Transnational Modernism: The Gutai Art Association, Christo Coetzee and the legacy of Abstract Expressionism in South Africa
University of Johannesburg Art Gallery, Gauteng, Johannesburg, 02/08/2012 - 02/29/2012
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In the wake of a renewed, global interest in the work of the Japanese avant-garde art movement, Gutai (1954 – 1972), Wilhelm van Rensburg, Research Associate, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has curated this special exhibition, featuring 11 drawings of the Gutai group in the UJ Art Collection.
These drawings by founder members of the Gutai group were donated to the University by South African artist, Christo Coetzee in 1975. He acquired these drawings, considered to be one of the largest collections of Gutai drawings outside Japan, in 1959/60 when he studied with the group in Japan.
The Gutai has recently received an upsurge in prominence in the global art world chiefly through amongst others an exhibition at the 2009 Venice Biennale and through such publications as Ming Tiampo’s 2011 book, Gutai: Decentering Modernism (University of Chicago Press).
The Gutai worked on a trans-national basis, with exhibitions that included the famous American Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, and Franz Kline, the Dutch CoBrA artist, Karel Appel, the Italian Luigi Fontana and the French art autre artists of the 1950s and 60s, such as George Mathieu and Jean Fautrier. In addition, the Gutai worked closely with the famous French art theorist Michel Tapie de Ceyleran, who happened to be a close friend of Coetzee as well.
The exhibition proposes to shift the dominant East-West artistic ‘gaze’ to the South, by examining the impact the Gutai had on South African artists of the 1970s and 80s. Van Rensburg included paintings Coetzee completed while in Japan, and after his return, as well as work by a next generation of trans-national modernist South African artists working in a similar abstract action painting style as the Gutai.
These artists such as David Koloane, Dumisani Mabasa, Louis Maqubela, Pat Mautloa, Bill Ainslie, Geoffrey Armstrong, Nel Erasmus, Fred Schimmel and Wendy Vincent came into prominence in the 1970s and 80s
He also included work by some contemporary South African artists amongst others, Moshekwa Langa, Samson Mnisi, Marcus Neustetter, Ruth Rosengarten, Nathaniel Stern and Jaco van Schalkwyk who are still working in an abstract expressionist style, albeit with dramatic thematic shifts in their work and with a vast array of new media at their disposal.
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In the wake of a renewed, global interest in the work of the Japanese avant-garde art movement, Gutai (1954 – 1972), Wilhelm van Rensburg, Research Associate, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has curated this special exhibition, featuring 11 drawings of the Gutai group in the UJ Art Collection.
These drawings by founder members of the Gutai group were donated to the University by South African artist, Christo Coetzee in 1975. He acquired these drawings, considered to be one of the largest collections of Gutai drawings outside Japan, in 1959/60 when he studied with the group in Japan.
The Gutai has recently received an upsurge in prominence in the global art world chiefly through amongst others an exhibition at the 2009 Venice Biennale and through such publications as Ming Tiampo’s 2011 book, Gutai: Decentering Modernism (University of Chicago Press).
The Gutai worked on a trans-national basis, with exhibitions that included the famous American Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, and Franz Kline, the Dutch CoBrA artist, Karel Appel, the Italian Luigi Fontana and the French art autre artists of the 1950s and 60s, such as George Mathieu and Jean Fautrier. In addition, the Gutai worked closely with the famous French art theorist Michel Tapie de Ceyleran, who happened to be a close friend of Coetzee as well.
The exhibition proposes to shift the dominant East-West artistic ‘gaze’ to the South, by examining the impact the Gutai had on South African artists of the 1970s and 80s. Van Rensburg included paintings Coetzee completed while in Japan, and after his return, as well as work by a next generation of trans-national modernist South African artists working in a similar abstract action painting style as the Gutai.
These artists such as David Koloane, Dumisani Mabasa, Louis Maqubela, Pat Mautloa, Bill Ainslie, Geoffrey Armstrong, Nel Erasmus, Fred Schimmel and Wendy Vincent came into prominence in the 1970s and 80s
He also included work by some contemporary South African artists amongst others, Moshekwa Langa, Samson Mnisi, Marcus Neustetter, Ruth Rosengarten, Nathaniel Stern and Jaco van Schalkwyk who are still working in an abstract expressionist style, albeit with dramatic thematic shifts in their work and with a vast array of new media at their disposal.
For More Information