Resumen de Shiraga Kazuo: the hero and concrete violence
Shiraga Kazuo's body of work reveals an interest in the tropes of masculinity through referencing archetypal models of the hero while deftly taking up the formal language of modernism. The Amagasaki-born artist's re-workings took many forms, appearing in the overt literary references in the titles that he gave his paintings, the aggressive nature of his performance art, and in the search for heroism that was subtly interwoven into his biography. As the gendered figures of the American soldier and the American abstract expressionist loom large, Shiraga's multiplicity of masculine roles undoes the notion of a fixed masculine ideal. Yet his insistent embodiment of these archetypes also calls attention to, and perhaps advances, their power.
