Publication

PROJECT 07 JEROEN DOORENWEERD MEETS GUTAI

03-09-17 > 29-10-17.

One artist painted in thick oils using his foot; another writhed in mud, wrestling with it to shape it into sculpture; a third hurled glass bottles of paint at the canvas. The members of the Japanese avant-garde group Gutai (1954–1972) were famous for making paintings in which the action was as important as the canvas. “Painting action, not action painting”, they called it. Their performances, installations, paintings and outdoor exhibitions broke new ground.

The Dutch artist Jeroen Doorenweerd (b. 1962) feels a kinship with the Japanese group despite the decades and thousands of kilometres between them. Gutai’s mentality and energy mirror his own. Though best known for his public artworks, in recent years Doorenweerd has been making paintings too. He might create a work by moving a bucket of paint above a canvas, or staging a “painting battle” with his friend and colleague Koen Delaere, or rolling out a large canvas on the beach and painting thick lines across it. This is painting as document of place, time and energy; the result of a painting action, a gesture, a state of being that is deeply personal.

Jeroen Doorenweerd Meets Gutai brings together these two worlds, displaying video footage of performances by Gutai artists including Shimamoto Shōzō, Shiraga Kazuo en Tanaka alongside Doorenweerd’s latest series of paintings, Ultramarine and Pinkorange.

Review in de Volkskrant, 22 September 2017 (in Dutch only)
Review on Chmkoome’s blog (in Dutch only)
Review on Trendbeheer (in Dutch only)
Review on Villa Next Door
Review on Villa la Repubblica (in Dutch only)