Shozo Shimamoto

Our newest monograph about Shozo Shimamoto, one of the main proponents of the Gutai Art Association, features historical photographic documentation, illustrating the processes behind his body of work, as well as extensive writings by Yoshio Katoh, Tijs Visser, Lorenzo Mango, Andrea Mardegan and Axel Vervoordt.

“Initially, Shimamoto started from the perspective of painting, but he was permanently seeking a means to free himself of a purely pictorial context. Since the beginning of Gutai, he was able to build up a strong reputation as an experimental artist working in different media, exploring concepts of time and space, while simultaneously focusing on his mechanistic methods. He perforated canvases, shot paint with cannons on large sheets of vinyl, smashed glass bottles filled with paint on canvases, realized sculptures from razorblades, scratched and colorized films, and made violent and destructive installations with light and music for the theatre stage. In the course of his work, Shimamoto has independently obtained results which normally only more than one artist could achieve.” - Tijs Visser, as published in his essay ‘A space that deserves The Name of Art’, p. 17.

Published by Axel Vervoordt Gallery in collaboration with AsaMer, an imprint of MER. Paper Kunsthalle.