IAACC Pablo Serrano is hosting through January 31, 2027 the exhibition GUTAI. The Circle Remains. Pilar Citoler and the Relevance of a Japanese Avant-Garde, Forty Years Later, a reassessment of Japan’s postwar movement through works assembled by collector Pilar Citoler.
IAACC Pablo Serrano brings Gutai’s legacy and its connection with Spain to Zaragoza
The exhibition, produced by the Government of Aragon and curated by Alejandra Rodríguez Cunchillos, is on display in the museum’s Gallery 94. The project places the Gutai movement in dialogue with Spanish artists and retraces the ties that connected Japan and Spain through travel, exhibitions, and encounters.
Founded in Japan in 1954, Gutai transformed the relationships among matter, the body, action, space, and time. Its members championed artistic creation directed toward what did not yet exist and took part in the international renewal of postwar art, alongside transformations unfolding in Europe and the United States.
Through Pilar Citoler’s Colección Circa XX, among other holdings, IAACC Pablo Serrano preserves the most significant collection in a Spanish public museum of works by Gutai artists or figures associated with the movement. The exhibition revisits this legacy four decades after one of Spain’s leading exhibitions devoted to the Japanese collective.
Michel Tapié, Pilar Citoler, and the artists who brought the Japanese avant-garde closer
The exhibition examines the role of critic Michel Tapié in the relationships among Gutai, Spanish artists such as Pablo Serrano, and Pilar Citoler herself. The collector built her holdings over 50 years while working as a dentist, an endeavor that now makes it possible to reassess the reception and preservation of these artistic proposals in Spain.
During the opening, attended by the director general for Culture and Cultural Heritage, Pedro Olloqui; the director of IAACC Pablo Serrano, Julio Ramón; Pilar Citoler; and Alejandra Rodríguez, the collector took part in a symbolic action connected to the project: “breaking open again”.
The selection includes works by Teshigahara Sōfū, Shigeru Onishi, Tanaka Atsuko, and Kawashima Keiji, alongside pieces by Pablo Serrano, Juana Francés, César Manrique, Antoni Tàpies, Manolo Millares, Salvador Victoria, Luis Feito, Antonio Saura, Henri Michaux, and Emil Nolde.
Catalog and curator-led tours offer a deeper look at the Gutai exhibition
The exhibition project will be accompanied by a catalog available at the institution. The museum will also schedule several activities related to the exhibition, including guided tours led by curator Alejandra Rodríguez Cunchillos.
Registration for these tours will be free through the museum’s website. With this exhibition, IAACC Pablo Serrano reconsiders Gutai’s enduring relevance and the contribution of those who helped bring this Japanese avant-garde movement to Spain and establish its lasting presence there.
