Kazuo Shiraga, Chiyusei Seibokukan (one of the Shuihuzhuan series, or Warriors), 1961, oil on canvas, 130 x 195 cm. Courtesy of the artist’s estate and the Axel Vervoordt Gallery.

ANTWERP.- Axel Vervoordt Gallery opened at Kanaal, a former C19th industrial site on the outskirts of Antwerp, that is being transformed by Axel Vervoordt Company into a new cultural and residential complex. 

The new gallery, which was previously based in in central Antwerp, opened with a major retrospective of the work of Kazuo Shiraga (1924 – 2008), one of the most prominent and influential members of the Japanese avant-garde art movement, Gutai. The exhibition is bringing together a large selection of important paintings from the 1960s through to the end of the 1990s. 

The word Gutai means “concreteness” or “embodiment”. This term reflected the group’s strong interest in matter and the creative process. Gutai artists constantly sought to develop new processes of making artworks, combining various artistic media and techniques. Each member of the group broke through the boundaries of the traditional definition of painting, performance and sculpture. 

Kazuo Shiraga was one of the most expressive and dynamic artists of his generation. In art school he studied nihon-ga, a traditional style of Japanese painting that makes use of pulverised mineral pigments and glue. He soon came to dislike the rough texture of these materials, opting instead for the slippery texture of oil paint. Shiraga’s artistic quest was driven by the desire to materialise spiritual and physical energy, without denying the essential qualities of matter. This led to his own form of action paintings and live artistic performances. He began painting with his fingertips before adopting increasingly wild actions, eventually suspending himself above his canvases and using his feet to paint. 

He was deeply interested in Esoteric Buddhism (the Tendai sect), and would begin working by chanting a sutra to the deity Fudo Myo-o, before moving his feet freely across the canvas, seemingly severing all connections to the rope and his conscious mind. In an interview he stated “When you reach a state of selflessness, you don’t sense time pass as you’re painting. Before you even know it the painting is done. I have the sense that the mental state you attain in Esoteric Buddhist training is identical to the one you attain when you paint a picture.” 

Shiraga adopted this approach in about 1954, prior to joining Gutai Art Association, and it became his artistic trademark. Although this style of painting was very alternative for the time, influential contemporaries such as Jiro Yoshihara, Michel Tapié, and the Informel artists praised Shiraga’s paintings for their fresh vitality. His work seemed to express what they had been searching for: the fusion of a spiritual act with the physical body. In the pamphlet for Shiraga’s 1962 solo exhibition at the Gutai Pinacotheca, Yoshihara wrote, “In all of history, there is no match” for Shiraga’s paintings. 

The spiritual works within this landmark show create a striking dialogue with the Kanaal, a former distillery and malting complex just outside of Antwerp, on the banks of the Albert Canal. This remarkable ‘island’, which will complete in late 2017, has been conceived and designed by Axel Vervoordt Company as a “City in the Country”, bringing together residential, commercial and cultural spaces, and the natural world, within a shared community. 

The new Axel Vervoordt Gallery resides at the heart of Kanaal, alongside a series of exhibition spaces that will house works curated from, and by, the Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation. 

In recent years, Axel Vervoordt Gallery’s attention has brought Kazuo Shiraga and his work greater acclaim, and taken both to a more profound place. Boris Vervoordt said “While Shiraga’s work conveys the essence of Japanese culture, it centres on bold expressions unlike anything in Japanese art until that point. And though the artist used Western materials, he made work that was inconceivable to Western people, giving rise to a unique spirituality and expressivity. Shiraga has been a constant source of inspiration for our work, and we are both delighted and privileged to open our new gallery which such an important retrospective of his oeuvre.” 

The introductory text for the exhibition at Axel Vervoordt Gallery was written by Koichi Kawasaki, an independent curator and Gutai scholar, and the former chief curator of Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan. 

Kazuo Shiraga - Inaugural exhibition Kanaal. Installation view © Jan Liégeois.