New York – Gutai: “Splendid Playground” at The Guggenheim Museum Through May 8th, 2013
Tuesday, April 30th, 2013
Gutai: Splendid Playground (Installation View), Courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The main hall of the Guggenheim Museum’s signature, spiraling exhibition space is currently dominated by an enormous hanging sculpture. Long plastic envelopes swim over the atrium, filled with brightly-dyed water that casts faint, glimmering shadows on the floor below. This is Work (Water), by Motonaga Sadamasa, a foundational member of the Gutai art collective. Hailing from the Japanese town of Osaka, the Gutai helped to define the vibrant Japanese contemporary and conceptual art scene of post-war Japan. Blending an open exploration of the raw materials of creation with a playfully subversive worldview, the Gutai made enormous contributions to the contemporary art practice worldwide.
Shiraga Kazuo, Work II (1958), Oil on paper, mounted on canvas 183 x 243 cm HyÅgo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe
