[Audio Guide]
A massive volume of paint, applied with evident ferocity, produces a highly forceful canvas. Close examination may reveal footprints in places. Shiraga Kazuo produced works such as this one by sliding across canvas or paper and smearing masses of paint with his feet. As the paint was soft and slippery, he hung onto a rope suspended from the ceiling and swung across the painting as if engaging in full-body combat. He described it as “about sixty percent guided by the urges of my body, and forty percent based on looking at the picture and judging what it needed,” and as this suggests, the approach was one in which the body and mind were deeply synchronized, performing a series of actions to produce the painting. Shiraga was a key member of the Gutai Art Association, an experimental art group established in the mid-1950s in the Kansai region. One feature of the group was that works were sometimes produced in front of an audience, with an emphasis on striking materiality and action.
