Shusaku Arakawa—who spoke of himself as an "eternal outsider" and "abstractionist of the distant future"—was a member of Tokyo's Neo-Dadaism Organizers, a precursor to the Neo-Dada movement. His early works were first displayed in the infamous Yomiuri Independent Exhibition, a watershed event for postwar Japanese avant-garde art. Arakawa arrived in New York in 1961 with $14 in his pocket and a telephone number for Marcel Duchamp, whom he phoned from the airport and with whom he eventually formed a close friendship.