The Gutai Group: Play, Pedagogy and Possibility

Mainstream Japanese culture during and in the aftermath of World War II was practically restricted to works of art that upheld the country’s political discourse, which was a glorification of its wartime efforts. As such, Japan was adverse to avant-garde movements which had been flourishing in Europe (i.e. Surrealism) and emerging in the United States (Abstract Expressionism). After the war, Japan was completely upended, but out of the disorder and chaos came one of the more significant artistic contributions of the postwar era, the Gutai Art Association (of Gutai Group).

In 1954, Jiro Yoshihara, a self-taught artist founded the Gutai Group. The foundation of this avant-garde collective of artists was unique for several reasons. The Gutai artists represented a viable challenge to Japan’s strict cultural hegemony and they were also focused on a diplomatic exchange of ideas with artists in Europe and the United States. This was all the more significant in the aftermath of the military conflicts between Japan and the United States. In fact, Yoshihara stated that one of the goals of the Gutai Group was to establish an “international common ground where the arts of the East and the West influence each other.” Additionally, according to the group’s manifesto, they sought to include the arts among all aspects of Japanese daily life, which meant making art accessible to all members of society. The name Gutai translates to ”embodiment” and ”concreteness,” which are apt vocabulary terms to describe their multidisciplinary and socially engaged approach to making art that was intended for a plurality of diverse individuals.

One of the most profound differences between the post-World War II Eurocentric avant-garde movements and the Gutai Group, is that while some of the European and American art movements were inspired by children’s art, the Gutai Group actually collaborated with children in making art. Yoshihara and other Gutai artists were both inspired by children’s art and involved in the proliferation of art education and the presentation of children’s art as a viable and unique artistic movement. Many of them split their practice between making their own art and teaching children’s art classes. They also helped to organize and jury exhibitions of children’s art such as the Dōbiten (Young children art exhibition).

In 1948, an artist, writer, and educator named Yozo Ukita, became a principal editor of Kirin (which translates as giraffe), a children’s art and poetry magazine, which embodied Gutai’s overall objective to make art accessible and empowering. Ukita prepared for each issue by visiting local elementary schools where he observed classes and spoke with teachers and students. While at each school, he amassed a collection of children’s poetry and other creative writing, which he organized into future magazine issues. He was also responsible for selecting the children’s works of art and incorporating them within the magazine’s layout. In addition to highlighting children’s aesthetic and literary content within Kirin included progressive educational methods and prompts that encouraged children to take creative agency and explore different materials and themes with limited adult supervision. When Ukita joined Gutai, he implored his colleagues to contribute content to the magazine. In addition to cover art, Ukita tasked his fellow Gutai collaborators to come up with short pieces of writing that would be apt for Kirin‘s young readers. Tanaka Atsuko wrote an article addressed to the mothers of the Kirin readers, titled “To Mothers, 1956,” in which she advised the children’s parents or guardians to raise them “without pressure and constraint” and let them determine their own meaning and interpretations of beauty and art (Atsuko, 1956). Shozo Shimamoto (1956) mused, “I myself wonder if good kids who always do what grown-ups tell them can lose the ability to decide right and wrong on their own.”

A key element within an intergenerational artistic dialogue is the incorporation of play and unbridled explorations and expressions of creativity. The importance of play is exemplified in work by Gutai’s adult artists which often incorporated physical performances and interactive installations. Commonplace and nontraditional materials were utilized in the making of many works of art, as well as playful gestures that reflected fun imaginary games and athletic competitions. One example is Challenging Mud (1955), wherein artist Kazuo Shiraga wrestled by himself in a pile of mud at the First Gutai Art Exhibition at Tokyo’s Ohara Kaikan Hall. The gestures that Shiraga made within the mud were likened to the act of painting. In fact, several prominent Gutai artworks sought to emulate and expand the act of painting and other traditional mark making techniques through the use of other media or actions, most notably by interacting with objects in physical and playful ways.

Gutai’s credo of play and creative freedom carried over into their pedagogy. In addition to contributing to Kirin, Gutai worked in tandem with children and the public to stage outdoor exhibitions such as the Experimental Outdoor Exhibition of Modern Art to Challenge the Midsummer Sun at the Ashiya Park in July 1955. Visitors of all ages and backgrounds were invited to walk freely through the park and interact with each installation and artistic object utilizing a multisensory approach. They observed, touched and in some cases contributed to the works of art on display. The following year, the group organized the Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition, also in Ashiya Park. One of the interactive works of art in the exhibition was Jiro Yoshihara’s Please Draw Freely (1956). Yoshihara staked a large free-standing board into the ground, provided mark making materials and gave viewers one simple and open-ended instruction: to draw freely. The photograph above shows two girls at work, adding their marks to the existing layers of lines, shapes and forms created by multiple participants. This type of accessibility and participation reflected the artistic philosophy of Gutai, encapsulated by Shimamoto, who wrote, “What I consider avant-garde is the involvement of ordinary people in the production of a work of art.”

In December 1955, Ukita, Yoshihara and several other Gutai artists curated an exhibition based on the content that was published in Kirin. The exhibition was held at the Osaka City Museum of Fine Art. Embracing Gutai’s model of accessibility, the exhibition was open to children who were in preschool, elementary school and middle school. There were no restrictions to the style of artworks the children could submit, nor were there any limits to the size or media. As would be expected with such liberal guidelines, the exhibition was brimming with the work of young children, hung in salon style from the ceiling to the floor.

Through an approach that combined art, activism and education, the Gutai Group showed the potency and potential of communal creativity. They eschewed artistic, social and generational hegemony by blurring the lines between artist and viewer, while giving children and children’s art its own unique platform to stand out. In a country that was feeling the aftermath of a devastating war and strict political dictatorship, Gutai provided hope, freedom and an outlook towards a more democratic and indulgent future. Although the Gutai Art Association formally dissolved in 1972, their legacy continues to impact intergenerational members of Japanese culture. In 1985, Yozo Ukita established his own art studio called Atelier Ukita, in order to continue presenting the serious but playful creative zeitgeist of Gutai to both adults and children. The overall framework of child-centered pedagogy that Gutai supported is a driving force within today’s art education curriculum.

The words of Ukita, written in a 1963 essay for Kirin called “On Being Weird,” provide a beautiful and longstanding message about the importance of finding value in ourselves and others. The empathetic approach that Ukita espouses epitomizes art’s transformative power: “What is weird within you is your treasure. Some people are called “weirdos” in our society. They are often disliked by other people. In my opinion, though, we need to be “weirdos” to the very core. If a person is not a weirdo, he has no value as a human being. We are all blessed, born with something weird. Please start looking immediately for whatever is weird in you.”

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References, Notes, Suggested Reading:

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s educational department has put together a fantastic online guide to the Gutai Group, replete with enduring questions and creative prompts to spur classroom discussion and artmaking sessions: https://www.guggenheim.org/teaching-materials/gutai-splendid-playground/play

Shozo, Shimamoto. “The Mambo and Painting,” in Fukkokuban Gutai/Gutai: Facsimile Edition (Tokyo: Geika Shoin, 2010), p. 19. Originally published as “Mambo to kaiga,” Gutai 3 (Oct. 1955), unpaginated.

Shozo, Shimamoto. “Let’s Make Mischief!,” trans. Reiko Tomii, in Gutai, Munroe and Tiampo, eds., p. 276. Originally published as “Chikyu wa maruku nai,” Kirin (Dec. 1956), p. 36.

Tanaka, Atsuko. “From Kirin Children’s Art Exhibition: To Mothers, 1956,” trans. Reiko Tomii, in Ming Tiampo, ed., Electrifying Art: Atsuko Tanaka 1954–1968, exh. cat. (Vancouver: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia; New York: Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 2004), p. 101. Originally published as “Kirin kodomo bijutsu ten kara: Okasama gata e,” Kirin 9, no. 3 (Mar. 1956).

Tiampo, Ming (2011). Gutai: Decentering Modernism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ukita, Yozo. “On Being Weird,” trans. Reiko Tomii, in Gutai, Munroe and Tiampo, eds., p. 278. Originally published as “E no kyoshitsu (5): Henchikurin to iu koto,” Kirin (Mar. 1963), p. 27.