Analogy

Yutaka Funai

Yutaka Funai’s serigraphs and lithographs of minimalist, geometric studies began during his time with the experimental art group Gunai (1955 - 1971), considered Japan’s first avant garde movement. A founding member, he collaborated with the group for one year before joining the Democratic Art Association and exhibiting throughout Japan, Europe, and the U.S.

Funai’s “can” works, which feature variations on the theme of a floating cylindrical shape superimposed on a field of contrasting lines, were originally criticized in the late 1960s for coat-tailing on the Pop Art scene of the 1960s New York, particularly Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup series. However, Funai’s experimentation with these shapes predates the American art movement and emerged throughout his career as a meditation on spatial relation and his affinity for finding order within chaos.