About the Exhibition

Karuizawa New Art Museum Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of “Tsuyoshi Maekawa and GUTAI-JIN”; Maekawa is known as one of the prominent figures of GUTAI Art Association (1954~1972). In this exhibition, many important works of Gutai members (GUTAI-JIN) who were also active as the vanguards of contemporary art even after the dissolution of the group.

GUTAI Art Association a.k.a. “GUTAI” was formed in Ashiya-city in 1954 aiming to find a way of expression beyond any conventional style. Young artists who converged on the founder, Jiro Yoshihara, searched for original style by their own way according to Yoshihara’s motto “Don’t copy anyone!”, “Do what no one has ever done before!”.

Maekawa who belonged to the second generation of GUTAI, adopted “dongoros” (hempf cloth) on canvas like a relief, three-dimensional structure. Maekawa stood out due to his strength of materiality within the group which has a strong tendency for abstract expressionism. By making full use of the characteristics of “dongoros”, which combines flexibility and strength, Maekawa opened up unprecedent expression which is bold as well as sensitive. GUTAI disbanded in 1972; this year became a turning point for Maekawa. Thereafter, he increased the tendency of refinement and added fresh angles to his creation while keeping his sculptural approach as ever.

In this exhibition, circa 50 works of more than 20 “GUTAI-JIN”, who kept innovating artistic expression, will be simultaneously displayed. Most of the exhibited works are from our gallery collection. Please come visit to this precious opportunity.

Represented artists ( random order ):
Tsuyoshi Maekawa, Kazuo Shiraga, Sadamasa Motonaga, Atsuko Tanaka, Tsuruko Yamazaki, Jiro Yoshihara, Chiyu Uemae, Yasuo Sumi, Takesada Matsutani, Yuko Nasaka, Senkichiro Nasaka, Teruyuki Tsubouchi, Shozo Shimamoto, Yutaka Matsuda, Yozo Ukita, Kumiko Imanaka, Sadaharu Horio, Minoru Onoda, Aine Kinashi, Michio Yoshihara, Norio Imai, Minoru Yoshida, Motonao Takasaki, Keiko Moriuchi, Saburo Murakami, Shuji Mukai