Axel Vervoordt Gallery Hong Kong Nov 15, 2017 – Feb 10, 2018 Valencia Tong The word Gutai suggests wild, expressive gestures and performances, but the work of late Gutai artist Masatoshi Masanobu (1911-95) from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s in this exhibition at Axel Vervoordt Gallery is rather controlled and subdued. Masanobu met painter Jiro Yoshihara, co-founder of the post-war avant-garde group, in Kobe in 1947; Yoshihara founded Gutai in 1954 when Masanobu was 43. A prolific artist, Masanobu participated in a number of Gutai exhibitions until the group dissolved in 1972. The earth-tone enamel colours of the paintings in the current exhibition, coupled with the primitive yet abstract composition, make them oddly calming. The emphasis on the materiality of the paintings, rather than the fleeting performative actions, creates an illusion of weight and solidity. The mind becomes lost as the eye follows the wriggling lines, hand-drawn but calculated – unlike, for example, the casual scribbles of Cy Twombly. The brushstrokes recall a magnified version of the patterns of felt or knitted fabrics. As the Gutai Manifesto says, “Gutai art does not change …