Description
The Gutai Art Association (具体美術協会, Gutai Bijutsu Kyōkai; or, short, Gutai) was a Japanese avant-garde artist group founded in the Hanshin region by young artists under the leadership of the painter Jirō Yoshihara in Ashiya, Japan, in 1954. It operated until shortly after Yoshihara's death in 1972.
The group, today one of the most internationally-recognized instances of 20th century Japanese art, is best known for the broad range of experimental art forms combining painting with performance, conceptual, interactive, site-specific, theatrical and installation artworks, which its members explored in unconventional venues such as public parks and on stage. The members’ engagement with the relationship between spirit, human body and material, often concretized in artistic methods that involved the artist’s body and violent gestures. Read more ↗
Key Artists
Jirō Yoshihara
Charismatic founder, wealthy industrialist, and mentor of the Gutai Art Association in Ashiya who authored the 1956 Gutai Manifesto and commanded members to 'do what has never been done before.'
Kazuo Shiraga
Renowned Gutai master who abandoned paintbrushes to paint directly with his bare feet while suspended from a rope tied to the ceiling, creating explosive, thick impasto oil canvases.
Atsuko Tanaka
Pivotal female Gutai innovator who created sound-art installations with ringing electric bells and wearable technological sculptures before translating their circuits into vibrant synthetic enamel paintings.
Shozo Shimamoto
Co-founder who suggested the name 'Gutai' (Concreteness) and famously 'killed the paintbrush' by hurling glass bottles filled with paint and firing cannons at horizontal canvases.
Saburo Murakami
Pioneering performance and action artist famous for his 'Paper Breakthrough' (Kami Yaburi) performances, violently throwing his entire body through multiple screens of tightly stretched kraft paper.
Sadamasa Motonaga
Key member known for his outdoor environmental installations of transparent vinyl tubes filled with brightly colored water strung between pine trees, as well as his fluid poured-resin paintings.
Famous Artworks
Challenging Mud
Kazuo Shiraga · 1955
Ohara Kaikan, Tokyo - Performance and environmental action
Work (Bell)
Atsuko Tanaka · 1955
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York - Installation of 20 electric alarm bells, button, and wiring
Electric Dress
Atsuko Tanaka · 1956
National Museum of Art, Osaka / MoMA collection history - Wearable costume made of incandescent light bulbs, fluorescent tubes, and electrical cords
Work (Water)
Sadamasa Motonaga · 1956
Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition, Ashiya Park - Vinyl tubes filled with colored water
Untitled
Kazuo Shiraga · 1958
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York - Oil on canvas
Fun Facts
The Japanese word Gutai literally translates to 'Concreteness' or 'Embodiment' (gu meaning tool or means, and tai meaning body or substance), embodying the group's philosophy that human spirit and material must engage in a direct, unmediated collision without one subjugating the other.
↗ Source: guggenheim.org
To reach international audiences without leaving Japan, Gutai founder Jirō Yoshihara published the multilingual Gutai journal and mailed copies directly to prominent Western avant-garde figures, catching the enthusiastic attention of French critic Michel Tapié and American happening pioneer Allan Kaprow.
↗ Source: moma.org
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