Gutai

I went with our friend Christopher to see the Gutai exhibition at the Guggenheim. This show is about a movement in postwar Japan, that like many postwar movements, sought to upend any traditional concepts of what art was supposed to be about, with an emphasis on the spirit of play and engagement with the materials.  I was expecting a series of conceptual and gestural statements; we got those, but there were also a large number of paintings.   They looked something like abstract expressionism, but without philosophy and psychology.  It was more about things like painting with feet, and with bodies (this before the famous body paintings of Yves Klein), and pouring buckets of paint here and there.  This painting was made by painting with a remote controlled little electric car with a paintbrush attached:

Some other paintings:

This one has a bear skin in it:

I liked the show; the exuberance of the art was exciting; there were also some interesting installation type things, and I learned about an art movement I had known nothing about.

A few more: