First Gutai Exhibition

The First Gutai Art Exhibition took place in Ohara Hall, Tokyo, Japan, in October 1955. This exhibition was the first manifestation of Gutai and displayed artworks created by a group of young artists formed around association leader Jiro Yoshihara. In the spirit of avant-garde, Gutai Artists aimed to challenge the formats, materials, and boundaries of painting with innovative projects that explored space, time and sound. The group's interest was in direct emotion and direct connections between the spirit and the material aiming to do something completely unexpected and create art unrelated to the concepts of the past.

Background

During the post-WWII era, as Gutai was emerging, the concept of originality became a part of discourses around individualism as resistance against the mass psychology of Japan's militarist past. Painting, as it existed, was considered no longer adequate to express the human condition by Gutai artists. Artists were motivated to try to articulate a new form of expression which would define a new era of authenticity and creative autonomy. Jiro Yoshihara, inspired by Jackson Pollock, started to explore art going beyond abstract painting into non-traditional processes and the performative. In the invitation to the exhibition, Jiro Yoshihara articulated the goal of the Gutai artists:

Today, the genre known as ‘pure art’ really seems to have come up against a huge wall. But with this outrageous method and sincere approach, this new group of people is attempting to break right through that wall.

Gutai artists challenged themselves to produce what they saw as fresh and unconventional forms of art using everyday materials such as wood, water, plastics, newspaper, sheet metal, fabrics, sand, light, smoke, etc. They aimed to open a dialogue between the materials and the artist's spirit by attempting to transform the material into something new:

Gutai art does not change the material: it brings it to life. Gutai art does not falsify the material. In Gutai art, the human spirit and the material reach out their hands to each other, even though they are otherwise opposed to each other. The material is not absorbed by the spirit. The spirit does not force the material into submission. If one leaves the material as it is, presenting it just as material, then it starts to tell us something and speaks with a mighty voice.

As well as the exploration of non-art materials, they also experimented with such types of art as performance art, installation art, sound art and multimedia art. The first show to demonstrate these new approaches was the “Experimental Outdoor Modern Art Exhibition to Challenge the Midsummer Burning Sun” in Ashiya City, held three months before the first Gutai Exhibition in Tokyo. An outdoor piece displayed a clear bag of red liquid and sharp sheets of metal hanging from trees and wooden posts scarred with axes and penetrated with nails. Continuing this, the exhibition in Tokyo displayed a wide range of works highlighting the impact of physical action on materials. The works of Gutai artists caught the attention of artist Allan Kaprow, who saw them as prefiguring Happenings, and of French critic Michel Tapie, who embraced the Gutai artists as contributors to the version of Abstract Expressionism he called Art Informel.

Participating artists

• Akira Kanayama
• Toshiko Kinoshita
• Sadamasa Motonaga
• Saburo Murakami
• Itoko Ono
• Shozo Shimamoto
• Fujiko Shiraga
• Kazuo Shiraga
• Yasuo Sumi
• Atsuko Tanaka
• Chiyu Uemae
• Yozo Ukita
• Tsuruku Yamazaki
• Toshio Yoshida
• Jiro Yoshihara
• Michio Yoshihara

Exhibition layout

In the first room located on the first floor of the hall were six works by Yasuo Sumi, eight works by Toshio Yoshida, and three works by Saburo Murakami, including both frames from the performance Making Six Holes in One Moment. This room also displayed at least one of the twenty bells that formed Atsuko Tanaka's Work (Bell). Activated by flipping a switch, the bells rang in sequence throughout the rooms of the exhibition.

The second room included Tsuruko Yamazaki's 52 empty tin cans installed on the floor, and Akira Kanayama's balloon hung from the ceiling. This room also included works by Murakami, Shozo Shimamoto, and Kazuo Shiraga's two abstract paintings created with his feet.

Fujiko Shiraga's floor path ran throughout the gallery. Beside the path, there was a stripe work by Yamazaki, a small painting by Jiro Yoshihara, and Tanaka's Work, a hanging piece of pink, fluorescent silk.

Critical reception

The innovation in using new materials was appreciated by many critics.

Some critics considered the work more negatively, offering statements such as, "From the viewpoint of the subconscious, the work is extremely simple."; "This is a new manifestation of Dada."; and "Sensation alone is meaningless."

See also

• Takesada Matsutani
• Fluxus movement
• Installation art
• Abstract expressionism

References

• Altshuler, B., & Phaidon Press. (2008). Exhibitions that made art history. London: Phaidon.
• Franciolli, M., Namioka, F., Della, C. B., & Museo cantonale d'arte (Lugano, Switzerland). (2010). Gutai: Dipingere con il tempo e lo spazio = painting with time and space : Akira
• Gomez, E. M. (2010). Matsutani's Moment. Art In America, 98(5), 136-143.
• Kanayama [and others]. Cinisello Balsamo, Milano: Silvana.
• Maerkle, A. (2012). GUTAI: THE SPIRIT OF AN ERA. Frieze, (150), 246.
• Murai, M. (1955). Kansai Artists’ Offensive.
• Tiampo, M. (2011). Gutai: Decentering modernism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Tiampo, M. (2007). ‘Create what has never been done before!’: Historicising Gutai Discourses of Originality. Third Text, 21(6), 689-706.
• Singh, D. (2010). Tsuruko Yamazaki: Beyond Gutai 1955-2009. Art Asiapacific, (69), 124.
• Yoshihara, J., & Ohara, H. (1955). Invitation to “The First Gutai Exhibition”.
• Yoshihara, J. (1956). The Gutai Manifesto.