Sadaharu Horio

Sadaharu Horio (°Kobe, 1939) can be considered as the most important artist of his generation. He joined the Gutai group in 1966 and has been expanding on the avant-garde spirit of Gutai with an impressive body of experimental work. The relationship between art and the everyday life lies at the core of Horio's practice, which can be seen as on ever-repeating ritual. There is the act of coloring objects, which he undertakes every day. There are the many performances, producing a myriad of drawings and painting.

As he would describe it: "Everything ordinary or unaffected is basically a performance." Not a matter of aestheticization, or of raising the banal to the level of art. All is in the non-referential action. Atsuo Yamamoto, former curator of The Museum of Modern Art in Shiga (Japan) writes about the work of Horio: "The idea of creating so many drawings are connected to issue of life and time. All his works are done under one theme, to make the "invisible" visible. Horio always tries to grasp air - emptiness - or time, so essential for human beings ..."