GUTAI DICTIONARY
Back to IndexExhibition: Zero on the Sea (Netherlands)
After the Null 1965 exhibition, a new international exhibition was organized in the Netherlands.
It was to be held at the wharf in the resort town of Scheveningen on the North Sea. This plan ultimately failed to materialize because of the harsh climatic conditions and the inability to insure the exhibition. However, a proposal for the exhibition was exhibited at the Orez International Gallery and published in a special issue of the architectural magazine Forum in June 1967.
The exhibition attempted to return to the experimental artistic activities of Gutai's early years. It was an attempt by old and new members to recapture the excitement of Gutai's first outdoor exhibition and to break new ground. The works planned for this exhibition include Maekawa's transparent plastique tube with wind-driven flying debris, Toshiro Yoshida's bubble sculpture, Sadamasa Motonaga's water and smoke work, Shuji Mukai's refrigerator filled with symbols, Kumiko Imanaka's windmill sculpture, and others that have been presented in the past, as well as works that take advantage of this special exhibition environment. For example, Michio Yoshihara's work in which buildings standing across the sea from each other on the wharf are connected with ropes and many red ribbons are hung from them; Norio Imai's device in which rubber membranes are slowly spread by a motor; a group of plastic jellyfish floating in the sea; Senkichiro Nasaka's colored tape attached to a rocket that soars into the sky and then disappears, were some of the new ideas being considered that make use of the environment.