2014 Catalogue Archive

Yuko Nasaka joined the Gutai Art Association in 1963 and became a key member of the group’s Phase Two activities. She became known for modular relief sculptures that she created on a hand-made turntable. Using a palette knife, she created circular compositions made of materials such as plaster, clay, and resin (seen here in this work from 1965), and then added color, texture, and depth to the surface with an airbrush used for painting cars. Nasaka’s use of industrial tools, materials, and process to create repeated forms is seen as echoing a country that was increasingly mechanical and mass-produced in the early 1960s. Jiro Yoshihara featured Nasaka’s work in a 1964 solo exhibition at the Gutai Pinacotheca. Her work has been included in important group exhibitions, such as Aspects of New Tendencies, Internationale Galerij Orez, The Hague; Gutai I, II, II, Ashiya City Museum of Art & History; The 50th Anniversary of Gutai Retrospective Exhibition, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe; and Gutai: Splendid Playground, Guggenheim Museum, New York.