Kazuo Shiraga

Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo

The condition of this painting is remarkably good and it should continue to be stable and in good shape. The enormous quantities of pigment are well adhered and stable although they seem to be dry. Care will need to be taken to wrap and transport the picture in a manner that protects the very delicate surface, yet overall the condition is excellent. There appear to be no losses or damages and the picture should be hung as is. The work is framed and was not examined out of frame nor under UV light. Please note the illustration in the catalogue is upside down.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Japanese painter Shiraga Kazuo is as much a part of his works as the heavy swoops and swirls of oil paint with which they are rendered.  A member of the avant-garde Gutai group in the 1950's and 60's, Shiraga first came to prominence with the radical use of his own body as painterly tool:  he quite literally suspended himself from ropes and used his feet and hands as brush, sloughing through the paint as though wallowing in mud in an orgiastic dance of explosive release.  Shiraga borrowed ideas from the American action painters, Jackson Pollock chief amongst them, but went the extra step of fully integrating his body into the realization of the work - and this in 1955, five years before Yves Klein's perhaps better known Anthropometries works were begun.  Shiraga aimed to capture action and speed in his dramatic, muscular painting, and his large-scale canvases embody the essence of motion suspended in time.

The two paintings offered here, Fudoki (1988, Lot 58) and Yagenk¿ (1989, Lot 57), carry on the tradition of Shiraga's early processes in their bursting energy and chaotic textures.  Fudoki ("topography" in English) depicts a spherical crescendo of abstract marks and movement in an earthen-hued whirlwind of intensely slathered-on paint.  Like a mud pit after a wrestling match of epic proportions, the battle between artist and canvas that took place here remains visible in the indexical evidence of the artist's interaction with the ground (both of the earth that it conceptually represents and the actual ground of the painting).  Shiraga's mighty circular arcs reference the celebrated Zen-influenced circles of fellow Gutai artist (and group founder) Yoshihara Jirô while embodying Gutai's fascination with the earth and its nascent potentiality.

Many early Gutai works were performed in and around the earth, such as Shiraga's own Challenging Mud performance of 1955, in which the artist literally flailed about in a mud pit, as well as Yoshihara Michio's Shining Water and Discovery of 1956, which consisted of a light source buried at the bottom of a shallow conical pit that appeared to be an inverted volcano radiating light from deep within.  While looking back to Shiraga's celebrated early work, Fudoki is a continuation of the artist's fascination with the limits of the body and the dynamism of the earth, rendering visible the creative upheaval of geological forces as it becomes a vivid memento of the artist's movement and presence.

Yagenk¿ also builds on this tradition but in a brightly-hued color palette that harkens back to Shiraga's fascination with red in seminal early works like Work II (1958) and Wild Boar Hunting (1963).  These works are seemingly violent depictions of blood-letting, whether metaphorical, in terms of representing the downfall of bodies (and the artist's own wounds suffered in his violent interactions with the canvas), or as a literal representation of the emotional climax of conquering a wild beast.  The globs and flows of deep red and brown paint in these works evoke post-kill safari sites, just as they unsettle the mind in their purely painterly violence and power.  Yagenkô (which roughly translates as "Heading into the Onset of Night") also includes vibrant red slashes of paint, yet is offset with streaks of electric yellows and blues, a trio of primary colors that is occasionally besmirched by a supporting secondary violet, all upon a rich black ground.  Yagenk¿ becomes Shiraga's version of Van Gogh's The Starry Night, but this scene of night's descent is far from tranquil in its explosive bursts of energy and color.  For Shiraga, there is nothing subtle about paint:  his interaction with the canvas demands nothing less than all-out commitment to exuberant release. 

-Eric C. Shiner