Associated with the Anti-Art (Han-geijutsu) movement in Japan in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kudо̄'s provocative art was nourished by lifelong interests in science, sport and everyday objects.

His work often presents a radically transformed and grotesque vision of the human body, calling into question its desires and its limits, as well as its future and origins.

[2] Art historian Nakamura Keiji has commented that while Kudо̄ and other artists associated with the Anti-Art (Han-geijutsu) movement were too young to participate in the war, they were brought up and educated in the ideals of wartime Japan.

[1]: 268  He was also fascinated by science, finding inspiration in photos of cancer and nerve cells that classmates studying medicine shared with him, as well as images taken by electron microscopes.

[1]: 268  Artists who would later be known as integral figures of Japanese post-war art, including Shinohara Ushio and Nakanishi Natsuyuki, took part.

[3]: 114 In addition to his painting practice, Kudо̄ began creating three-dimensional artworks, using found objects, made from materials including but not limited to wood, nails, baskets, scrub brushes and rope.

[6]: 26  The critic Tо̄no Yoshiaki would later identify Kudо̄ as a representative of the tendency of "Junk Anti-Art," exclaiming: "What an unequivocal metaphysics manifested by the most mundane objects!

These performances involved the artist painting canvases with his entire body with extreme vigor and powerful gestures, sometimes accompanied by musicians.

[9]: 180 After the protests failed to stop the passage of the treaty, leading to an overwhelming sense of disappointment and failure on the part of many participants, Kudо̄ began working on a long-running series of installations and Happenings, collectively entitled The Philosophy of Impotence (インポ哲学, Impo tetsugaku).

Composed of different formal elements, including photo collages, large, cylindrical sculptures, a loudspeaker announcing stock prices, and loaves of koppe-pan—a Japanese version of Western bread—Kudо̄ considered the objects to collectively form a single work.

"[6]: 29 Highly provocative and far from erotic, Kudо̄ sought to destroy the "beautiful concept of sex" by demonstrating that human beings are, first and foremost, slaves to reproduction, despite our contributions to society and history: our only real purpose is to ensure the survival of the species.

A memorable performance included Kudо̄ dressed as a priest, a number of phallic forms dangling from his body, convening with a large penis until finally falling on the ground while moaning.

Artist and critic Jean-Jacques Lebel invited Kudo to participate in the group exhibition Catastrophe at the Galerie Raymond Cordier.

[11] He participated in the 3rd Biennale of Paris at the Musée d'art moderne in 1963, where he submitted three works to the Japanese section (one of the three, however, was refused for being "indecent").

He abandoned painting and abstraction completely, focusing on the production of objects and theatrical Happenings that he performed in Paris and other European cities.

Showing the body in this state—in the words of the artist, "ugly, awful, uneasy and sometimes comical"[12]—also served to attack the European idea of human nobility, a major driving force in Kudо̄'s work from his arrival in Paris until the end of his life.

His 1970 work, Grafted Garden / Pollution - Cultivation - New Ecology is a freakish amalgam of metal poles, plants and dismembered body parts.

And yet, Kudо̄ does not intend to evoke horror, but rather to propose a vision of a "New Ecology," in which man, vegetation and technology nourish, transform, cultivate and protect each other, in an "equal relationship, like that between insects and plants, or between nerve and muscle cells.

Indeed, Kudо̄ had abandoned the eccentric, colorful outfits that he had often donned for white robes and adopted a more meditative, mystic ambiance, that included the burning of incense and joining of his hands in prayer.