SHIRAGA Kazuo

Dates: 1924–2008

Shiraga Kazuo was born in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, to a family of kimono-fabric merchants, and he was exposed from a young age to literature, painting and performance art. He studied Nihonga at what is now Kyoto City University of Arts, but later shifted his focus to Western-style painting, continuing his studies with Yoshihara Jiro – the leader of the avant-garde Gutai Art Association, which Shiraga joined in 1955. The goal of Gutai was to explore abstract work, using performance art and other experimental approaches. Shiraga was particularly influenced by American abstract expressionism, and he became best known for paintings created using the movement of his own body. As he explained, this physical involvement was key: ‘I want to paint as though rushing around a battlefield, exerting myself to collapse from exhaustion.’ In one seminal early work, Challenge to the Mud (1955), he used his whole body to work his way through a pit of clay. He also began making the first of his ‘foot paintings’ at this time. Created in front of a live audience, these involved being suspended from a rope and swinging back and forth over the canvas, allowing his feet to make marks in the paint.

Gutai undertook a collaboration with the French art critic Michel Tapié in 1957, and alongside Yoshihara and other members of the group, Shiraga’s work received wider exposure as a result, with group exhibitions taking place both in Japan and in Europe. In 1959 he took part in Fifteen Japanese Contemporary Artists Recommended by Tapié at Gendai Gallery in Tokyo in 1959, and Métamorphismes at Galerie Stadler in Paris. In 1960, he contributed to the 4th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan. And in 1962, he held his first solo exhibition at Galerie Stadler, followed by another at the Gutai Pinacotheca in Osaka. Although his reputation as a solo artist grew, Shiraga continued to contribute to Gutai’s projects until the dissolution of the group in 1972.

In 1971 Shiraga entered the Enryaku-ji temple on Mount Hiei, where he committed to training in Mikkyo, or Esoteric Buddhism. His artistic output was suspended until he was ordained in 1974, but he remained at the monastery until his death in 2008, painting under his monk name, Sodo. From the 1980s onwards, his work featured in an increasing number of Gutai and postwar Japanese art retrospectives, including the 1986 Japon des avant-gardes 1910–70 at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, for which Shiraga travelled to Europe for the first time. His first solo exhibition at a major museum was in 1985, at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, and retrospective exhibitions were held at the Amagasaki Cultural Center in 1989 and the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art in 2001. He was awarded the Hyogo Prefectural Cultural Prize in 1987, the Distinguished Service Medal for Culture in 2001, and the Osaka Art Prize in 2002. Shiraga is represented in major museums worldwide, including the National Museum of Modern Art and the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Gallery, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Dallas Museum of Art.

Works

2 works

Works from past exhibitions

1 work

Shown in

Publications

2025Mingei, Showa, Gutai – from tradition to innovation – Japanese art of the modern era – TEFAF 2025