Takesada MATSUTANIPost date：2024-12-18
Updates：2024-12-18
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- Event Time
- 2024-12-21~2025-01-25TUE-SAT, 12:00-18:30
- Event Location
- AKI GALLERY, Neihu Dist., Taipei City Taiwan, R.O.C
Takesada MATSUTANI (b. 1937), born in Osaka, Japan and based in Paris, France for over sixty years, continues to maintain a vibrant artistic vitality, persistently creating and exploring. Throughout his artistic journey, MATSUTANI’s work has undergone numerous transformations, evolving into a distinctive visual language. Tracing his path from the East to the West, and spanning across both temporal and geographical distances, MATSUTANI's creative process resembles an endless spiritual pilgrimage and exploration. He has always maintained a keen insight into life, the organic, and the sensual world. His attention has not only focused on issues of color, form, behavior, and structure but also on integrating dialogues between tradition and modernity, and between Eastern and Western cultures. His works explore the conflicts and boundaries arising from these elements and contexts.
The exhibition at AKI Gallery presents a series of his most representative works, allowing viewers to intuitively experience how this artist, akin to a spiritual practitioner, demonstrates through bold experiments and an in-depth exploration of materiality his dynamic and life-affirming artistic expressions, continually transforming his life and work into an intensified existence.
As one of the key figures of the post-war Japanese Gutai Art Association, MATSUTANI's work was deeply influenced by the Gutai Art movement's mission, which is investigation into materials and the innovation in art creation. Early in his career, MATSUTANI began experimenting with vinyl glue, applying it to canvas, and allowing it to partially dry, forming a skin-like thin film. He would then use tools such as straws, hairdryers, or fans to inflate the material, causing the membrane to naturally deform and create organic, body-like curves and shapes. This process not only demonstrated his profound understanding of materiality but also blurred the boundaries between art and substance, imbuing the work with dynamic energy and tactile qualities.
In 1966, MATSUTANI moved to France, transitioning to a new and coherent phase of his creative practice. This period was deeply influenced by his time at the renowned printmaking studio, Atelier 17, where he studied under the master Stanley William Hayter. During this period, MATSUTANI absorbed and merged classical techniques with innovative approaches to printmaking. Although he moved into new creative realms, MATSUTANI remained true to his roots in Gutai, continuing to explore the potential of materials within the artistic context. This phase also marked a new stage in his experimentation with spatial and temporal expressions. Printmaking became a pivotal medium in MATSUTANI's work, and the series of prints presented in this exhibition demonstrate his extensive exploration of blackness and materials, merging the organic qualities of substance into bold expressions in two-dimensional art.
Since the 1980s, MATSUTANI revisited and continued to use the iconic material, vinyl glue, from his Gutai period while also producing works composed of numerous layers of pencil graphite. Each stroke of graphite builds up, gradually creating a black surface with a sense of depth. This ritualistic process not only records the temporality of the act of creation but also solidifies the rhythm and traces of each stroke into a visual language. In recent years, MATSUTANI's work has become increasingly free and refined, showcasing a unique blend of boldness and precision. By confronting the expressive qualities of various materials and engaging in a dialogue with the body and the senses, he continues to communicate profound emotions and rich contemplations to the viewer. In the works featured in this exhibition at AKI Gallery, audiences will experience his innovative use of vinyl glue and graphite techniques and will also notice the introduction of key colors in certain works—an innovation that opens up new explorations of color and spatial expression.
The exhibition at AKI Gallery presents a series of his most representative works, allowing viewers to intuitively experience how this artist, akin to a spiritual practitioner, demonstrates through bold experiments and an in-depth exploration of materiality his dynamic and life-affirming artistic expressions, continually transforming his life and work into an intensified existence.
As one of the key figures of the post-war Japanese Gutai Art Association, MATSUTANI's work was deeply influenced by the Gutai Art movement's mission, which is investigation into materials and the innovation in art creation. Early in his career, MATSUTANI began experimenting with vinyl glue, applying it to canvas, and allowing it to partially dry, forming a skin-like thin film. He would then use tools such as straws, hairdryers, or fans to inflate the material, causing the membrane to naturally deform and create organic, body-like curves and shapes. This process not only demonstrated his profound understanding of materiality but also blurred the boundaries between art and substance, imbuing the work with dynamic energy and tactile qualities.
In 1966, MATSUTANI moved to France, transitioning to a new and coherent phase of his creative practice. This period was deeply influenced by his time at the renowned printmaking studio, Atelier 17, where he studied under the master Stanley William Hayter. During this period, MATSUTANI absorbed and merged classical techniques with innovative approaches to printmaking. Although he moved into new creative realms, MATSUTANI remained true to his roots in Gutai, continuing to explore the potential of materials within the artistic context. This phase also marked a new stage in his experimentation with spatial and temporal expressions. Printmaking became a pivotal medium in MATSUTANI's work, and the series of prints presented in this exhibition demonstrate his extensive exploration of blackness and materials, merging the organic qualities of substance into bold expressions in two-dimensional art.
Since the 1980s, MATSUTANI revisited and continued to use the iconic material, vinyl glue, from his Gutai period while also producing works composed of numerous layers of pencil graphite. Each stroke of graphite builds up, gradually creating a black surface with a sense of depth. This ritualistic process not only records the temporality of the act of creation but also solidifies the rhythm and traces of each stroke into a visual language. In recent years, MATSUTANI's work has become increasingly free and refined, showcasing a unique blend of boldness and precision. By confronting the expressive qualities of various materials and engaging in a dialogue with the body and the senses, he continues to communicate profound emotions and rich contemplations to the viewer. In the works featured in this exhibition at AKI Gallery, audiences will experience his innovative use of vinyl glue and graphite techniques and will also notice the introduction of key colors in certain works—an innovation that opens up new explorations of color and spatial expression.
