The Gutai Group: Japanese Avant-Garde

The Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai or Gutai Art Association was founded in 1954 by Yoshihara Jiro, Kanayma Akira, Murakami Saburo, Shiraga Kazuo, and Shimamoto Shozo in Osaka, Japan. The Gutai Artists have been likened to abstract expressionist in that their art tended to look at the object in a new way.(IEAS Berkeley) The Gutai artist began to think about objects and thier relation to themselves and how they used them to create art."Gutai art does not change the material but brings it to life. Gutai art does not falsify the material." "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."(The Gutai Manifesto) Their works were precursors to the happenings and performance art that would follow in the Western world.(Tate)




http://www.ashiya-web.or.jp/museum/10us/103education/nyumon_us/manifest_us.htm
http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=130
http://ieas.berkeley.edu/events/2003.02.06.html