EYE CANDY

Kazuo Shiraga and Satoru Hoshino Get Dirty


Kazuo Shiraga

The late artist Kazuo Shiraga never hesitated to get his hands dirty—nor his feet. An early member of Japan’s postwar Gutai movement, Kiraga wrestled with mud and famously slid across a canvas thick with paint without shoes on—action painting at its kinetic, athletic beginnings. Matter: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Satoru Hoshino, an exhibition opening Thursday, January 29, at New York’s Dominique Lévy gallery, puts his pioneering “foot paintings” alongside the ceramics of Satoru Hoshino, another Gutai artist who struggled to tame earthly matter in his work—driven, perhaps, by the destruction of his studio, in 1960, by a landslide.

“Body and Matter: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Satoru Hoshino” is on view through April 4, 2015, at New York’s Dominique Lévy gallery, 909 Madison Ave.

1

Kazuo Shiraga Iizuminokami-Kanesada 1962 Oil on canvas 51 3/16 x 38 3/16 inches (130 x 97 cm)

Photo Courtesy Tom Powel Imaging

2

Kazuo Shiraga, Challenging Mud (third execution), 1955, 1st Gutai Art Exhibition

Courtesy Amagasaki Cultural Center

3

Kazuo Shiraga Untitled 1962 Oil on canvas 35 13/16 x 45 11/16 inches (91 x 116 cm)

Photo Courtesy Jan Liegeois

4

Kazuo Shiraga in his studio

Courtesy Amagasaki Cultural Center

5

Kazuo Shiraga Tenkosei Kaosho 1962 Oil on canvas 71 5/8 x 107 1/2 inches (182 x 273 cm)

Photo Courtesy Tom Powel Imaging

6

Satoru Hoshino Outline of Background X 1990 Smoked earthenware 10 5/8 × 28 3/8 × 22 13/16 inches (27 × 72 × 58 cm)

Photo by Tom Powel Imaging, courtesy the artist.