Takesada MATSUTANI

Takesada Matsutani was born in Osaka in 1937. He first aspired to become a Japanese-style painter and joined the Gutai Art Association in 1960 after being referred by Sadamasa Motonaga. Using a bond invented in Osaka shortly after the war, Matsutani began to produce relief-like works around 1962, incorporating organic forms created by the material itself. The sensual shapes and textures that bulge and droop over a pictorial plane were highly acclaimed by Jiro Yoshihara, the leader of the Gutai Art Association, for showing the possibilities of a new kind of painting. At the age of 29, Matsutani went to France as a French government-sponsored student and entered the printmaking studio of S. W. Hayter. He set up his atelier in Paris, and from around 1980, Matsutani began to develop his unique world of black and white with a body of work in which the surface of the piece is painted over with pencil. Matsutani’s highly spiritual black-and-white works, materialized with his keen sensibility that transcends the East and the West, have become the signature of his creation. Matsutani continues to expand the possibilities of his expression from his studio in Paris, actively engaging in performance and installation in addition to his two-dimensional work.

Matsutani’s solo exhibitions include MATSUTANI WAVES, Nishinomiya Otani Memorial Museum of Art (2000); Stream, The Museum of Modern Art, Kanagawa (2010); Takesada Matsutani; A Matrix, Hauser & Wirth (2013); MATSUTANI CURRENTS, Nishinomiya Otani Memorial Art Museum (2015); and Takesada Matsutani, Centre Pompidou (2019). He also participated in group exhibitions including Gutai: The Spirit of an Era, The National Art Center, Tokyo (2012); Gutai: Splendid Playground, Guggenheim Museum (2013); Into the Unknown World – GUTAI: Differentiation and Integration, The National Museum of Art, Osaka and Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka (2022). Matsutani’s work was included in the Venice Biennale for the main section in 2017.

His works are in the collections of major museums abroad, including the Centre Georges Pompidou; M+ (Hong Kong); the Rashofsky Collection (Dallas); the Museum of Modern Art (Paris); the National Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, as well as numerous museums in Japan, including the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the National Museum of Art, Osaka; the National Museum of Art, Osaka; the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art; the Nakanoshima Museum, Osaka; and the Ashiya City Museum of Art.