ART CITIES:Los Angeles -Takesada Matsutani

Takesada Matsutani was a member of Kansai’s Gutai Art Association, which challenged conventional definitions of art in Japan. Strongly influenced by the Gutai leader Jiro Yoshihara, Matsutani often used glue for his surrealist and abstract expressionist paintings. After winning the opportunity to study in Paris through the Mainichi Art Award in 1966, Matsutani returned to Japan and his roots, using pencil as his main medium. Now, his signature style mixes graphite with glue, blotting out bulges made from paste, usually using black pencil.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Hauser & Wirth Gallery

Takesada Matsutani’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at Hauser & Wirth Gallery is a survey that spans the artist’s career, which began with his participation in the Gutai Art Association and evolved to express the complexities of a life lived between Japan and France. The exhibition features 34 works from three distinct periods: ’60s Gutai-era pieces never before shown outside of Japan, one of the artist’s largest installations from 1983, and a new pre-figuration of his 2017 Venice Biennale project. From the early ‘60s to the early ‘70s, Matsutani was a key member of the ‘second generation’ of the Gutai Art Association, Japan’s innovative and influential art collective of the post-war era. One of the most important Japanese artists still working today, Matsutani continues to demonstrate the spirit of Gutai throughout his practice, conveying the reciprocity between pure gesture and raw material. “Work 62” (1962), one of the first examples of Matsutani’s use of polyvinyl acetate adhesive, otherwise known as Elmer’s glue,  that exemplifies the artist’s innovative approach of pouring glue on the canvas surface, turning it upside down, and allowing it to dry in the wind.  He recalls, “The glue began to drip and as it dried, stalactites formed, which looked like the udders of a cow”. Inspired by observing bacteria through a microscope at a friend’s laboratory, Matsutani developed this technique further, using hairdryers, fans, and his own breath to create bulbous forms reminiscent of the curves of the human body. The result of his experimentation captured the attention of the Gutai leader Jiro Yoshiara, who formally invited Matsutani into the Gutai group in 1963. Although the group rejected figuration, they embraced Matsutani’s sensuous forms, as seen in “Work 63-K” (1963) and “La Propagation B (Grise)” (1963). Three years after his group induction, Matsutani simplified his palette to elicit the weight of time and body, important themes that would form the basis of his later work. For his ability to create viscerally profound new forms, embodied in “Work-E. Two Circles” (1966), Matsutani was awarded first prize at the First Mainichi Art Competition in 1966 and received a six-month scholarship from the French government to study abroad. This journey to France would transform his career. While the teachings and ethos of Gutai have exerted an enduring influence upon the artist, nearly 50 years later Matsutani still calls Paris his home. Influenced by the theories and history of “the image” in Western culture, and especially by American Minimalism and the Hard Edge paintings by artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Matsutani began to conceive new compositions, re-arranging and testing the limits of pictorial space. From 1970 – 1972, Masutani transformed the same organic and biomorphic forms he first developed in glue into flat geometric planes of color on canvas. “Nagare-“’ (1983) is one of Matsutani’s largest works from his “Stream” series (1977- ), a 10 x 3.5 meter canvas roll, which the artist has covered in a blanket of graphite, leaving just one white line coursing through its middle. The surface possesses a grated, abrasive texture obtained by first scratching the entirety of the blank sheet’s surface with a nail. To complete this drawing Matsutani splashed turpentine over the edges of the densely saturated surface. Through a technique that dissolves his graphite in a tremendous surge, Matsutani’s “Stream” series exudes a forceful sense of existence, transformation, and becoming. His later paintings bring together the artist’s signature media, vinyl glue, with graphite. In a marked difference from the raw rendering of his early works, Matsutani carefully controls the glue as it moves across his canvases, making or deflating pockets of air and creating new ridges, wrinkles and crevices as the adhesive hardens. He then covers the surface in methodical, almost meditative, graphite lines, as seen in “Oval” (1992). Also the exhibition includes “Venice Stream” (2016), a precursor and small-scale iteration of the tondo element that will be exhibited Summer 2017 at The Venetian Arsenal.

Info: Organizer: livier Renaud-Clément, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles 901 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, Duration: 1/7-31/9/17, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.hauserwirth.com