
ARTISTS ON AB-EX:
EI ARAKAWA
Gutai is often considered the starting point for postwar art in Japan, typically described as a response to American Abstract Expressionism (via Pollock, who first exhibited in Japan in 1951) and as a parallel to French art informel (via Michel Tapié). However, I want to point out two earlier collectives of midcentury Japanese art (pre-Conceptual On Kawara aside): Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop)an avant-garde art, music, and theater collective that was influenced by the Bauhaus and European Surrealismand Zero-kai (Zero Society), whose member Kazuo Shiraga had already