Saburo Murakami
, Kobe, Japan — , Nishinomiya, Japan
Keen to explore new approaches to art, Japanese painter and pioneer of performance art, Saburo Murakami formed the Zero-kai (Zero Group) together with, among others, Kazuo Shiraga in 1952. Murakami was also one of the best-known members of the Gutai Art Association, which he joined in 1955. The same year he became an official Gutai member; he drew major attention because of his kami-yaburi paper breakthrough performances. In these events the artist, using his body’s momentum, busted through large sheets of paper that were stretched between a frame, tearing the screen-like objects while doing so. Sometimes he mounted many consecutive panels after each other like a tunnel, other times he slashed just one paper sheet at the time. He continued to perform and paint up until his death in 1996.
About Saburo Murakami
There are things or events that I have before my eyes, and still do not perceive. Sometimes it happens to me that I cannot remember some places, although I had just seen them in a cinema film. If an object is placed in front of me I sometimes see it as it really is, and sometimes I do not actually see it, although I receive it optically. I believe that we do not look about us very precisely. But on the other hand it could happen that I stare at an object with such enormous intensity that afterwards it seems even to myself crazy and idiotic, and yet I see nothing in reality.