|
The Gutai group (具体) is the first radical, post-war artistic group in Japan. It was founded in 1954 by the painter Jiro Yoshihara in Osaka, Japan, in response to the reactionary artistic context of the time. This influential group was involved in large-scale multimedia environments, performances, and theatrical events and emphasizes the relationship between body and matter in pursuit of originality. The movement rejected traditional art styles in favor of performative immediacy. ==Origin== Shozo Shimamoto and Jiro Yoshihara founded Gutai together in 1954, and it was Shimamoto who suggested the name Gutai. The kanji used to write 'gu' meaning tool, measures, or a way of doing something, while 'tai' means body.〔()〕 Yoshihara considers it to mean "embodiment" and "concreteness." The group was officially known as Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai (Art Association of Gutai). Coming about during postwar Japanese reconstruction, Gutai stressed freedom of expression with innovative materials and techniques. Gutai challenged imaginations to invent new notions of what art is with attention on the relationships between body, matter, time, and space. After the war, attitudes regarding cultural exchanging changed amongst nations as the art environment involved great optimism for global collaboration. Since artists were pursuing advances in contemporary art transnationally, the art environment of the time fostered thriving conditions for the Gutai group. For example, with the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, there was an increase in cultural exchanges between Japan and its new western allies. Gutai artwork began being shown in exhibitions in both American and European cities. In the early 1950s, works by Yoshihara were featured in the opening shows of Nihon Kokusai Bijutsu-ten (International Art Exhibition Japan) and Gendai Nihon Bijutsu-ten (Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan) during the resurgence of contemporary art in Japan. In "Osaka 1951", Yoshihara and others established the ''Gendai Bijutsu Kondan Kai'' (Contemporary Art Discussion Group), known as "Genbi". This group served as a workshop and forum for creating new art forms merging Eastern and Western culture as well as the modern and traditional. The main focus of Yoshihara was gaining recognition in the art world through Japanese tradition and in 1952 Yoshihara participated for example to the Salon de Mai in Paris and again in 1958 after the visit of Georges Mathieu to Japan in 1957 and the discovery of the movement by the art critic Michel Tapié. With post-occupation Japan's emphasis on freedom, the United State’s goal was as well to promote abstract art in order to promote democracy. Like the social reforms of the Allies occupation of Japan after the war, the United States wanted to steer Japan, and other axis nations, away from the more communistic art style of socialist realism.〔(Saunders, Frances Stonor. Modern art was CIA's weapon. The Independent. 22 October 1995. )〕 This helped spread Gutai art since it sponsored its creation. One example is the Guggenheim International Award exhibition that begun after the war and tactfully included work from Japan, a former axis state, in order to invite non-western art into the purview of contemporary abstract art as it cooperated with the democratic propaganda. Yoshihara Jiro was a businessman, self-taught painter who founded Gutai art in 1954 by gathering a group of artistic protégés in Ashiya, Hyōgo. The group shared a gallery space in Osaka. He directed the artists to attempt to do what has never been done before. These early works focused on marks made from bodily movements. Yoshihara’s vision for Gutai was one of internationality, which was very plausible considering the political climate of the time. The worldwide distribution of hundreds of bulletins titled Gutai is perhaps the first proactive international effort done by Yoshihara. The bulletins included avant-garde works and Yoshihara sent subsequent Gutai bulletins to artist like Jackson Pollock, whom Yoshihara greatly admired, with the same aspiration of international recognition. Another one of Gutai’s initial involvements with global extension was in 1963 when Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's curator Lawrence Alloway chose Gutai art to be represented in its show in order to exemplify the universality of art while to also admire the specificity of its culture. This notion is something that Gutai did indeed want to express. The avant-garde abstract art of the time created a universal language. Gutai engaged in this language yet used its cultural and physical distance to preserve originality. Gutai art challenges the particularity of performance and painting and can be simplified as an intricate combination of the two. The Gutai group developed a new perspective on individuality and community, which were ideas pertinent to the post war atmosphere. The group developed a "collective spirit of individuality" by emphasizing the importance of the individual in a group context. To the Gutai group, community was essential in fostering the creativity of the individual. In terms of the post war atmosphere, it was common in Japan to believe that community was to blame for enabling such war aggression to happen and therefore it needed to be abolished. This is what inspired Yoshihara to rethink community. The group took on a horizontal system of community as opposed to a hierarchical one. Gutai believed that community was essential to the development of the individual. Gutai viewed individualism as challenging oneself against external forces, such as the psychological forces of fascism, in which the individual becomes a means of asserting freedom. Asserting freedom is how one can prevent totalitarianism from returning. These views were written in articles and shared in the Gutai bulletin. Artistically speaking, the Gutai group maintained their collective identity by having group exhibitions and group journals. The importance of the individual comes into play in the diversity of the artists themselves. The styles and approaches greatly varied with in the group. They also had many existential reflections like Jean Fautrier and Jackson Pollock. Their principles of emancipation were from the rapid dehumanizing industrial growth that was happening in Japan. Their concerns were close to that of Allan Kaprow, the Situationist International, the Dutch group Nul, and the Brazilian Ne0o-concretists 〔Kee, J. "Situating a Singular Kind of 'Action': Early Gutai Painting, 1954 1957." Oxford Art Journal 26.2 (2003): 121-40. Web.〕 The group worked together for 18 years and dissolved after the sudden death of Yoshihara in March 1972. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gutai group」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|