- Gutai: Splendid PlaygroundOur PickBy Alexandra Munroe, Ming Tiampo, Yoshihara Jiro, Gutai
- Gutai: Decentering ModernismBy Ming Tiampo
- Between Action and the Unknown: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Sadamasa Motonaga (Dallas Museum of Art Publications)By Gabriel Ritter, Koichi Kawasaki, Namiko Kunimoto
- From Postwar to Postmodern, Art in Japan, 1945 1989: Primary Documents (MoMa Primary Documents)By Doryun Chong, Michio Hayashi, Fumihiko Sumitomo, Kenji Kajiya
Important Art and Artists of The Gutai Group
Challenge To The Mud (1955)
Kazuo Shiraga's seminal 'performance painting' featured the artist flinging himself, half naked, into a pile of clay, where he writhed and slipped around in the material while sculpting shapes from it - thus creating a picture using his whole body. Challenge To The Mud explored the place where physical action (represented by Shiraga wrestling in the clay) and 'matter' (the clay itself) collide. The pile of mud was left in situ after the performance for the show's duration, and presented as an artwork in its own right. Shiraga initially conceived the work as an expanded painting, and it predated his related 'rope hanging' performances in which he created exuberant canvases by dipping his feet in paint while suspended above or walking directly on them.
Laceration of Paper (1956)
Saburõ Murakami's Laceration of Paper involved the artist hurling himself through a series of enormous kraft paper screens. The tautly stretched paper produced loud, explosive sounds as Murakami punched his way through each sheet as quickly as possible, releasing and reveling in its material properties. This piece embodies the Gutai artists' desire to go far beyond the limits of the canvas to produce encounters between the human spirit and the substance of matter itself. Murakami restaged Laceration of Paper several times with the last performance in 1994, two years before his death.
Please Draw Freely (1956)
In Please Draw Freely, Gutai founder Jirõ Yoshihara invited visitors to the Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition to create a collective artwork on a large, blank board. A sign by the work encouraged the public to express themselves without inhibition, and markers and pens were provided. The exhibition took place in the main park in the Japanese city of Ashiya, and was conceived as a totally democratic art event that would appeal to a general audience. With Please Draw Freely, Yoshihara wanted to reject passive spectatorship and quiet contemplation of artworks, and instead invite people of all ages to engage with art directly and experience being part of the creative process themselves - to make spectators into producers.