Ushio Shinohara Boxing Painting, (1961/2007) at the Getty Center

What can I say? I don’t think I ever had any real appreciation for action painting before Friday afternoon. Ushio Shinohara performed/executed his piece, Boxing Painting, at the Getty Center as part of (Rajikaru!) Experimentations in Japanese Art, 1950–1975, a series of programs piggybacking on/associated with Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art at the Getty Research Institute.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but I really can’t express enough how awesome this performance was. Before the performance, Shinohara gave a long, but not too long, talk about the history of the piece, about his relationship to action painting and about the piece itself. He also mentioned, and this resonated with me because it’s a subject I’ve been thinking about quite a bit, the importance of documentation of the piece. In the research I’ve done since seeing the piece, I’ve gotten the impression that Shinohara is has been very smart about making sure his works get both attention and documentation, something that I think is even more important, and more of a challenge for artists working today.

above – Shirohara’s assistant helps him into his first set of gloves. He used a different glove for each colour.

above – Shirohara has his head shaved into a mowhawk. He’s had his hair ritually shaved into a mowhawk every time he’s performed Boxing Painting.

above – getting dynamic with a jumping uppercut.

above – dipping the gloves in paint. the contact area of the gloves is covered with an absorbent material to soak up the paint.

above – Shinohara bows in triumph after completing the piece. the whole thing took only minutes.

above – the finished piece. This is a stitched photo – any distortion is the result of that process.

Above – a discarded boxing glove

There are more photos in my Getty Center Flickr set. Lots of punching, getting ready and other good stuff!