Installation view. Courtesy of Walter McBean Gallery

Saburo Murakami, Passing through, 1956. Courtesy of Ashiya City Museum of Art & History. © Makiko Murakami and the former members of the Gutai Art Association.

Tonight at SFAI is the release of the catalogue and panel discussion of “Experimental Exhibition of Modern Art to Challenge the Mid-Winter Burning Sun: Gutai Historical Survey and Contemporary Response” an historical survey and contemporary response curated by John Held, Jr. and Andrew McClintock.  Gutai is a significant avant-garde artist collective in Japan after WWII and was founded by Jiro Yoshihara under a primary directive, “Do something no one’s ever done before.”  Gutai is responsible for using traditional media in new situations by producing art through expressionistic actions like smashing paint-filled bottles, wrestling with mud and cement, and leaping through paper canvases.  SFAI has a collection of almost two dozen paintings from private collections, videos, photographs, and mail art that responded to the efforts of Gutai.

The panel discussion tonight will be led by Tony Labat, the Faculty Director of MFA Programs.  The panel includes, Rudolf Frieling, Curator of Media Arts at SFMOMA; Constance Lewallen, Adjunct Curator at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; artist and curator TOM MARIONI; and Mayumi Handa, special assistant to Shozo Shimamoto.

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