WHAT: “A Visual Essay on Gutai at 32 East 69th Street”
WHEN: September 12-October 27
WHERE: Hauser & Wirth, 32 East 69th Street, New York.
WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: In this monumental exhibition, Hauser & Wirth will survey the 12 members of the Gutai Art Association, a radical post-World War II Japanese art movement that advocated for the creation of new ideas, aesthetics, and practices meant to renew life and culture in the war-torn country.
Jiro Yoshihara founded the association (which included about 20 other members) in 1954, and cemented the group’s credo with a manifesto in 1956, which encouraged artists to blaze new trails with their work, disregard the rigid traditions of art history, and search for higher forms of inspiration. The show will feature 30 works from a 20-year period, spanning performances, paintings, and music made mostly of simple materials, from mud to light bulbs, and exploring thematic relations between art, the body, space, and time.
One of the more widely recognized female members, Atsuko Tanaka, used bright color and chaotic patterned shapes in vinyl paintings on canvas, which rsemble the electricity passing between atoms and particles. Kazuo Shiraga’s abstract works, exemplified by “Green Fan” (1965), expressed a furious abstract vision manifested through the physical force of his body — he even painted some pieces with his feet. Yoshihara’s “Work,” (part of his “Circle” series) best embodies the collective's ethos, a fusion of Zen ideals and styles used in response to the physical and social destruction caused by WWII.
Gutai pre-dated Abstract Expressionism, Arte Povera, and Conceptual Art, though its story is seldom referenced in 20th Century art history classes and texts. However, the positive and liberating message of its artists undoubtedly has paved the way for many Western artists.
To see works from “A Visual Essay on Gutai at 32 East 69th Street,” click the slide show.