Gutai: The Body, The Tool

Shitaga Kazuo, Lutter dans la boue, 1955, Tokyo

http://touchin-art.fr/gutai-shiraga-kazuo

Gutai: The Body, The Tool

[from H-NET, 9/20/12]

The Gutai Group was founded almost immediately after the end of the US Occupation of Japan, an explosion of colour and energy that determined the visual culture of the 1960s and 1970s through unconventional public performance art projects challenging the limits of materiality and authorship. Despite the group's high profile, existing research emphasises interrogation of the group's relationship to European avant-gardism and Informel; this volume proposes instead to examine Gutai in both its Japanese and international contexts.

The Enzo Press is seeking contributions to a new volume of research essays on Gutai and their activities. We aim to take a theoretical approach, and welcome contributions examining:

• The response of Gutai members to WWII and Japan's international position;
• The role of the body, material or authorship in Gutai practice;
• Identity, particularly in connection to gender and race;
• The relationship of Gutai to contemporary international avant-gardes;
• The influences on and formation of the Gutai group, particularly in connection to the location of Gutai practice within a Japanese cultural context. Papers dealing with the oeuvres of individual Gutai practitioners will also be considered.

Please send papers of between 5,000 to 10,000 words, together with an abstract, bibliography, and illustrations list, to commissioning@enzoarts.com with Gutai as the subject, by the deadline of December 1st.

For enquires, expressions of interest and further information please e-mail Dr Tristan Lavelle.