HIGHLIGHT

Famed for painting with his feet, Kazuo Shiraga has been a representative figure of the Gutai Art Association, a radical postwar Japanese avant-garde collective. Through The Gutai Manifesto in the 1950s, founder Jiro Yoshihara issued a call to artists: “Create what has never been seen!” Originally a pioneer of the Zero Society (Zerokai), Kazuo Shiraga joined the Gutai group in 1955 along with Saburo Murakami and Akira Kanayama. During the First Gutai Art Exhibition of the same year, Shiraga debuted a performance work titled Challenging Mud. This unique performance not only astonished the audiences, but also foreshadowed the historically significant avant-garde symbolism that would come to define his practice.
Shiraga began experimenting with the use of his feet around the time of Gutai’s formation; however, his work was not initially conceived as action painting. At first, he simply used his feet to spread paint across the surface. Shortly before joining Gutai, he conceived the idea of suspending himself from a rope while painting. Influenced by the activities of other Gutai members, he gradually expanded the expressive possibilities of his own form of action painting.
Works with strong performative elements, as well as sculptural works, appeared frequently in the latter half of the 1950s. In this sense, 1961—the year in which the present work was created—marks a moment when Shiraga’s consciousness of full-body expression had begun to manifest with particular intensity. The surface of this painting is entirely enveloped in a dense black, rich in tonal gradations and imbued with a latent force that seems restrained rather than eruptive. The effect recalls dark, undulating lava flowing over a metallic, gleaming substratum. The composition is charged with a powerful sense of movement and tension, revealing Shiraga's distinctive rhythm and vigorous energy.
Notably, 1961 also marked the tenth edition of the Gutai Art Exhibition. From this period onward, the reputation of both Gutai and Shiraga gradually transcended Japan's borders, garnering increasing attention within the international art world. In 1958, Shiraga established contact with the influential critic Michel Tapié, which led to increasing participation in international exhibitions in cities such as Turin and Paris. In 1961, Yves Klein referenced Gutai’s activities—particularly those of Shiraga—in the “Chelsea Hotel Manifesto,” written at the Chelsea Hotel. The following year, in 1962, Shiraga held a solo exhibition at Galerie Stadler in Paris.