Shuji Mukai(1940~)’s work is based on symbolic motifs, but his thinking was ahead of its time. At a time when most artists were working on innovations in materials and drawing methods, Mukai’s idea was to fill the world with symbols, things that were not even material, and foreshadowed the environmental art that would come later.

Mukai himself saw painting as a space (world) and was interested in entering its interior. He said that among the Gutai artists, he was most interested in Kazuo Shiraga, who embodied and produced the Gutai style.

At the jazz cafe “Check” in Umeda, Osaka, which opened in 1962, he covered everything in the shop, including the walls and furniture, with symbols. Today, various forms of expression, such as installations, are recognized as art. At that time, however, only a few artists practiced this form of expression.

Expression transcends materiality and symbols can be drawn on any object.  In some of his earlier photographs, the artist himself is no exception to this rule, and in some of his works the person on whom the symbols are drawn has entered the work. Mukai’s symbols proliferate and eventually encompass everything.

Restroom covered with symbols at our Museum

Mr. Mukai in the midst of filling the restroom with symbols in 2014.