Toyo Tsuchiya
b. 1948, Japan | d. 2017
Street Suspension, 1983
Photographic print
Courtesy Asian American Art Centre and Think!Chinatown

Performance photographer Toyo Tsuchiya’s Street Suspension documents a 1983 performance where Austrian artist Sterlac suspended himself above the street below.

Tsuchiya is known for his work with the Rivington School, which was a small, conceptually-based artist group in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Tsuchiya moved to New York in 1980 and worked at No Se No, a club in the Lower East Side. At the club, he encountered, and later photographed, artists of the Rivington School. Other members and collaborators of the Rivington School included Ray Kelly, Monty Cantsin (Istvan Kantor), Shalom Neuman, Paolo Buggiani, Jacek Tylicki, and Ena Paul Kostabi. Artists involved in this group sought out found materials, primarily metals, in order to weld together public artworks, outdoor installations, and sculptures. These works were informally exhibited near the Rivington School’s namesake street and within the Rivington Sculpture Garden on Rivington and Forsyth streets. In addition, the Rivington School artists worked in performance, as exemplified by Street Suspension.