Into the Unknown World — GUTAI: Differentiation and Integration ”Integration：The National Museum of Art, Osaka”

The Gutai Art Association (commonly known as Gutai) was formed in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture in 1954, before later establishing its base of operations in Osaka’s Nakanoshima district. Led by the painter Jiro Yoshihara (1905-1972), the collective’s artists, both male and female, set out to express themselves freely without being confined by existing precedents. While Gutai was a unified group, it was unique in that the artists made use of a host of different approaches. Presented in conjunction with the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, this exhibition, dealing with the themes of differentiation and integration, examines the 18-year history of Gutai, which has at last attained international renown, and the artists’ individual practices from a wide range of perspectives.

Integration｜The National Museum of Art, Osaka
Gutai was, at least at its outset, a group of ‘painters’. If traced back, their numerous art practices, which have diversified over time, can be said to be the result of a desire for freedom from the norms of painting. The problem is, how did they dismantle and then reconstruct the essence of painting? Depending on how you perceive the “essence” of painting, and whether or not you try to dismantle this and then try to create a picture, the novelty that arises out of this this will naturally change. At the National Museum of Art, Osaka, we will examine the history of Gutai from a macro perspective and attempt to identify some trends through the work of repeated questioning, which unfolds in various ways. The main goal here is to reveal the internal differences of the group, which is not necessarily monolithic, and then to “unify” it.