Gutai: Splendid Playground at the Guggenheim.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the Guggenheim. But this exhibition is provocative and poignant, well worth the few hours that it takes to walk through it. 

Gutai: Splendid Playground presents the creative spectrum of Japan’s most influential avant-garde collective of the postwar era. Founded by the visionary artist Yoshihara Jirō in 1954, the Gutai group was legendary in its own time. Its young members explored new art forms combining performance, painting, and interactive environments, and realized an “international common ground” of experimental art through the worldwide reach of their exhibition and publication activities. Against the backdrop of wartime totalitarianism, Gutai forged an ethics of creative freedom, breaking through myriad boundaries to create some of the most exuberant works and events in the history of Japanese and international avant-garde art.

Alex (thrilled) at the Met.

At Insadong’s Tea museum.

Look up.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The main entrance.