GUTAI: A UTOPIA OF THE MODERN SPIRIT

By: Hirai Shoichi (2012)

1. The Activities of Gutai

In August 1954, Yoshihara Jiro, an Ashiya, Hyogobased artist who had been active in the avant-grade since
before the war, established the Gutai Art Association
with a group of young artists living in the Hanshin area
(located between Osaka and Kobe). The avant-garde
group remained active until disbanding in the wake of
Yoshiharas abrupt death in March 1972.

Gutais eighteen-year career can be divided into
three major phases. Today, these phases are generally
referred to as the early, middle, and late periods.

To be more precise, the first period runs from
1954, when Gutai was formed, to 1957, the year that the
group met Michel Tapi.

As exemplified by the two outdoor events held in
Ashiya Park in 1955 and 1956, and the stage presentations
that were held in 1957, the early period was distinguished
by the groups ambitious approach. This involved making
use not only of indoor exhibition venues but a variety of
other sites, the destruction of preconceived notions, and
the creation of unknown beauty based on Yoshiharas
stern directives exhorting the members to avoid imitating
others and to do things that had never been done
before. This yielded work that transcended the realm of
conventional painting and sculpture, and was imbued
with a material quality, a link between matter and space,
a sense of action and physicality, and a temporal theme
as well as work that incorporated light, sound, and
movement. Although Gutais work was largely ignored

at the time in Japan, in the 80s, the group began to be

reevaluated in the West as a precursor to installations,
environmental art, light art, and performance art.

The middle period encompasses the groups
activities between 1957 to 1965.

This period begins with Gutais meeting with
the French art critic Michel Tapi and subsequent
transformation into an international art group that served
as a standard-bearer of Art Informel, a new movement
that was championed by Tapi. Art Informel (the word
informel has been translated as indeterminate or
undifferentiated form) referred to a type of aesthetics
rooted in Tapis topological concept of a comprehensive
view of Abstract Expressionism as a trend that emerged
simultaneously throughout the West, marking a clear
break from the prewar era. Tapi first learned of Gutai
through a copy of the groups journal he had obtained
in Paris. After embarking on a trip to Japan to verify the
quality of Gutais work, he set out to introduce the groups
work to the West in a self-organized exhibition. But as
foreign travel required a great deal of time and money
at the time, it would have been difficult to create what
would today be referred to as an installation by inviting
the artists to undertake on-site production. Moreover,
as Tapi was directly involved in the buying and selling
of art, it became essential for Gutai to adopt painting as
a unified means of production, in light of the mediums
greater portability and salability.

The final period in the groups career stretches
from 1965 to Gutais dissolution in 1972.
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During this period, Yoshihara began to sense
danger as the Informel-style abstract expressions that
emphasized the materiality of actions and materials
threatened to reduce Gutai to a stereotype. Thus, along
with the 15th Gutai Art Exhibition, held at the Gutai
Pinacotheca in July 1965, the period was defined by an
effort to revitalize the group by taking a proactive approach
to the new abstract forms that were emerging without
restricting the artists to the production of painting. This
led to a new emphasis on inorganic, systematic abstract
expressions the polar opposite of the Informel-style
hot abstractions and technology art, which made
use of stainless steel, plastic, motors, and special lights.
By accepting a large number of outside artists into the
group, Yoshihara succeeded in revitalizing Gutai, but at
the same time, this caused the organization to become
bloated and created a hierarchy between the members,
a greater rigidity in interpersonal relationships, and a
weakening of the emotional bonds between Yoshihara
and the rest of the group.

Following the spectacular performances at the
Gutai Art Festival held at the Japan World Exposition in
Osaka in 1970, which in effect functioned as a finale, the
group disbanded at the end of March 1972 in the wake of
Yoshiharas sudden death the previous month.
2. Perspectives: The Reevaluation of Gutai

In the past, the most highly esteemed aspects of
Gutais lengthy eighteen-year career were the originality,
innovation, and pioneering spirit imbued in works from
the early period that could not be defined by conventional
concepts of painting and sculpture in part because they
were primarily staged outside or on the stage. This critical
perspective can be traced to the reevaluation of Gutai that
occurred as part of the Japon des Avant Gardes: 19101970 exhibition, held at the Centre Georges Pompidou in
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Paris in 1986, which exerted a great influence not only

on subsequent assessments of the group in Europe but
also in Japan.

In addition, as expressionist-style painting,
exemplified by the so-called New Painting movement,
also began to flourish in Japan during that period, Gutais
Informel-style paintings and international activities of
the groups middle period also came to be reevaluated.
The Action et Emotion, Peintures des Annes 50 Informel,
Guta, Cobra exhibition, held at the National Museum of
Art, Osaka in 1985, was typical of this perspective.

The reevaluation of the early and middle
periods that occurred in the mid-80s determined the
reevaluation of Gutai in Tokyo and Japan as a whole and
has for the most part continued to the present. In other
words, Gutai is esteemed as a group that created works
with an unprecedented degree of originality, innovation,
and pioneering spirit in the early years, and then as the
first Japanese art group to be primarily engaged in an
international avant-garde movement in the middle years.
This led the relationship between these two periods to
become a central theme in discussions of the group. To
be more precise, the main question was whether one
saw the shift from the early period, which contained a
variety of expressive orientations and possibilities, to
the middle period, in which the expressive approach
was centralized in the medium of painting as a result
of the groups meeting with Tapi, to be a negative
development or if, on the contrary, this development
was simply inevitable.

Yet, this perspective completely overlooked the
late period. The late Gutai works and activities showed
none of the originality, innovation, and pioneering spirit
of the early years, nor did they display anything as
spectacular as the internationality of the middle period.
Moreover, the changes that occurred in the group as it
moved into the late period seemed incongruous and

lacked a sense of inevitability. As a result, late Gutai

came to be seen as a period of decline, and with the sole
exception of the Yoshihara Jiro and Gutai exhibition that
was held at the Ashiya Civic Center in 1985, none of the
retrospectives that were held in Japan, including those in
Tokyo, and abroad beginning in the 80s included a single
later work.1

lacks a grounding in modern Japanese art history and

fact. Or to put it another way, there is at present a need
to reexamine the true nature of Gutai based on the
essential components of the group, including the late
period, and reassess the historical significance of the
groups activities.

It is certainly true that many works from this era
suggest the influence of emerging trends in abstract
expression, particularly American movements such
as Optical art, Hard-edge and Systemic painting, and
Primary Structures. Even so, there is surely a need to
carefully verify and reevaluate the historical facts of the
pioneering character and international influence of the
works that transcend conventional notions of painting
and sculpture from the early period which serves as
the foundation for Gutais global fame. It is indisputable
that extremely original and innovative expressions
emerged during the early period based on Yoshiharas
stern exhortations to avoid copying others and create
things that had never been made before, but it would be
wrong to imply that there was absolutely no precedent
for contemporary expressive formats such as installations
and Environmental art prior to the existence of Gutai.2
There is also a tendency to overestimate Gutai based on
the form of the works and documentary photographs as
in the case of single images that capture a momentary
action in Shiraga Kazuos Challenging Mud and Murakami
Saburos Entrance. This has given rise to the misconception
that the artists actions were in themselves works and led
to the groups reputation as pioneers in performance art
without explaining that the pictures were actually taken
at displays of the artists production processes that were
staged for the media instead of being performed for a
crowd of spectators.

3. The Meaning of the Mottos

It is vital that we distant ourselves from stereotypes
of this kind particularly prevalent abroad which place
an overwhelming emphasis on innovative expression
and attempt to put forward a revised view of Gutai that

What was the essence of Gutai? In an eighteenyear career defined by constant change, there was
one aspect about the group that remained consistent:
Yoshiharas reliance on mottos like Dont copy anyone
else! and Make something thats never been made
before!

Both of these sentiments were designed to
inspire the exhaustive pursuit of original and innovative
expression. But why was Yoshihara so obsessed with
originality and innovation? In 1955, not long after Gutais
formation, Yoshihara wrote:

It is our desire to embody the fact that our
spirit is free. It is also our hope that no restrictions will
be placed on the desire to experience fresh sensations
through every form of expression. Yoshihara Jiro,
Hakkan ni saishite (On the Occasion of Publication),
Gutai, inaugural issue, Gutai Art Association, 1955

[The Gutai artists] are concerned more with
putting all of themselves into the act of creating and
painting than whether or not what theyre doing is art.
Things that dont fit into the category of art seem to be
even more appealing to them, and they have absolutely
no intention of following in anyone elses footsteps. More
than anything, they take pleasure in leaping into unknown
worlds and surprising themselves. And they believe
that discovery itself merits respect. The Gutai artists
are especially serious and joyous about experiencing
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direct emotions and making direct connections between

spirit and matter. They are freely burning with life.
Yoshihara Jiro, Gutai no hitobito (Gutai People),
postcard invitation to the 1st Gutai Art Exhibition, Gutai
Art Association, 1955

to people like Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and

Henri Rousseau. Cezanne and Van Gogh in particular
were like two tutelary deities to me. Yoshihara
Jiro, Waga kokoro no jijoden (Autobiography of My
Heart), Kobe Shimbun, 1967

Several of the phrases contained in these
passages our spirit is free, making direct connections
between spirit and matter, fresh sensations, serious
and joyous, and burning with life hold the key
to grasping the essence of Gutai. In other words, to
Yoshihara, the acts of destroying preconceived notions
and developing original and innovative expressions
was an act of freeing the spirit and completely burning
with life, or in contemporary parlance, his ideas were
a synonym for self-actualization. And it is the most
direct and suitable expression of such these impressions,
attained through self-actualization, using color, form, and
matter that lies at the heart of the groups work (as well
as the name Gutai). Yoshihara was fixated on abstract
expression and maintained an absolute hatred for the
use of reproductive, descriptive, and literary elements in
art. To him, a work was not something that functioned to
visualize a narrative that was derived from an image of an
object but was instead a direct expression of the spirit.

Born in 1905, Yoshihara attend junior high school
(which under the old education system was equivalent
to senior high school) in the early 20s, or the latter part
of the Taisho Period, which continued for fifteen years. In
a drive to modernize industries from the previous Meiji
Period, the Taisho era is remembered as a time of great
modernization in terms of the inner world of the individual.
Against a backdrop of human rights and an increased
awareness of the meaning of existence, the period
would later give rise to movements and philosophical
trends such as Taisho democracy and Taisho liberalism,
and similarly inspired an expressionistic movement that
placed great importance on individuality, spirituality, and
vitality in a variety of artistic fields. As suggested by the
passage above, it is evident that Yoshihara was strongly
influenced by the Shirakaba-ha, which were renowned
for an emphasis on the dignity of human life and personal
character, idealism, humanitarianism, and individualism,
and that he was also deeply affected by the distinctive
expressions of the Post-Impressionists, who were being
introduced in the same type of publications.

Moreover, in retracing Yoshiharas philosophy
of assigning the greatest value to the spirit and selfactualization, one ultimately arrives at the education the
artist received as a youth as indicated by the following
passage dating from his later years:
During that period, in terms of literature, novels
connected to the Shirakaba-ha [lit. White Birch
School] and [the literary journal] Shinshicho were
being widely read, and in junior high school, Russian
literature like Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky
was also popular, as it was somewhat trendy to be a
literary youth. I was also greatly influenced by art
magazines like Mizue and Atelier, and devoted myself
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Seen in this context, the mottos Yoshihara used in
Gutai seem to have germinated in the 20s, long before
the formation of the group, and to have assumed special
significance in the revitalization of the modern spirit that
was prohibited during the war. Just as the government,
which at the time was deeply rooted in the imperial
system, restricted the Shirakaba-has advocacy of the
aforementioned values, not every approach to liberating
the spirit and attaining self-actualization was admissible
in Gutai. It is a well-known fact that Yoshihara wielded
an absolute power that extended far beyond the scope
of the word leader. Not only did he determine the

groups artistic direction, but Yoshihara also controlled

every aspect of Gutai, including everything from devising
the most effective strategy for attracting attention to
the group to deciding the order of the displays in an
exhibition. A similar approach was also used in selecting
the groups works: Determining whether something
was truly an original expression was based solely on
Yoshiharas erudition, which was rooted in a sensitivity to
new Japanese and foreign artistic trends that he had been
cultivating since before the war, and an artistic intuition
that provided him insight into the quality of a work and
told him whether it was good or bad. Informed by a
deep hatred of anything grotesque, vulgar or offensive,
Yoshiharas personal tastes and ethical views served as
the evaluation criteria. In that sense, the artists works,
which had to pass Yoshiharas strict inspection before
they could be cleared for inclusion in a Gutai exhibition,
are tinged with an aspect that is not entirely their own. It
would probably be more accurate to say that they were
collaborations between Yoshihara and the artists.

Thus, there was a definite gap between Yoshiharas
concept of freedom, which had been cultivated before
the war, and that of the groups members, who had
reached adulthood after the war, particularly in light of
the fact that many other avant-garde groups of the day
were formed by young artists who sought a platform
for totally unrestricted free expression. In contrast to
this violent revolt against the feudal structure of many
Japanese art groups and the hierarchy of the art world
that had continued since before the war, Gutais abiding
character as an avant-garde group serves as a strange
reflection of Yoshiharas attempt to maintain the status
quo as absolute leader. The fact that the members
obeyed Yoshiharas demands was perhaps connected to
the satisfaction they felt in finally realizing a truly original
expression after repeatedly enduring the process of
bringing their work to him only to have it be refused, and
then going back and trying to redo it but being rejected
again. In other words, Yoshihara bestowed joy on the

artists by helping them attain genuine self-actualization

through his power as an erstwhile officiating monk.
And as exemplified by the episode in which Tapi became
aware of Gutai through the groups journal and marveled
at the quality of the artists work, the perception that
Yoshiharas strategic management of the group and
intuitive judgment of the quality of the work were wholly
unerring, inspired a sense of reverence and absolute trust
while also giving rise to a strong emotional bond between
him and the members. In histories of Gutai, many of the
groups former members refer to Yoshihara as a master
or teacher, and consequently call themselves students
or pupils.
4. The Japanese Avant-garde

As I have explained, by attempting to understand
the true nature of Gutai through the meaning of the
mottos with Yoshiharas statements as a guide, it is
possible to arrive at an image of the group that differs
from the clichd view of Gutai as pioneers in art history.
In effect, Gutai was not merely a group that pursued new
abstract expressions based on the precepts of not copying
others and making something that had never been made
before. It was also a spiritual undertaking that involved
consistently embracing the spirit of the individual artist
as a motif. This aspect underlies the groups entire career,
from formation to dissolution, as Yoshihara employed
his own aesthetic intuition to determine the quality of
the groups work while placing special importance on
the liberation of the spirit and self-actualization. Gutai
is not purely based on a visualization of the abstract,
but is a group that attained an international standing
by combining this aspect with the universal motif of the
spirit.

To go one step further, with Yoshihara Jiros
modernist notion of spiritual rejuvenation informed
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by the modern culture that flourished in prewar Osaka

and Ashiya as a driving force, Gutai thrived as a group
in which conflicting elements such as Yoshiharas own
aesthetic intuition and strategic insight, the prewar
generation (Yoshihara) and the postwar generation
(the members), Yoshiharas sense of reason and the
members wild actions constantly repelled each other. It
was this at times splendidly complimentary relationship
that culminated in the groups unique and unparalleled
position in Japanese postwar art history.

Based on this perspective, in attempting to
reassess the concrete expression of the artists spirit,
one might turn to the mirror of high-economic growth
of the postwar period. For example, early works rooted
in violent actions such as Shiraga Kazuos Challenging
Mud and Murakami Saburos Passage function as a
tabula rasa in the wake of Japans military defeat, and
represent contemporary young peoples inner desire to
reexamine their own being on a physical level. Similarly,
the late works, which seemed to have been mechanically
produced at a factory, can be seen as the product of the
zeitgeist and the identity theory of the late 60s, an era
marked by a universal belief in a brilliant future supported
by technology and filled with widespread admiration
for mass production and consumption. In other words,
though the groups works seem confrontational in terms
of their structure, it is evident that they are actually linked
on a much deeper level to what can only be described as
the spirit of the times.

The notion of modern spiritual rejuvenation
mobilized Yoshihara while also serving as one of the
motivating forces behind Gutai. This was neither a form of
nostalgia for Yoshiharas youth nor a bourgeoisie game
in which he averted his eyes from the problems of reality
a criticism that was often leveled at Yoshihara as the
proprietor of a large corporation. Rather, it was rooted
in the exact opposite a sense of purpose in striving to
rebuild postwar Japan that was shared by a man, who
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through his standing exerted a social influence on people

of his own generation, and a group of people from a
different generation. The following passage, written by
Yoshihara to commemorate the publication of the first
issue of the Gutai journal, can also be interpreted as an
expression of determination to embark on a career as an
art group:
Contemporary art is a realm that provides the
greatest freedom for those who have survived the
severe conditions of the present, and the creation
of art in this free realm is the very thing that will
contribute to the development of the human race.
Yoshihara Jiro, Hakkan in saishite (On the
Occasion of Publication), Gutai, inaugural issue,
Gutai Art Association, 1955

It seems that Yoshihara truly believed that
pursuing new horizons in art was connected to the
liberation of the spirit and would help people live a
better life in turbulent times as well as contributing
to the development of the human race as a whole.
Needless to say, modernization was not only made up
of positive aspects but also brought its share of negative
developments such as environmental destruction and
pollution-related diseases. Yoshihara, however, seems to
have intentionally ignored the bad side of modernization
and focused solely on the bright, constructive aspects
that he also demanded of Gutais members. If Yoshihara
believed that art would force Japan, after its military
defeat, to become a modern nation of the sort that it
was destined to be before the war, and a country that
could engage in discourse on equal terms with the West
based on a shared set of values, one might also say that
Gutai offered him a practical means of achieving the goal
of a modern Utopia that was thoroughly characteristic
of someone who had been steeped in the liberalism
of the 20s, and that the group was a kind of social
movement akin to Mushanokoji Saneatsus (a key figure

in the Shirakaba-ha) New Village,3 with ramifications

that extended far beyond the scope of art.

a dam, the community relocated to Iruma-gun, Saitama Prefecture, where they

established two villages, Atarashiki-mura and Hyuga Atarashiki-mura, both of
which are still in existence.

Not only is Gutai nearly the only Japanese art
group that is known abroad, it is also a group that is
burdened at home with Japans postwar recovery. And
at this point in time, there is much that we, as Japanese,
can learn from the spiritual legacy of this movement.
Notes:
Abridged from a text for the catalogue of GUTAI: The Spirit of an Era, The National
Art Center, Tokyo, 2012.
The principal Gutai retrospectives that have been held in Japan and abroad since the
80s are as follows:
1985 The Jiro Yoshihara and Gutai exhibition is held at Ashiya Civic Center,
The Group Gutai: Painting and Action (Grupo Gutai: Pintura y Accion) exhibition
is held at the Museo Espaol de Arte Contemporaneo in Madrid, and later travels to
Belgrade and Kobe.
1990 The Gutai: The Avant-garde Group Unfinished exhibition is held at the
Shoto Museum of Art in Tokyo. The Japan of Avant-garde: The Group Gutai in the
50s (Giappone allavanguardia; Il Gruppo Gutai negli anni Cinquanta) exhibition is
held at the Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna in Rome.
1991 The Gutai Japanese Avant-garde 1954-1965 (Gutai Japanische Avantgarde
1954-1965) exhibition is held at the Mathildenhhe Darmstadt, The Adventurers of
Paintings Gutai exhibition is held at the Fukuoka Art Museum.
1992 The Artists of Gutai Art Association exhibition is held at the Miyagi Museum
of Art, The Gutai I: 1954-1958 exhibition is held at the Ashiya City Museum of Art &
History, The Outdoor Exhibition Revived, organized by the Ashiya City Museum of
Art & History, is held in Ashiya Park.
1993 The Gutai II: 1959-1965 exhibition and The Gutai III: 1965-1972 exhibition
exhibition are held at the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History, The Challenge of Art
After the War: Jiro Yoshihara and the Gutai Group exhibition is held at the Museum
of Art in Ehime, The Gutai 1955-56: A Restarting Point of Japanese Contemporary
Art exhibition is held at the Penrose Institute in Tokyo.
1999 The Gutai exhibition is held at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in
Paris.
2002 The Artists of Gutai Art Association exhibition is held at the Miyagi Museum
of Art.
2004 The GUTAI 1954-1972 exhibition is held at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum
of Art.
2009 The Under Each Others Spell: The Gutai Group and New York exhibition is
held at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in New York.
2010 The Gutai Group exhibition is held at Museo Cantonale dArte, Lugano.

Works that consisted of an entire space containing an art object and performance
art that made use of the stage are reminiscent of the so-called New Art Movements
that flourished in Tokyo and Kobe in the mid-20s. For more information on the Kobe
movement, see Harada no mori no shinko bijutsu undo (The Harada no Mori New
Art Movement), Hanshinkan Modernism, Tankosha, 1997, pp. 190-192. There is a
strong possibility that this movement influenced Yoshihara, as he was attending
Kwansei Gakuin University during this period in Kobe.

In 1918, Mushanokoji Saneatsu and a group of his associates created a settlement in

Koyu-gun, Miyazaki Prefecture in an effort to realize a kind of Utopian world. In 1938,
after a portion of the farmland was submerged in water due to the construction of

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