Shozo Shimamoto "Holes"

        Some of the earliest postwar performances took place in Japan. In 1954, an embodiment group was formed consisting of several Japanese artists who called themselves the Gutai. The name of this artistic group means to "pursue the possibilities of pure and creative activity with great energy." (Stockstad p.1087) Gutai held many performances and outdoor installations in front of the public where everyone could see how the group members created art. In these performances, it was the process of creating an artwork that was considered art, instead of calling the actual subject that was being created an "artwork".  One artist from the Gutai group whose artistic style stood out to me most was Shozo Shimamoto. "Shimamoto was one of fifteen young painters who were the original members of the Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai (Gutai Art Association), founded in 1954 under the leadership of the established painter Jirō Yoshihara" (Tate)

       "Gutai focused on materials – both traditional art materials and more unorthodox ones, such as water, mud and chemicals – in a way that blurred the distinction between creative and destructive action. Artists sometimes performed ‘actions’ of an often very physical and violent nature." (Tate) During the second Gutai exhibition in 1956, Shimamoto performed Hurling Colors by smashing bottles of paint against a canvas that was suspended from a tree on the banks of the Ashiya River. To him, it was the performance of painting that was the artwork, rather than the subject produced. In a letter to Tate, the artist says what he feels, that his work transcends the violent nature of his techniques: ‘Even if my method seems shocking and violent – crushing bottles and shooting cannons at the canvas – because I am an artist my purpose is to make the work beautiful, to show the beauty of everything. I’m just working on creating beauty.’ (‘Breakthrough Performance’, p.42.)" Shimamoto has created many interesting paintings trough out his career as a Gutai artist. Another strange but interesting series of artworks of his is called Holes.



        The series Holes were created in the 1950s. Most of them were made about a year before the Gutai group was formed. "These works, like the various other experiments of the early Gutai, were not the result of a careful study, they were conceived almost by chance. At the time, in order to save money on materials, Shimamoto was using a screen of newspapers glued together instead of canvas, but one day he broke the surface by mistake.Instead of throwing away the work, he decided to show it to Jiro Yoshihara, who greatly appreciated it." (Shozo.net) Shimamoto added to these series of artwork by getting some silver paper and playing around with a hole punch in his studio in Japan. Then he decided to turn it into an artwork. "To make this work, foil sweet wrappers were perforated with a hole punch and pasted on a sheet of plywood painted black; a wash of black ink was then thinly wiped over the surface." (Tate) He has created many other artworks by piercing the surface of a canvas and adding different objects to them, such as paper and paint, to give the artwork a final look.

        Shozo Shimamoto's artworks takes avant-gardism to a whole new level. The results were often from the violent gestures and throwing of paint onto the canvas. This artist did artworks that were usually thrown away after the performance, because he believed that the performance and the process was the actual artwork. I really enjoyed reading about the Gutai group and the art of  Shozo Shimamoto.

http://www.shozo.net/works/indexe.html
http://articide.com.pagesperso-orange.fr/gutai/fr/ss.htm
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/shimamoto-holes-t07897