Gutai group

The Gutai group (also spelled "Gutaï" or "Gutaj", but in every case pronounced to rhyme with "to tie") was an artistic movement and association of artists founded (according to most sources) by Jiro Yoshihara in Japan in 1954. According to the official website of Shozo Shimamoto, Shimamoto and Yoshihara founded Gutai together in 1954, and it was Shimamoto who suggested the name "Gutai", which means (again, according to this source) “concrete” [http://www.shozo.net/prof/indexe.html] .

The Gutai Manifesto

Yoshihara wrote the manifesto for the Gutai group in 1956. The full text of the "Gutai Manifesto" is available in English at the website of Japan's Ashiya City Museum of Art & History [http://www.ashiya-web.or.jp/museum/10us/103education/nyumon_us/manifest_us.htm] . Among its preoccupations, the manifesto expresses a fascination with the beauty that arises when things become damaged or decayed. The process of damage or destruction is celebrated as a way of revealing the inner "life" of a given material or object:

"Yet what is interesting in this respect is the novel beauty to be found in works of art and architecture of the past which have changed their appearance due to the damage of time or destruction by disasters in the course of the centuries. This is described as the beauty of decay, but is it not perhaps that beauty which material assumes when it is freed from artificial make-up and reveals its original characteristics? The fact that the ruins receive us warmly and kindly after all, and that they attract us with their cracks and flaking surfaces, could this not really be a sign of the material taking revenge, having recaptured its original life?...." [http://www.ashiya-web.or.jp/museum/10us/103education/nyumon_us/manifest_us.htm]

Influence

In addition to Yoshihara and Shimamoto, members of the Gutai group included Sadamasa Motonaga [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadamasa_Motonaga] , Atsuko Tanaka, Akira Kanayama, and others. A formative influence on the later Fluxus movement, the group was also associated with certain European (particularly French) art world figures such as Georges Mathieu and Michel Tapié, and with tachisme ("art informel"). According to the Tate Gallery's online art glossary, Gutai artists also "created a series of striking works anticipating later Happenings and Performance and Conceptual art." [http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=130] Gutai artists also created works that would now be called installations, inspiring the work of non-Japanese artists such as Allan Kaprow, and leading to the later Fluxus network.

The Tate article records that "the group dissolved in 1972 following the death of Yoshihara."

ee also

*Jiro Yoshihara
*Shozo Shimamoto
*Atsuko Tanaka (artist)
*Fluxus
*Installation art
*Georges Mathieu
*Michel Tapié

References

*Françoise Bonnefoy; Sarah Clément; Isabelle Sauvage; Galerie nationale du jeu de paume (France). [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/41529841&referer=brief_results "Gutai"] (Paris : Galerie nationale du jeu de paume : Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999) ISBN 2908901684 9782908901689
*Alexandra Munroe; Yokohama Bijutsukan.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/29877932?tab=details "Japanese art after 1945 : scream against the sky'] ' [= 戦後日本の前衛美術空へ叫び /] (New York : H.N. Abrams, 1994) ISBN 0810935120 9780810935129 [contents include "Nam June Paik -- To challenge the mid-summer sun : the Gutai group"]
*Michel Tapié. [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/1194658?tab=details "L'aventure informelle"] (according to Worldcat "Details" information: "Other Titles: Gutaï.") (Nishinomiya, Japan, S. Shimamoto, 1957) OCLC 1194658
*Tiampo, Ming. "Gutai and Informel Post-war art in Japan and France, 1945--1965". (Worldcat link: [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/72471357&referer=brief_results] ) (Dissertation Abstracts International, 65-01A) ISBN 0496660470 9780496660476
*Jirō Yoshihara; Shōzō Shimamoto; Michel Tapié; Gutai Bijutsu Kyōkai. [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/53194339?tab=details "Gutai"] [= 具体] (具体美術協会, Nishinomiya-shi : Gutai Bijutsu Kyōkai, 1955-1965) [Japanese : Serial Publication : Periodical] OCLC 53194339 [Worldcat "Other titles" information: Gutai art exhibition, Aventure informelle, International art of a new era, U.S.A., Japan, Europe, International Sky Festival, Osaka, 1960]

External links

* [http://gutai.org The Gutai Archive] ja
* [http://perso.orange.fr/articide.com/gutai/fr/ss.htm Material on Shimamoto]
* [http://www.fluxusgenova.org/riconeng.html Fluxusgenova.org] historical essay on Fluxus, mentioning formative influence of "Gutaj" [sic] group
* [http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=16289&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html UNESCO biographical information on Atsuko Tanaka] : "...Performances featuring different costumes were the main characteristic of her work with the Gutaj Group."
* [http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=130 Tate Gallery] : article on Gutai
* [http://www.ashiya-web.or.jp/museum/10us/101top/f_top_us.html Website of the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History]
* [http://www.ashiya-web.or.jp/museum/10us/103education/nyumon_us/manifest_us.htm Complete text of the Gutai Manifesto] (provided in English translation by the Ashiya City Museum website)