Shozo Shimamoto
Cardi Gallery Milan presents a major solo exhibition by the Japanese artist Shozo Shimamoto, co-founder of the "Gutai" movement
Shozo Shimamoto, together with the artist Jiro Yoshihara, founded the “Gutai” movement, term meaning ‘concreteness’, that sparked a process of radical rethinking of the artistic tradition and that looked at the European avant-garde movements such as abstraction, Minimalism, and Rationalism, attempteing to move past them by experimenting with new linguistic solutions.
The result of his technique, the ‘bottle crash’, is a true chromatic explosion. In particular, his bottle crash actions of the last decade have an unusual configuration in terms of both the relationship between event and work, and the emotional dimension connected to the action. In fact, these are representative and spectacular moments, real social acts, which include the production of paintings as their outcome. Shimamoto’s performances are a dramaturgical manifestation, often with the connotations of a dance.
