) was a lens-based artist. Born in Saitama, Japan in 1943, he immigrated to Vancouver, BC in 1969, after refusing an assignment from Time Magazine to go to Vietnam. Bluesinger quickly became involved in Vancouver-based artistic groups including the Intermedia Society and the New Era Social Club. Beginning in the 1970s, he participated in many collaborative photography, video and performance projects with artists Michael de Courcy, Gerry Gilbert, Glenn Lewis, Michael Morris, Vincent Trasov and Carole Itter. These projects included Image Bank (1970–1978), Background/Vancouver (1972), Video Bag (1974), The Edge of Sleep (1977), 13 Cameras (1978), The Origins of Man-Made Paradise (1978) and Teaching and Learning as Performing Arts Part II (1998). Bluesinger’s works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, and have been featured in exhibitions, including Yellow Peril: Reconsidered at Artspeak (1990), Gardens at Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (1998), Drawing with Light at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (2001-02) and Image Bank at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (2021).