ZERO GUTAI KUSAMA 2 1 ZERO GUTAI KUSAMA VIEWING Bonhams 101 New Bond Street London, W1S 1SR Sunday 11 October 11.00 - 17.00 Monday 12 October 9.00 - 18.00 Tuesday 13 October 9.00 - 18.00 Wednesday 14 October 9.00 - 18.00 Thursday 15 October 9.00 - 18.00 Friday 16 October 9.00 - 18.00 Monday 19 October 9.00 - 17.00 Tuesday 20 October 9.00 - 17.00 EXHIBITION CATALOGUE £25.00 ENQUIRIES Ralph Taylor +44 (0) 20 7447 7403 [email protected] Giacomo Balsamo +44 (0) 20 7468 5837 [email protected] PRESS ENQUIRIES +44 (0) 20 7468 5871 [email protected] 2 1 INTRODUCTION The history of art in the 20th Century is punctuated by moments of pure inspiration, moments where the traditions of artistic practice shifted on their foundations for ever. The 1960s were rife with such moments and as such it is with pleasure that we are able to showcase the collision of three such bodies of energy in one setting for the first time since their inception anywhere in the world with ‘ZERO Gutai Kusama’. The ZERO and Gutai Groups have undergone a radical reappraisal over the past six years largely as a result of recent exhibitions at the New York Guggenheim Museum, Berlin Martin Gropius Bau and Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum amongst others. This escalation of interest is entirely understandable coming at a time where experts and collectors alike look to the influences behind the rapacious creativity we are seeing in the Contemporary Art World right now and in light of a consistently strong appetite for seminal works. Yayoi Kusama bestrides the Japanese Art World like a Colossus and her influence is felt in all manner of forms of artistic practice. Her impact opened doors particularly for female artists around the world and yet the fearlessness and vigour that she has become synonymous with all began in the 1960s and particularly with her debut European show in 1965 at International Gallery Orez in The Hague which included three works that feature in this exhibition. INTRODUCTION This private collection has not been seen in public since the 1960s and represents the passion of a collector who anticipated the zeitgeist through a total commitment to acquiring the best works from ZERO, Gutai, Nul and Yayoi Kusama at a time when they were blazing a trail in 1960s Holland. This selection is marked by the inclusion of some bona fide masterpieces: Kazuo Shiraga’s imposing fan, a very rare example of early Gutai sculpture; a suite of four early and delicate works by Jan Schoonhoven that charter the artist’s journey through Minimalism; three works from Yayoi Kusama’s first solo European show in 1965, which now serve as archetypes of her practice; and a sensational Günther Uecker from 1967, with all the dynamism and energy you would expect from such a piece. To have the opportunity to host a museum quality collection at Bonhams is a rare and wonderful privilege. This is exactly where Bonhams is at its best; demonstrating connoisseurship and using the profile of an auction house to rediscover forgotten masterpieces and to champion the very best in Post-War & Contemporary art through all the definitions of quality beyond simply value. Bonhams has been at the forefront of the drive to present these artists at the centre of the cultural and commercial conversation over recent years and through this exhibition we renew our commitment to these efforts. Ralph Taylor Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe ZERO AND NUL ZERO: Let Us Explore the Stars is the title of the current Piene concentrated on a severe formal and expressive exhibition in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. It derives reduction of artistic means in monochrome paintings (or from John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural speech: ‘Together three-dimensional monochrome works such as the white let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, (...), tap the nail piece by Günther Uecker in this exhibition) that were ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce.’ The a reaction to the fashionable Abstract Expressionism self-confident optimism that emanated from this speech movement of the 1950s. In 1961, the ZERO-artists grandly sounds truly enviable, in 2015. declared the four elements, the world oceans, the Sahara desert, even the universe to be the material of their art. Around 1961 this credo had long been embraced by the German ZERO group, consisting, by this time, of Heinz By this time, artists such as Adolf Luther, Christian Megert Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker. The movement and many others had adopted the ZERO credo. Adolf had come into being during evening exhibitions in the Luther’s concave mirror object from 1970 that is in the Düsseldorf studios of Mack and Piene, in 1958. During current exhibition, perfectly conveys the focus of the later the first phase of their artistic development, and under ZERO artists through the combination of art and technology the influence of Yves Klein and Lucio Fontana, Mack and with the viewer finding himself the subject of this work. Heinz Mack, Diagram, 1970 4 5 Jan Schoonhoven in International Gallery Orez (circa 1965) During the sixties various ZERO related movements came from 1963 until 1970, included in this exhibition. The artist into being all over Europe. This concerned for instance became famous for the use of monochrome white which he Gruppo T and Azimuth in Italy, Nouveau Réalisme in France applied on exquisite handmade papier-mâché reliefs with and the Dutch Nul Group. The latter featured artists like Jan different motifs, creating works of a timeless beauty. Henk Schoonhoven and Henk Peeters, who are represented in this Peeters also made serial works, like the early example in Bonhams exhibition. In connection with the first phase of cotton wool from 1962-1964 which is also exhibited, as ZERO, Nul concentrated on isolating pieces of reality, often well as experimenting with other materials and techniques in serial form. Schoonhoven was the movement’s purist, such as smoke, water and fire. and this is evident from looking at the four rare examples 4 5 THE GUTAI GROUP Gutai was founded in 1954 by the charismatic Jirō Yoshihara and was active until 1972, the year of Yoshihara’s death. The name Gutai can be interpreted to mean ‘concrete’ and stood for the desire to produce art that would relate to the post-war Japanese world in a concrete fashion. Here we must remember that during the Second World War, Japanese artists were forced by their government to put their art in the service of the national war machine. Those who did not, were considered decadent and risked imprisonment. The aim of this collective was to create ‘something that has never existed before’ as per Jirō Yoshihara’s exhortation. The first generation of Gutai artists including Kazuo Shiraga, Shozo Shimamoto, and Saburo Murakami experimented with performance art well before this happened in the West. Between 1955 and 1958 Yoshihara organized four exhibitions in space (open air), and two in time (on stage). The use of the human body as a brush, the elements, weather, smoke, and spontaneous actions of spectators - all were welcome in this new approach of the visual arts. Kazuo Shiraga’s giant Red Fan is one of the few sculptures that this first-generation of Gutai artists produced. An unequivocal masterpiece, the rhythmic folding of the screen coupled with the intense scarlet lacquer makes this a truly mesmerising work to engage with in the flesh. It is a playful, yet powerful comment on an object that has so much history in Japanese culture and art. 7 7 Above: The Gutai Collective with Michel Tapié, 1965 Right: Original instruction label from Minoru Onoda’s Work 66-14 8 9 The early years were devoted to exploring the boundaries Sadahoru Horio, Minoru Onoda and Satoshi Tai show the of the traditional concepts of art in general, but gradually Gutai group’s more poetic side. Horio’s technicoloured the members began to focus more on new developments protrusions in contrast to the stark monochrome canvas in the post-war world such as the visualisation of energy, or draw the traditions of painting into a new realm echoing the the use of industrially produced materials such as plastic, shaped canvases of his Italian counterparts Castellani and foil, reflective metal and Perspex. This was partly due to the Bonalumi. Onoda’s eye wateringly complex dot marking on rapid industrialisation of Japan in the 1960s. The content the gentle rippling of the shaped wood surface articulate of these works coincided with the latest developments in notions of infinity. Tai’s pulsating use of colour executed in the international arts such as Kinetic, Op and Pop art. It household paint explores the possibilities of movement in was the prerogative of the third-generation of Gutai artists. harmony with line and form. As Ming Tiampo has it: ‘Gutai had entered the space age’. The first time ZERO and Gutai art were shown together In this exhibition the works by Kumiko Imanaka, Jōji was at the 1965 Stedelijk Museum’s Nul exhibition – Bien Kikunami and Minoru Yoshida testify to that effect, and étonnés de se trouver ensemble. In 2006, this Nul 1965 all three eschew the traditions of two-dimensional picture show was reconstructed in the ZERO exhibition at Museum making. Imanaka’s nuanced and gently undulating strips Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf. This was the beginning of the of machine-finished steel creates an artwork which is revival in both ZERO and Gutai we have witnessed today. static, yet exudes energy and movement. Kikunami’s crisp abstraction references the visual complexity of Op art, with his new age use of reflective plastic to create images of infinite complexity.