Minoru Yoshida

Minoru Yoshida (1935–2010) was a Japanese painter, sculptor, and performance artist, associated with the Gutai Art Association.

Minoru Yoshida
Born	1935 (1935)[1] Osaka[1]
Died	2010 (2011)
Nationality	Japanese
Alma mater	Kyoto City University of Fine Arts[1]
Known for	Painting, Sculpture, & Performance Art
Movement	Gutai Art Association

Early life and education

Yoshida attended a high school which specialized in science before studying painting at Kyoto City University of Fine Arts.^[2]

He briefly ran a kimono-dyeing shop before beginning his professional career as an artist.^[3]

Work

京都九条山 ヨシダ ミノル アトリエ

Yoshida is a second-generation Gutai artist, noted in the 1960s for his hard edge abstract paintings and futuristic sculptures before shifting the focus of his work to the performance format in the 1970s.^[4] In 1965 he joined the Gutai movement.^[3] Yoshida began incorporating performance art into his practice while living in New York City.^[4] His performances often incorporated a "synthesizer jacket," a garment the artist created from plexiglass and adorned with circuits and resembling his earlier sculptures.^[5] The artist also wired speakers into panels that were worn around the wearer’s thighs. By operating the different switches on the jacket, sculptural garment emitted a series of different rhythmic electronic sounds.^[6] Yoshida lived in New York City from 1970 to 1978 before returning to Japan where he continued to work and perform until his death in 2010.^[3]

Notable exhibitions

He was included in the 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th, 20th, and 21st Gutai Art Exhibitions at the Gutai Pinacotheca.^[1] His piece Bisexual Flower was included in the Osaka World Expo 1970.^[4] In 2013, Yoshida was included in Gutai: Splendid Playground exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum.^[7]

Public collections

Yoshida's works can be found in the collections of Ashiya City Museum of Art and History, Hyogo, Japan; Ohara Museum of Art, Okayama, Japan; Takamatsu Municipal Museum, Kagawa, Japan; Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Niigata, Japan; and National Museum of Modern Art,^[8] Kyoto, Japan.^[9][10]