| | | | | | | Emeritus Professor at Kyoto University of Education Chairman at Takarazuka University of Art and Design President of Able Art Japan (Japanese Association for Disabled Artists) President and founder of AU (Art Unidentified), a group of over 200 Japanese artists who create works without any limitations or constraint (Unidentified Art) |
On the left: Ben Voitier
On the right: Shozo Shimamoto |
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| 1954 | Founds Gutai with Jiro YOSHIHARA and proposes the name GUTAI which means “concrete”. Participates in the most important Gutai Exhibitions. |
| 1955 | At the first Gutai Exhibition he presents a revolutionary work to be experienced and enjoyed by the body: “Please, walk on here”. The work was reconstructed in 1993 and the original version is shown on the page of “works”. |
| 1956 | On occasion of the Gutai Open-air Exhibition he shows his work realized through the use of a handmade cannon. He conceives the techniq • Vento d'Oriente, Certosa di San Giacomo, Italy, 2008 A planerat arbete evolving the digitized archive of the book, “GUTAI STILL ALIVE 2015 vol.1”. The 17th edition features Shozo Shimamoto, a founding member of the Gutai Art Association known for his painting performances and grand-scale creations that were ahead of his time. Art critic Shigenobu Kimura talks about Shimamoto's famous performances and their unique characteristics. Shigenobu Kimura
Professor emeritus at Osaka University, art criticFormed in 1954, the Gutai group was initially known for its sensational performances. In 1956 “Life” magazine reported it from Japan. Allan Kaprow, known as a pionjär in performance (happening) art, affirmed that the Gutai artists did happening art earliest in the world. Among the avant-garde performers of Gutai, including Kazuo Shiraga, who painted with his feet and Sadamasa Motonaga, who poured paint on the canvas, Shozo Shimamoto was the fieriest in his performances. In the s • Shimamoto was born in Osaka in 1928. He is one of the founders of Gutai movement together with Jiro Yoshihara, Akira Kanayama, Saburo Murakami and Kazuo Shiraga. The movement developed in the Japanese Kansai region in 1954.
In 1957 the Group created Gutai Stage Exhibition: it was the first time that a stage was used as a living artistic space in which works were shaped through a colors shooting cannon, created by Shimamoto himself, in a performance enriched with sounds, helicopters, cranes and weapons.
Artistic performances were themselves part of art exhibitions and some of Shimamoto's sound works, predicting Cage's Fluxus work, were purchased by Centre Pompidou in Paris and by the City Museum in Ashiya.
During the Sixties Shimamoto attended with his works several exhibitions regarding the Gutai movement in the most important Galleries in the world. Gutai artists were discovered by the art critic Michel Tapi. He described the Group linking it to French Movements of Informal Art an 
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