was a pioneer conceptual artist. He was active from the 1950s until his death in central Japan. Life and education Matsuzawa was born on February 2, 1922, in Shimosuwa in mountainous central Japan. His impressionable years were spent during Japan's Fifteen-Year War (1930–45), which encompassed the Mukden Incident, Second Sino-Japanese War and Pacific War. Like his peers On Kawara, Yoko Ono, Genpei Akasegawa and Shusaku Arakawa, his experiences with wartime Japan shaped him as an artist and led him to rejecting the status quo. He studied architecture from 1943 to 1946 at Waseda University in Tokyo, but two years after graduating, he gave up architecture, returned to his hometown and taught mathematics at a night school. It was during this time that he also turned his attention to poetry and art, interests he had developed during college. In 1955, Matsuzawa left Japan to go to the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship. He spent one year as a visiting scholar at Wisconsin State College–Superior (now University of Wisconsin–Superior). Shortly thereafter, he considered going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study with the designer and painter György Kepes but declined the invitation. Instead, in summer 1956, he moved to New York on a Japan Society fellowship, where he studied religion, philosophy and art history at Columbia University. While in New York, Matsuzawa encountered the work of Jackson Pollock at the Museum of Modern Art as well as Robert Rauschenberg. He also met the abstract painter I. Rice Pereira and learned of John Cage's work through the publication trans/formation. In 1957, Matsuzawa left New York and returned to Japan. Matsuzawa died on October 15, 2006. Work and career From his time in New York, Matsuzawa was informed by parapsychology and developed his idea of Psi. Psi derived from psi powers or cognitive abilities beyond the five senses, such as precognition and clairvoyance. He employed this idea in works such as Psi Bird (1959), Meaning of Psi (1960), Psi Altar (1961), Peep into the Psi Tortoise, the Winged Secret Rules (1962) and Invitation to Psi Zashiki Room (1963). These works helped Matsuzawa to establish his own sense of conceptualism. By the end of 1963, Matsuzawa had gained the nickname Mr. Psi. In 1964, Matsuzawa experienced a revelation in which he heard a voice commanding, "Vanish objects!" He believed the voice was instructing him to employ language in his art, so he subsequently began