Groundbreaking Art Takes Spotlight at O’Donnell Athenaeum Exhibit

White glue, bells, wires, tin and rocks may not seem like traditional materials to create art, but a new exhibition at The University of Texas at Dallas highlights how various artists used the items to express themselves in Japan and Korea after the 1950s.

“Groundbreakers: Post-War Japan and Korea from the Dallas Museum of Art and The Rachofsky Collection,” on display at the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum through July 2026, features artists who represent three movements: Mono-ha, Dansaekhwa and Gutai.

After World War II, these artists sought to break free of traditional materials and even methods for creating art, using the movement of their bodies to compose on canvas or control sound.

“The works are playful, minimalist and abstract,” Dr. Natalia Di Pietrantonio, Crow Museum of Asian Art curator and “Groundbreakers” guest curator, said during an Oct. 16 tour.

Gutai was a radical, postwar artistic movement in Japan that went beyond abstract art. In Korea, Dansaekhwa was a monochromatic painting style. Japanese and Korean artists in the Mono-ha movement used natural and industrial materials to express themselves.

Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga, who was part of the Gutai movement, was known for creating colorful canvases by suspending himself and pushing paint with his feet to fill large areas, a technique he began using in 1954. Swirls of bright blue, yellow, pink and purple pop from the canvas of one of Shiraga’s pieces in the exhibition.

Takesada Matsutani, another Gutai artist, also decided to forgo more traditional methods for experimentation.

Matsutani used vinyl glue, which first came out in the late 1940s, prominently in an abstract work that resembles cream-colored open mouths. The art is almost a reflection of how it was made: Matsutani created glue bubbles with his mouth by using a straw and his own breath.

“He needed his body to be in direct contact with this piece,” Di Pietrantonio said. “That’s what makes it his.”

Another Japanese artist who was part of the Gutai movement, Tsuruko Yamazaki, took inspiration from food cans littered all over her country by soldiers to create a colorful reflective piece with tin and aniline dye.

The “Groundbreakers” exhibition is lined with gray wires plugged into circular pucks that could easily be mistaken for a security system. Instead, a button invites visitors to “please press this,” releasing a sharp shrill. The installation was made by artist Atsuko Tanaka, whose work also is part of the Gutai movement.

The work of one of the Mono-ha movement’s well-known artists, Lee Ufan, can be seen in a striking canvas of blue squares against a beige backdrop. Sponsored by the Korean government to study new art practices in Japan, Ufan was the main theorist of the Mono-ha movement, Di Pietrantonio said.

“Unlike Gutai, Mono-ha artists are presenting the world as is,” she said.

Korean artist Do Ho Suh was homesick while he studied in the U.S. It inspired him to create a seafoam-colored translucent structure that invites viewers to reflect on the portable polyester piece.

At nearly 10 feet tall, the rectangular ghostlike hallway features architectural details like small doorknobs and intricately patterned windows.

“He created a work of art he could take with him,” Di Pietrantonio said. “This is the corridor of his family home.”

The “Groundbreakers” installation is the second Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) collection to be featured in the UT Dallas Art Museums building, the first phase of the O’Donnell Athenaeum, as part of the ongoing partnership between the University and the DMA.

“Natalia has opened our eyes to one of the aspects of the [DMA’s] collection that doesn’t get exhibited a lot,” said Dr. Michael Thomas, managing curator of the UT Dallas and DMA exhibition partnership; director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History; the Richard R. Brettell Distinguished University Chair; and professor of arts and humanities.