Gutai: A "Concrete" Discussion of Transnationalism
November 18, 2009, 6:30pm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Program
Remark by Paul Jenkins, artist

"Global Gutai" (paper) by Ming Tiampo, Associate Professor
of Art History, Carleton University, Ottawa

"American Reception: Gutai and the New York Scene" (paper)
by Judith Rodenbeck, the Noble Foundation Chair in Art and
Cultural History, Sarah Lawrence College

Commentary by Reiko Tomii, independent scholar/co-founder,
PoNJA-GenKon

Discussion moderated by Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator
of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Fifty-five years have passed since the Gutai Art Association (Gutai)
was founded in the city of Ashiya, west of Osaka, in 1954. The
group's aspiration to "present concrete (gutai-teki) proof that our
spirit is free" resulted in an amazing body of work, ranging from
gestural abstraction to performances, outdoor and indoor
installations to Conceptualism. Already in the 1950s, Gutai's work
prefigured many of the newest and most important tendencies of 1960s
art. Their radical experimentalism was enabled and disseminated by
leader Yoshihara Jiro's engagement with the international art world.
Using his extensive library and connections, he kept the group in
dialogue with artists internationally, even bringing the group's
journal Gutai to the library of Jackson Pollock, among others.

Today, as the contemporary art world becomes more globalized,
Gutai's transnationalism feels even more compelling and relevant
than before. In the panel, art historians working at the forefront
of Gutai scholarship in a "concrete" manner will explore Gutai's
transnationalism.

With support from the Japan Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner
House and Study Center, East Hamption, New York, this program is
conceived by PoNJA-GenKon in conjunction with the exhibition
"Under Each Other's Spell": Gutai and New York.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th Street)
New York NY 10128
10, 7 Members, Free to students with ID and RSVP.
www.guggenheim.org/publicprograms or
call the box office: 212 423 3587, M-F, 1-5 pm

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"Under Each Other's Spell": Gutai and New York has been curated
by Ming Tiampo, for the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
(July 30-October 17, 2009). To examine the fruitful relationship
that developed between Gutai and New York artists in the 1950s and
1960s, it draws in particular on material in the Pollock-Krasner
House collection, and a group of paintings in the collection of
Paul Jenkins, who was an artist-in-residence at the Gutai
Pinacotheca in Osaka in 1964. The paintings were given to Jenkins
in exchange for his own works as an act of friendship. As he
recalled the time he and the Gutai artists spent together,
Jenkins said that they were "under each others' spell." In
addition to paintings by several Gutai members, the exhibition
will include examples of the Gutai journal and other publications,
works by New York artist who related strongly to Gutai, videos of
Gutai exhibitions and performances in Japan, and photographs of
American artists - including Jenkins, Alice Baber, Robert
Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and John Cage - visiting the Gutai
group in 1964.

Curator Dr. Ming Tiampo's Gallery Talk, Friday, November 20
at noon

An accompanying catalogue includes essays on the interaction
between Gutai and New York artists by guest curator Ming Tiampo,
and on Jackson Pollock's relationship to Gutai by Oshma Tetsuya
(Curator, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan). It
also includes a new translation of "Gutai Art Manifesto" by
Reiko Tomii.

The exhibition travels to New Jersey City University's Harold B.
Lemmerman Gallery (Director: Midori Yosimoto) and is on view
through December 16, 2007.

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For information about Guggenheim, visit http://www.guggenheim.org
For information about Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center,
visit
naples.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/pkhouse.nsf
For information about PoNJA-GenKon (Post-1945 Japanese Art
Group / Gendai Bijutsu Kondankai), visit
www.ponja-genkon.net
For information about New Jersey City University's Harold B.
Lemmerman Gallery, visit
http://www.njcu.edu/dept/art/galleries/default.asp#lemmerman