Creating in different parts of the world, belonging to separate groups, using varying methods of painting, nevertheless, the two Post-War artists' works have a lot in common, if put together. MERVEILLE Art Advisory invites you to see for yourself.
Kazuo Shiraga (1924-2008)
Japanese artist, the most prominent and internationally renown member of Osaka-based Gutai movement of young avant-garde artists, who came together after World War II to reinvigorate Japanese art in 1955.
Shiraga is recognized as the father of Japanese action painting, having developed the method, whereby he was hanged with the rope from the ceiling, spreading the paint with his feet. It would leave thick layers of paint on the surface, conveying the feeling of action and dynamism long after it has dried up. These works are reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism movement in their style.
Another example of unusual performative method of painting by Kazuo Shiraga was him wrestling with the mud in a pool for 'Challenging Mud', which premiered at 'The First Gutai Art Exhibition' in 1955 in Tokyo, with active audiences keeping multiple forms of documentation of his performance in real time.
'Challenging Mud' was inspired by Jackson Pollock and his physical relationship with painting on the floor. Shiraga disputed the assumption that the artist is limited by his canvas and medium. In the words of Alexandrea Munroe, curator of Asian art at the Guggenheim Museum, the Gutai’s practice was about ‘moving art from depicted reality to experiential reality’, shifting the artwork from the wall into outdoor space.
Kazuo Shiraga would continue to experiment with the body and material throughout his oeuvre all the way into his eighties.
Kazuo Shiraga, Daiitokuson, 1973.
Kazuo Shiraga, Furuyuki (Falling Snow), 1999.
Kazuo Shiraga, Shisei (Purple Fairy), 1984.
Kazuo Shiraga, Hoshokai (Lop Nur), 1988.
Willem De Kooning (1904-1997)
Dutch-American painter, who was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming the founding father of Abstract Expressionism and part of the group of artists, who came to be known as the New York School.
Together with Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky and others, Willem De Kooning has irreversibly altered the direction of modern art after World War II, repositioning New York as its capital away from Paris.
Willem De Kooning was a very prolific artist, often changing his artistic practice, albeit the subject of female figure has been a recurring theme and one of the most controversial ones, debated by critics to this day.
Confronted by scholars on the topic of his artistic evolution, De Kooning coined his infamous motto "You have to change to stay the same."
Willem De Kooning, Collage, 1950.
Willem de Kooning, Amityville, 1971.
Willem De Kooning, Untitled XXI, 1977.
Willem De Kooning, Woman I, 1950-52.
Interestingly enough, although the two artists worked in similar style (abstract expressionism), occupied leading positions in their respective groups and are both now selling for millions at auctions (De Kooning slightly in the lead), Shiraga and De Kooning were never acquainted with one another.
We hope that by juxtaposing the paintings by the two artists, the reader was able to pinpoint the continuity and reflection in the oeuvre of both.
If that was too subtle, below is a contemporary example of British artists Harland Miller and James McQueen. Which is which is hard to tell without the subtitles, as well as, where the copyright lawsuit might be.
Left: Harland Miller, Incurable Romantic Seeks dirty Filthy Whore, 2010.
Below: James McQueen, Remember When I Asked For Your Opinion? Me Neither, 2023.
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