Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

46 Reiko Tomii
in history was further solidiWed by a series of strategic moves by Yoshihara,
which included his internationalism, shrewd handling of publicity, creation
of Gutai’s own exhibition space called Gutai Pinacotheca in 1962 (Figure
2.2), and recruitment of a sizable number of new members in 1955 (notably
Shiraga, Tanaka, Murakami, and Kanayama Akira from a small collective
Zero-kai [Zero Society], as well as Motonaga Sadamasa) and 1965 (the socalled
third-generation artists).
Yet Gutai’s works remained primarily those of individuals within a
collective environment, rather than those of a collective. In the decade that
followed the foundation of Gutai, a new mode of collectivism—that is, “collaborative
collectivism”—emerged, as Anti-Art practitioners increasingly
breached the walls of the exhibition hall and departed from the institutional
site of art. Emblematic of this mode was Cleaning Event by Hi Red Center
(HRC) in 1964, which was staged on the streets of downtown Tokyo (Figure
2.1). From the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, collaborative collectivism
became a considerable force in the vanguard scenes characterized by various
tenets of Non-Art (Hi-geijutsu), which roughly paralleled Euro-American
FIGURE 2.2. Yoshihara Jirō and Gutai members at Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka, 1962. Copyright
former members of the Gutai group. Photograph courtesy of Ashiya City Museum of Art & History.