Shigeko Kubota
Born in 1937 in Niigata, Japan, Shigeko Kubota became a key member of the Japanese avant-garde, a respected participant in New York Fluxus events in the 1960s, and, starting in the 1970s, a pioneering practitioner of video art. Upon graduating from the Tokyo University of Education in 1960, she fell in with members of the avant-garde movements Group Ongaku, Hi Red Center, and Zero Jigen. These groups pushed art’s boundaries, incorporating music, performance, and movement into their work, with which they questioned the centralized authority of the postwar Japanese government and what they viewed as its focus on economic growth at the expense of the well being of individual citizens. Their experiments were also in keeping with the activities of Fluxus artists like George Maciunas and John Cage, whose works were highly regarded by the Tokyo avant-garde. Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary movement that promoted experimentation across mediums, and a number of Japanese artists became important members, including Ay-O, Takako Saito, Yoko Ono, and Mieko Shiomi (who moved to New York with Kubota in 1964).
Because critics in Japan ignored most avant-garde art, and were particularly dismissive of women artists, Kubota decided that she would have better career opportunities in New York, where she was immediately accepted into the Fluxus community. Maciunas dubbed her the “vice president of Fluxus” for helping him to organize events and distribute mail art, and for her active participation in activities including the “Fluxus dinner commune”—a short-lived series of communal dinners prepared and attended by Fluxus artists, who would conclude the meals by making objects—and the production of multiples, small, multi-editioned works that were frequently produced collaboratively. Kubota also produced some of her own Fluxus objects, including Flux Napkins (c. 1967) and Flux Medicine (c. 1966).
Kubota’s most infamous (and somewhat anomalous) work was Vagina Painting (1965), which she presented as part of the Perpetual Fluxfest, at Cinematheque in New York on July 4, 1965. In this performance, she attached the handle of a paintbrush to her underwear, squatted over a bucket of red paint, and waddled across a large sheet of paper laid on the floor, creating red, menstrual-like smears. This piece functioned as a send-up of what the influential art critic Harold Rosenberg termed “action painting” by feminizing the hyper-masculine, phallus-as-paintbrush image of Abstract Expressionist painters like Jackson Pollock. It also may have been a reference to the practice of lower-class geishas, who sometimes entertained customers by writing calligraphy with brushes inserted in their vaginas.1 Kubota’s performance fused dichotomies, combining high and low arts, masculine and feminine elements, and Eastern and Western cultures.
Following Vagina Painting, Kubota turned away from performance and began exploring new media, particularly video, which would comprise the bulk of her output for the rest of her career. Duchampiana: Nude Descending a Staircase (1976)—which features three video monitors embedded in a plywood staircase showing a nude woman walking down stairs—reveals her indebtedness to Marcel Duchamp. This was the first video sculpture acquired by MoMA. Kubota and her husband, Nam June Paik, pioneered the development of video art, exploring the aesthetic, technological, emotive, and even organic potential of this new medium.
Introduction by Elizabeth S. Hawley, Museum Research Consortium Fellow, Department of Architecture and Design, 2016
- Introduction
- Shigeko Kubota (久保田 成子, Kubota Shigeko) (2 August 1937 – 23 July 2015) was a Japanese video artist, sculptor and avant-garde performance artist, who mostly lived in New York City. She was one of the first artists to adopt the portable video camera Sony Portapak in 1967. Kubota is known for constructing sculptural installations with a strong DIY aesthetic, which include sculptures with embedded monitors playing her original videos. She was a key member and influence on Fluxus, the international group of avant-garde artists centered on George Maciunas, having been involved with the group since witnessing John Cage perform in Tokyo in 1962 and subsequently moving to New York in 1964. She was closely associated with George Brecht, Jackson Mac Low, John Cage, Joe Jones, Nam June Paik, and Ay-O, other members of Fluxus. Kubota was deemed "Vice Chairman" of the Fluxus Organization by Maciunas.Kubota's video and sculptural works are mainly shown in galleries – though her use of the television is synonymous with other video artists of the 1960s who made experimental broadcast programs as a move against the hegemony of major networks. Kubota is known for her contribution to the expansion of the field of video into the field of sculpture and for her works addressing the place of video in art history. Her work explores the influence of the technology, and more specifically the television set, on personal memory and the emotions. Some works for example, eulogize, while also exploring the presence of the deceased in video footage and recorded images such as her Duchampiana series, the video My Father, and her later works Korean Grave and Winter in Miami which eulogize her husband Nam June Paik. Kubota's sculptures also play with ways in which video footage and sculptures which utilize videos can evoke nature, as in her Meta-Marcel, Bird, and Tree series' and in River, and Rock Video: Cherry Blossoms.
- Wikidata
- Q3816460
- Introduction
- Kubota was one of the first artists to see the potential of video technology as an art medium, and was a central figure in the Fluxus movement.
- Nationality
- Japanese
- Gender
- Female
- Roles
- Artist, Performance Artist, Video Artist
- Name
- Shigeko Kubota
- Ulan
- 500104766
Exhibitions
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410: At the Border of Art and Life
Oct 21, 2019–Sep 20, 2020
MoMA
Collection gallery
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Tokyo 1955–1970: A New Avant-Garde
Nov 18, 2012–Feb 25, 2013
MoMA
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MoMA Media Lounge
Feb 29, 2012–Jul 8, 2013
MoMA
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Thing/Thought: Fluxus Editions, 1962–1978
Sep 21, 2011–Jan 16, 2012
MoMA
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Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen
Sep 15, 2010–May 2, 2011
MoMA
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Shigeko Kubota has
20 exhibitionsonline.
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Shigeko Kubota 1st.LOVE, 2nd.LOVE… 1963
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Various Artists, Ay-O, George Brecht, Congo (a Chimpanzee), Dick Higgins, Joe Jones, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, György Sándor Ligeti, Jackson Mac Low, Benjamin Patterson, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, La Monte Young Fluxus 1 1964
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Various Artists, George Brecht, Stanley Brouwn, Congo (a Chimpanzee), Sohei Hashimoto, Dick Higgins, Joe Jones, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, György Sándor Ligeti, Jackson Mac Low, George Maciunas, Benjamin Patterson, Takako Saito, Tomas Schmit, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, La Monte Young Fluxus 1 1964
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Shigeko Kubota Letter to George Maciunas 1964
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Various Artists, George Brecht, Stanley Brouwn, Congo (a Chimpanzee), Dick Higgins, Joe Jones, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, György Sándor Ligeti, George Maciunas, Jackson Mac Low, Benjamin Patterson, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, La Monte Young Fluxus 1 1964
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Shigeko Kubota Vagina Painting, performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, July 4, 1965 1965
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Various Artists, Eric Andersen, Ay-O, George Brecht, Joe Jones, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, George Maciunas, Benjamin Patterson, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts Fluxkit 1965–66
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George Maciunas, Shigeko Kubota Mechanical for Flux Medicine c. 1966
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Shigeko Kubota Flux Napkins 1967
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Shigeko Kubota Flux Medicine c. 1966
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Shigeko Kubota Marcel Duchamp and John Cage 1972
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Shigeko Kubota Europe on 1/2 Inch a Day 1972
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Shigeko Kubota Flux Napkins c. 1967
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Shigeko Kubota Video Girls and Video Songs for Navajo Sky 1973
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Various Artists, George Brecht, Willem de Ridder, Albert M. Fine, Ken Friedman, Shigeko Kubota, Frederic Lieberman, George Maciunas, Claes Oldenburg, Benjamin Patterson, James Riddle, Paul Sharits, Bob Sheff, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts Flux Year Box 2 c. 1968
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Various Artists, Eric Andersen, Ay-O, George Brecht, John Chick, Robert Filliou, Albert M. Fine, Ken Friedman, Hi Red Center, Jack Coke’s Farmer’s Co-op, Joe Jones, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, George Maciunas, Olivier Mosset, Serge Oldenbourg, Benjamin Patterson, James Riddle, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts Fluxkit c. 1969
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Shigeko Kubota My Father 1973-1975
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Shigeko Kubota Duchampiana: Nude Descending a Staircase 1976
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Various Artists, Ay-O, George Brecht, Congo (a Chimpanzee), Robert Filliou, Anna Halprin, Hi Red Center, Takehisa Kosugi, Joe Jones, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Shigeko Kubota, György Sándor Ligeti, George Maciunas, Jackson Mac Low, Yoko Ono, Benjamin Patterson, Tomas Schmit, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, La Monte Young Fluxus 1 c. 1976
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Nam June Paik, Shigeko Kubota, Jud Yalkut, Douglas Davis Suite 212 1975/1977
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Nam June Paik, Shigeko Kubota Merce by Merce by Paik Part Two: Merce and Marcel 1978
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Various Artists, George Brecht, Willem de Ridder, Albert M. Fine, Ken Friedman, Shigeko Kubota, Frederic Lieberman, George Maciunas, Serge Oldenbourg, Benjamin Patterson, James Riddle, Paul Sharits, Bob Sheff, Daniel Spoerri, Stan VanDerBeek, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts Flux Year Box 2 1966/1978
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Nam June Paik, Shigeko Kubota Allan 'n' Allen's Complaint 1982
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Shigeko Kubota Trip to Korea 1984
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Shigeko Kubota SoHo SoAp/Rain Damage 1985
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Shigeko Kubota Rock Video: Cherry Blossom 1986
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Shigeko Kubota Video Installations 1970-1994 1994
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Shigeko Kubota George Maciunas With Two Eyes 1972, George Maciunas With One Eye 1976 1994
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Shigeko Kubota Winter in Miami 2005 2006
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