Gutai: 1953 – 1959

About

Since 2005, the gallery has been at the forefront of promoting understanding of Gutai  (1954–72) in the United States and Europe, and our Chelsea gallery has been especially extended for this exhibition to 15,000 sq. ft to accommodate over seventy large- scale works by eleven artists—many of which are being exhibited in the United States for the first time.

Museum quality in both scale and caliber of works on view, and featuring loans from the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Dallas Museum of Art, this will be the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the founding generation of Gutai artists during the pivotal period between 1953–59, during which they forged an ethos of artistic experimentation, freedom, and individuality in the wake of the Second World War.

Saburo Murakami, Sakuhin, 1959. Paint on cotton cloth, 72 x 58 inches (183 x 147.3 cm). © Saburo Murakami; The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Makiko Murakami and Tomohiko Murakami, 2012.

The members of Gutai were just young enough to avoid deployment in the Japanese military, but were mature enough to fully understand the horrors of what had occurred. Like all members of their generation, they endured hardship and trauma, and as artists they sought to reintegrate themselves into the world and express themselves by embracing what Gutai founder Jiro Yoshihara called “the scream of matter itself.” Using their bodies in active, direct relationship with their artmaking materials, artists like Kazuo Shiraga, Saburo Murakami, Atsuko Tanaka, and Toshio Yoshida dissolved the barriers between art and life. They considered their processes of creation to be as essential as the resulting works, and their goal was to merge their bodies with the material world in unmediated, experiential encounters—as Yoshihara put it, not to change material, but to bring it to life.

To break free from the conservatism and militarism of the past, Yoshihara urged his understudies to “do what has never been done before.” With this emphasis on originality, the artists responded with a wide variety of paintings, sculpture, performances, and time- based interactive works that emphasized physicality and play, putting forth an aesthetic and political message of freedom.

Fergus McCaffrey’s exhibition traces Gutai’s development and features works created before the formal establishment of the group in 1954 in Ashiya, Japan, through the Outdoor Exhibition of 1955, onto the theatrical stage in 1957, and concludes with its emergence and acceptance onto the international stage in 1959. Of particular focus are two moments: the impact of Akira Kanayama, Atsuko Tanaka, Saburo Murakami, and Kazuo Shiraga, who joined Gutai from Zero-Kai one year after the group’s founding in 1955; and the influence of French art critic Michel Tapié on the group beginning in 1957.

T apié encountered Gutai through the group’s self- published journal in 1956, and first visited Japan in 1957. Often incorrectly maligned as the critic and art dealer who commercialized Gutai, Tapié’s influence was profound in the preservation of Gutai’s legacy as he proposed that the artists use more stable materials and generated a market for their works, enabling Gutai to sustain itself over three decades.

Motonaga Sadamasa, installation view of Work (Water) in Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition, Ashiya Park, July 27–August 5, 1956. Polyethylene, water, dye, and rope. © Motonaga Archive Research Institution Ltd.

The exhibition coincides with the release of three new documentary films produced by Documentary Japan for Fergus McCaffrey. Exploring the lives and work of Sadamasa Motonaga, Kazuo Shiraga, and Toshio Yoshida, the videos feature interviews with the artists’ families, friends, and curators, and provide insights into the personalities and creative impulses of these avant-garde pioneers.