Gutai: Splendid Playground is a retrospective on the Gutai artist collective, which was centered around the artist Yoshihara Jiro. Inspired by Jiro's concepts of engaging physical matter and playing with beauty and decay, the collective would grow to include 59 artists between 1954 and 1972, and it would produce all types of media––painting, film, performance, sculpture, environmental design, light design, sound, and installation.
Seeing shows at the Guggenheim is particularly interesting because artwork instantly becomes a tribute to the museum's architecture. This collaboration between space and subject is most apparent when you first enter the lobby. Suspended from the concrete spiral of the interior is simple plastic tubing containing colored water, creating an entryway into the whimiscal and colorful world of Gutai. On one floor is a bell in a glass box with the instructions "push here," with a museum docent's hand authoritatively resting on it. According to him, the bell triggers a series of alarms that were found to be so annoying during the opening, that the curators asked that the bell only be rung at 20 minute intervals.
Like the plastic tubes that hang inside the center of the museum, the work of the Gutai artists is remarkably simple. It creates majesty out of the common, and richly conceived alternate worlds out of the materials of this one. Jiro believed in art-making as a form of regaining the cultural identity of a post-War Japan, and that nature, technology, and the body should all be celebrated through the artwork generated from them.
Through May 8th, 2013
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
1071 5th Ave
New York, NY 10128
MAP![]()
Tanaka Atsuko, Electric Dress, 1956 (refabricated 1986). Synthetic paint on incandescent lightbulbs, electric cords, and control console, approximately 165 × 80 × 80 cm. Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Japan. © Itō Ryōji, courtesy Takamatsu City Museum of Art.
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Installation view: Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, February 15–May 8, 2013. Photo: David Heald, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
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Installation view: Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, February 15–May 8, 2013. Photo: David Heald, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
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Installation view: Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, February 15–May 8, 2013. Photo: David Heald, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
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Murakami Saburō, Passing Through, 1956. Performance view: 2nd Gutai Art Exhibition, Ohara Kaikan, Tokyo, ca. October 11–17, 1956. © Murakami Makiko and the former members of the Gutai Art Association, courtesy Museum of Osaka University.
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Gutai Art Association, The International Sky Festival, 1960. Installation view: Takashimaya department store, Osaka, April 19–24, 1960. © The former members of the Gutai Art Association, courtesy Museum of Osaka University.
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Seeing shows at the Guggenheim is particularly interesting because artwork instantly becomes a tribute to the museum's architecture. This collaboration between space and subject is most apparent when you first enter the lobby. Suspended from the concrete spiral of the interior is simple plastic tubing containing colored water, creating an entryway into the whimiscal and colorful world of Gutai. On one floor is a bell in a glass box with the instructions "push here," with a museum docent's hand authoritatively resting on it. According to him, the bell triggers a series of alarms that were found to be so annoying during the opening, that the curators asked that the bell only be rung at 20 minute intervals.
Like the plastic tubes that hang inside the center of the museum, the work of the Gutai artists is remarkably simple. It creates majesty out of the common, and richly conceived alternate worlds out of the materials of this one. Jiro believed in art-making as a form of regaining the cultural identity of a post-War Japan, and that nature, technology, and the body should all be celebrated through the artwork generated from them.
Through May 8th, 2013
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
1071 5th Ave
New York, NY 10128
MAP
Tanaka Atsuko, Electric Dress, 1956 (refabricated 1986). Synthetic paint on incandescent lightbulbs, electric cords, and control console, approximately 165 × 80 × 80 cm. Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Japan. © Itō Ryōji, courtesy Takamatsu City Museum of Art.
Installation view: Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, February 15–May 8, 2013. Photo: David Heald, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
Installation view: Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, February 15–May 8, 2013. Photo: David Heald, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
Installation view: Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, February 15–May 8, 2013. Photo: David Heald, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
Murakami Saburō, Passing Through, 1956. Performance view: 2nd Gutai Art Exhibition, Ohara Kaikan, Tokyo, ca. October 11–17, 1956. © Murakami Makiko and the former members of the Gutai Art Association, courtesy Museum of Osaka University.
Gutai Art Association, The International Sky Festival, 1960. Installation view: Takashimaya department store, Osaka, April 19–24, 1960. © The former members of the Gutai Art Association, courtesy Museum of Osaka University.
