We, human beings love to determine subjects or objects unknown and unfamiliar to us. When we meet something we haven’t seen, feel, heard, smell or taste before, we all have the urge to understand it and to solve it. We love solving mysteries. In order to do so, we would do anything to question, to dig into or to experiment to get results that satisfy and easy us in every possible way. In simple, we are afraid of not knowing because each of us feeds on knowledge and we will not stop until we find out why’s, what’s, who’s, how’s, when’s, and where’s. But sometimes, we cannot seem to find answers to everything, and then we become frustrated and begin to debate between one another about each side’s personal opinion to come to a common ground that both can agree on. This pretty much happens all the time from past to present and to the future, people from each period reacts and acts differently. Thus, the answers are not consistent; they change from time to time, to fit in each timeline, or should I say, to fit in the society.
For many years, artists and critical thinkers tried to reposition the wide-ranging cultural discourse about contemporary Asian art in Asia. The interaction between the cultures of Asia and the West is one of the most important events in the world history. Before modernity, before both East and West have a deep interest in uniting artistic thoughts, religions, and cultural differences, they are two distinctive worlds unknown to each other. Yet in a very indirect and subtle way, Eastern concepts did eventually come to influence the eighteenth-century Western taste and naturally be influenced as well. It was that time when East and West have been slightly conscious of each other’s aims and artistic ideals. They have written and compared each other to themselves about the expression of the great civilization they admired.
With the rise of Asia’s capitalist economies in the 1950s, artistic concepts and cultures from each region took place into a wider Western world. The most visible prove is the pace of construction of different cities from countries such as Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan, following up are China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippine that caught the Western’s attention. Asia’s urban explosion had opened a bigger window to Western countries when electronic media is starting to be used vastly for communication.1 This took decades of confrontations and conflicts about how to actually identify Asian art to fit in the global arena.
In this essay, I have chosen two artworks that are of particular significance to my practice to discuss. They are Work created by Jirō Yoshihara in 1965 (fig. 1) and A Matrix done by Takesada Matsutani in 2013 (fig. 2). Jirō Yoshihara is a Japanese painter and is well known as the leader of Gutai Art Association (Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai) – one of the most important avant-garde art movement representatives of Japan’s post-war art world. Whereas Takesada Matsutani was a key member of the ‘second generation’ of the Gutai Art Association, his artistic language is hugely influenced by Jirō Yoshihara as Matsutani was one of Jirō’s disciple. The relationship between these protagonists is able to continue inspiring viewers and artists all around the globe and carries the Gutai spirit for decades or maybe even centuries. Both artists are from the Gutai group, so I will be focusing on Gutai Art Association as an example of Asian art movement into the Western world.
Jirō Yoshihara was born in 1905 into a wealthy family which held the merchant business of vegetable oil in Osaka. He did not receive any education during childhood but somehow manages to take his doctor’s degree in economics at the University of Kansai in 1928. In the same year after completing his education, he held his first solo exhibition showing some of his earliest works such as Fish, Morning Glories and Others. Through this show, he began his career and quickly established himself as a modernist artist of abstraction and Surrealism. He was attracted and influenced by the work of Giorgio de Chirico. Yoshihara later joined the Nika-kai group, a group of fauvist style painters, as a figurative painter and later as an abstract painter. Although his surrealist manner became popular among Japanese avant-garde art during the 1930s, he was not satisfied with his own style. Moderately, he changed his style to pure abstract painting adopting the painting style of Art informel in the 1950s.
In late 1954, the Gutai Art Association (Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai) was founded under the guidance of Yoshihara together with Shozo Shimamoto in Ashiya, west of Osaka. They are both inspired and attracted to Zen calligraphy and famous action painter Jackson Pollock. Despite all the admiration for Pollock, Yoshihara who was once a businessman knew he had to be original in order to break out into the barrier of international. To preserve the exquisite tradition of art in Japan and the same time having a big impact in modern art, Yoshihara understood the importance of individualism in art. Hence, his motto “Never imitate others: do what no one has done before.” is always mentioned in his teachings. His words inspired many of the members of the association like Chiyu Uemae, Kazuo Shiraga, Atsuko Tanaka, Saburo Murakami, Sadamasa Motonaga and more.
The kanji constructed name of Gutai (具体) was suggested by Shozo Shimamoto, ‘gu’ (具) meaning ‘tool’, and ‘tai’ (体) meaning ‘body’ was combined to reflect the dedication relationship between body and matter. Yoshihara considers it to mean ‘concreteness’ and ‘embodiment’.2 Gutai emerged at a time when Japanese modernist artists were struggling to rediscover their voices after the war. The wealthy Jirō Yoshihara had funded many of the group’s projects and even built a library of art related resources from all over the world to keep updated with the modern art world. He started receiving students in 1947 that was before founding Gutai Art Association. As a leader and a teacher, Yoshihara was extremely active in stressing about how and why to modernize the Japanese traditional arts like calligraphy, ink painting, pottery, and so on. It was not just a matter of changing or abandoning traditions but rather creating something entirely new, at the same time was able to forge an identity that was both modern and Japanese.3 He was specifically strict about the Gutai members’ creations, their works must be filtered and approved by him and himself only before revealing themselves to the public.
To strengthen his teachings and outline the goals of the Gutai group to the modern art world, Yoshihara wrote the Gutai manifesto in December 1956. The manifesto emphasizes that Gutai art does not alter the materials or matters but brings it to life by fusing the human spirit together with objects. Materials such as paint, clay, marble and more, which are used by human hands to demonstrate forms and shapes are silenced. The Gutai manifesto claims that materials and matters have their own voices but were never listened, seen or acknowledged by viewers and artists. They have their own characteristics and sometimes are able to speak more loudly than images. As Jirō Yoshihara wrote in the manifesto:
“Under the cloak of an intellectual aim, the materials have been completely murdered and can no longer speak to us. Lock these corpses into their tombs. … Art is the home of the creative spirit, but never until now has the spirit created the material. … Certainly the spirit has always filled art with life, but this life will finally die as the times change. ”4
Saying materials that were used as tools and were in disguise with artificial make-ups were murdered shows how concerned Yoshihara was in lifting the spirits of lifeless objects. Calling them corpses that should be buried suggested that it was time to free the materials from their sufferings of being objectified. It is time to reach out and communicate with them as they have behavior that will surprise us in many ways.
For an example, people are always fascinated by the beauty of ruins or destroyed heritage. They look good in photographs, full of mysteries to reveal and interesting to explore. In the destroyed architectures that were left behind, there is always a story and history behind. The changing process of the ruins results with cracks and flaking surfaces, the damages that happen to them across time brought out a whole new identity to themselves. It is almost like a celebration of finally revealing their original characteristics behind all those masks given by us humans. With the help of nature, they regained their inner life and started to communicate more. Or as the saying in the manifesto, they are finally able to receive us warmly and kindly, this could be a sign of the material taking revenge to reconnect with its innate life. Perhaps that is because why we could feel calm and mesmerized every time we visited somewhere ancient and historic. In simple, the main and sole goal of the Gutai group was to unite the human spirit with materials to create an artistic form that was more than an ‘archeological existence’.
Starting from early 1955, Yoshihara started publishing the Gutai Journals to document and record all the progress of Gutai Art Association. The journals allowed Gutai to disseminate their works internationally; they collected photographs of the group’s activities, artworks, film, essays, interviews, and articles. Their main purpose was to connect themselves with viewers, audiences, artists, critics and art historians around the globe, meanwhile promoting the group’s challenges as a new movement in Japan. With the intention of catching the public’s attention, Yoshihara sent the Gutai Journals to great artists who inspired him and the group, such as Allan Kaprow, Jackson Pollock, and Michel Tapié.5 It came out quite well as Yoshihara expected, they successfully caught the eyes of art world. Of course in the early stage Gutai faced many criticisms accusing that their art was copying Jackson Pollock.6 However, Yoshihara stressed that Gutai was not what the negative feedbacks claimed it would be, but rather took the inspiration it needed to address that they shared same qualities with Pollock. In the Gutai manifesto, Yoshihara praised and paid his respect to both Pollock and the Frenchman Georges Mathieu, as their works are said to “emit the loud outcry of the material”.7 Yoshihara insisted Gutai had created a whole new and different style but being in the same artistic realm as Pollock. The criticism stopped when the public knew that Jackson Pollock had recognized a vision and reality close to his own. Pollock’s death was reported in the pages of Gutai Journals, followed by his biographer B.H. Friedman. The group learned that Pollock had received two issues of Gutai Journals and was found in his library.8 Both artists from the East and West found a common ground to coexist and had an equal understanding of each other.
Jirō Yoshihara was not just an important character as the leader of Gutai Art Association, he was well aware that the individual identity of himself as a modernist painter had to go further beyond Gutai. During the 1960s, while still acting as the leader, he began focusing more on the maturation of his style and content. As a result of his next level self-improvement, he devised an enduring signature, the Enso/Circle series, and added in a new identity for himself.
Having been able to look back to his older works, Yoshihara realized that he had been repeating using line strokes, circles, and triangles in his paintings. The replication of circles through the years was created subconsciously due to his admiration and interest in Zen calligraphy. He started painting with calligraphic (kanji) characters in a manner of combining writing and painting. Through this, Yoshihara understood the limitations and restrictions of kanji. To exceed these limitations, he had to go beyond Gutai and kanji, simultaneously unifying the spiritual of materials and the calligraphic Zen idea. This was when his paintings started to go into minimalism as he then experiments on the wide range of circle, such as size, line thickness and flow with different techniques and materials. By creating these calligraphic circle marks, Yoshihara found peace as he admitted, “The circles saved me from having to think what to draw on every canvas.” He finally found his unique technique suitable for his individual identity. Work (fig. 1) was painted in 1965 and was one of his most proud works because very rare that he was satisfied with them. He explained in his 1967 statement:
“I must confess now that I am tormented with the fact that there have been times that I have been unable to draw a single circle satisfactorily. The fact that I have been unable to draw a single line makes me study the fundamental principles of art. Then, there remains a possibility of infinity in the form of endless trail. It means a dialogue with myself that I face the circle I have drawn. I determine then whether my turmoil or compromise with my circle has come to an end or not. Often the dissatisfaction of what I have done never leaves me.” 9
Yoshihara dedicated his whole life to Gutai and the Circles he created and was able to find himself in them. He reads the circles as a reflection on his solitary and spirit. Studying through the essence of Zen has led him to unify dualism of the Gutai spirit with his life and understandings that allow his paintings to carry his spirit eternally. Hence, the Gutai Art Association and the Circles were the two legacies of Jirō Yoshihara.10
The living proof that still carries on the Gutai spirit is Takesada Matsutani that is based in Paris. When the time Gutai was founded, he was still a boy. Being able to live in Osaka, near Ashiya, where the Gutai group was based, he was exposed to Gutai from a very young age. Eventually, he gained interest in the group and asked to join them in 1959. Unfortunately, his request was denied. As mentioned, Yoshihara was very strict and careful in selecting members of the group. Matsutani’s entry was denied because his works were said unoriginal. As the Gutai group was taught to never imitate, young Matsutani failed to impress them. A rejection without any further explanation made him furious but did not make him gave up, but in fact, he tried harder and harder each time he approached them. Although it was a great challenge, becoming part of the revolutionary group was the world to him at the age of 23.
He kept doing experiments in paintings to be approved by Yoshihara until one day; a friend who was studying in medical school showed him some microscope slides of cells. He was intrigued by the forms and shapes in the blood corpuscles through the microscope. He then started to replicate the movement and texture of blood cells with trying out different materials including ice on canvas. He wished to create paintings that were not flat and biologic. It did not take him long to find that vinyl glue carries the properties he wanted. During Matsutani’s experiments, he would try using different materials in different situations like indoor or outdoor. He found one of his favorite materials when trying to dry vinyl glue outdoor. The vinyl glue which is a little bit thicker than milk dries differently outdoor. With the help of natural temperature and the wind, the material dried and water inside evaporated slowly. This allowed Matsutani to realize that it dries first from the surface but the beneath part is still wet, making the texture like human skin, soft but wet inside. In order to dry it faster, Matsutani had an idea to cut it open, which made it look like a half opened flower. He was fascinated by the erotic and organic shape, even admitted in an interview on The Asian Art Newspaper, that the sexual quality was created unintended.11
He was quite satisfied with the discovery he has made and continued creating more. Next, he showed some of the ‘first generation’ Gutai members. He received positive feedbacks and was encouraged to show them to Yoshihara. Finally after three years of rejection, he got Yoshihara’s acceptation to join the Gutai group. Although he achieved his goal and exhibited alongside Gutai several times, he found that Gutai was not able to satisfy his artistic desires. In 1966, Matsutani won the first prize in a print exhibition between Kyoto and Paris. He was offered a scholarship award to Paris for six months, all expenses paid. He decided to take the offer as this was a very good opportunity to explore more outside Japan. In 1967, he ended up becoming William Hayter’s assistant while learning about engraving at Atelier 17. Through learning his experience at Atelier 17, he was able to transition from Gutai into a new body of work. Being able to support himself, he made the decision to stay in Paris for good and never went back to Japan. Matsutani was invited several times to go back and exhibit with the Gutai group but he declined. He wanted to tell stories about his traditional Japanese background and carry on the Gutai spirit.
Takesada Matsutani’s exploration of materials did not stop at vinyl glue; he continued his artistic journey further using graphite and ink to study the idea of movements. His works was not only concentrated in paintings, he also performed during the opening of his solo exhibition, A Matrix, at Hauser and Wirth in 2013. During the opening, he performed ‘Stream, London, Hauser & Wirth’ in the centre of the gallery (fig. 2). He placed a stone on top of a large piece of paper on the floor and a bag of water hanging on top from the ceiling. He poked a hole on the bag and started to scratch the stone with solid Chinese ink stick while water dripped on it. His back and forth scratch pushes the ink to combine with the dripping water, it then splashed and left marks on the paper.12 The stone and paper remained throughout the exhibition as a document of the performance which lasted for around 12 minutes. In the 12 minutes, nobody moved, but just concentrated on the work progress. Matsutani’s performance was able to bring everyone in the gallery together to witness the art creating progress which fully demonstrated the Gutai spirit.13
Gutai Art Association was one of the most vital movements during the rise of Asia’s capitalist economies in the 1950s. The fact that Gutai took inspiration from Western artists and after many alterations, declared that they were able to come up with a distinct style and content, shows how futile it is to summarize Asian contemporary art. More than half of the world’s population lives in Asia, the longest and richest cultural traditions and religions such as Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Daoism and Confucianism, all originated from Asia. If these are not enough, the social elements and artistic values from each period shifted or changes from time to time to adapt. It is impossible to unite Asia as a category to be opposed to the Western countries. With the words of Michael Sullivan from his book, The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art,
“We have come to a point in our inquiry into the East-West confrontation where it is legitimate to ask whether one can discern any pattern or principle governing the process of artistic influence between cultures, and what the significance of this interaction is for the future of art. There are no complete or satisfying answers to either of these questions: we know very little about the psychology of artistic stimulus in the individual and still less about how it operates between cultures while it is idle to speculate about the future.”14
Today, we live in a world where communication is no longer an issue to be worried about. Thanks to the advanced technology and civilized people, the East and West can understand each other clearly. Even though both sides hold different cultures, believes and thoughts, more and more people are starting to interact with each other’s ideas, forms and techniques that they barely understand. The process of exchanging and adapting is happening with light speed, making it extremely hard to define each identity. Rather than having an overall summary for both the East and West, we should accept each other’s cultural difference with an open mind and see the artists with individual qualities as the moment we are living in, is no longer restricted with boundaries and walls.