Shiraga’s Gutai work takes the stage in 2015

We were thrilled to receive the monograph preview of Kazuo Shiraga, a co-publication of the Axel Vervoordt Galllery and the Dominique Lévy Gallery, at the start of 2015. As we know Gutai as an important post-war movement coming out of Japan, we were excited to see the continued attention that this movement has received in recent seasons…with Kazuo Shiraga as this year’s star.

Gutai was said to have started in 1954 by GuSo Yoshihara Jiro essentially with his cry “Do something no one’s ever done before!” Although it disbanded in 1972 following Yoshihara’s death, Gutai – literally translated as ‘concrete’ or ‘material’ –  had “a potent impact on the course of Japanese modern art history through its members’ diverse experiments in various mediums”. Recently artnet called Japan’s Gutai movement “one of the most path-breaking, explosively original things to have happened in art post–World War II”, enhanced, no doubt, by recent exposure in gallery selling exhibitions, a museum show, and auction sales. Interestingly, Shiraga’s output in particular looks comfortingly like a classic type of blue-chip abstraction. Still, the work is important, unique and visually tactile. 

Another point to remember: Shiraga was known for painting with his feet. Enjoy a video depicting his process at the end of this post.

To read Ben Davis’s excellent account of Shiraga in 2015 in full, click here.