"Gutai, el círculo permanece. Pilar Citoler y la vigencia de una vanguardia japonesa cuarenta años después" is exceptional in character, but it also has a unique feature: the IAACC Pablo Serrano houses the most significant collection of Gutai art, mostly from collector Pilar Citoler’s CIRCA XX collection. The exhibition can be seen from this Thursday until next January 31 in the museum’s Sala 94.
The exhibition brings together a selection of works by Shigeru Onishi, Tanaka Atsuko, Kawashima Keiji and Teshigahara Sofu, as well as a bust of Michel Tapié by Pablo Serrano. Tapié was a French art critic and one of the key figures in building bridges and linking Gutai to the Spanish context. Works by Juana Francés, Antonio Saura and Luis Feito can also be seen, engaging in dialogue with this avant-garde movement.
"It is a joy and a pleasure to be in this museum because in Madrid, where I live, there are no museums as ideal as this one. It is a museum to which we have been gradually lending some pieces from a collection I built very slowly. I was a dentist for 50 years, and I remember leaving the office very late, around ten at night, and then calling the galleries to see what they had. There are thousands of collectors better than me, but within that level I have put all my affection, all my effort and passion into it," explained Zaragoza-born collector Pilar Citoler.
AN EXHIBITION ARRIVING 40 YEARS LATER
For the exhibition’s curator, Alejandra Rodríguez, it is a tribute to a group that had remained "something peripheral." "Thanks to Pilar Citoler’s generosity, we now have in a Spanish public museum the only exceptional works by a group that is not represented anywhere else in Spain. If we want to find the closest equivalent, we have to go to the Pompidou in Paris. It is a tribute to Pilar, but also to that group, which needs to be given the place it deserves," she said.
