He was a member of the Gutai Art Association and is best known for his paper-breaking performances (kami-yaburi) in which he burst through kraft paper stretched on large wooden frames.
[1] Murakami’s work includes paintings, three-dimensional objects and installation as well as performance, and is characterized by a highly conceptual approach that transcends dualistic thinking and materializes in playful interactive forms and often thematizes time, chance and intuition.
Saburo Murakami was born in Kobe, Japan, in 1925, as the third son of an English teacher at Kwansei Gakuin Junior High School.
In 1952 Murakami formed the Zero-kai (Zero Group)[4] with Kazuo Shiraga, Atsuko Tanaka, and Akira Kanayama, all fellows from the Shinseisaku Kyōkai.
Their son Tomohiko Murakami, born in 1951, is a critic and researcher of manga and pop culture and has been a professor at Kobe Shoin Women’s University.
[9] Murakami recounted that his paper-breaking was inspired by his toddler son, who in a tantrum burst through the fusuma paper space divider at their home.
Murakami's discovery of tearing paper and other surfaces as a method of artistic production marked a turning point in his approach to painting and provided the basis for his later performance works.
[12] Murakami continued to perform the act of paper-breaking (kami-yaburi) throughout his entire life, varying in the number and quality of paper screens as well as in the structure.
In 1971, Murakami held a solo exhibition, during which wooden boxes were placed throughout the city of Osaka and then collected and dismantled in the gallery Mori’s Form.
[16] After Gutai dissolved following Yoshihara’s death in 1972, Murakami’s exhibitions, which he held in galleries in Osaka and Kobe, increasingly centered around events of performance and interaction with the visitors.
Murakami was also a renowned painter, whose highly conceptual methods and presentation led to experimentation with a variety of painting gestures inspired by children.
Reports on Gutai exhibitions in the Japanese press in the mid-1950s depicted Murakami’s performance of paper-breaking as an attention-seeking whimsical stunt by a proponent of a group of provocative young artists, rather than considering its deeper art-theoretical implications.