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Who Decides Whether Art is Good or Bad?
Takesada Matsutani on objectivity, originality and authenticity in art
This week I watched an interesting video featuring the Japanese artist Takesada Matsutani, who has been practising since the early 1960s. Matsutani is not a household name in the history of contemporary art even though he was pioneering back in his early career. It made me think once again about how and why certain artists come to be recognised as ‘significant’.
Matsutani was born in 1937. As a young man he became a member of Gutai, an avant-garde group of artists set up in Japan in 1954 whose radical ideas and approaches to making art in the post-war years presaged the later performance and conceptual art of the 60s and 70s. He was one of the younger members, joining the group in 1963. In his search to create three dimensionality on the surface of the canvas he tried using vinyl glue as a material. He described that important moment like this:
One day, I wanted to create a biological shape, but in three dimensions. I could not use ice because that would melt and become liquid, so therefore I decided to replace it with vinyl glue. I thought that was an interesting…
