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Shigeko Kubota, a pioneering figure in the history of video and multimedia art, played a key role in the Fluxus movement and engaged with the intersections between art, music, and performance. After moving to New York City with fellow artist Mieko Shiomi in 1964, she joined the Lithuanian American artist and founding member of Fluxus, George Maciunas, in organizing Fluxus activities. Kubota also conceived her own works, such as Flux Napkins (1967) and Flux Medicine (c. 1966). These two works, critical to the movement’s early years, will be on view.
A major highlight of the exhibition will reconsider her 1965 performance Vagina Painting along with her 1975 Video Poem which pioneered the genre of video sculpture. Transcending the conventional boundaries of artistic expression, Kubota’s diverse body of work invites audiences to reflect on the pivotal role that women played in a predominantly male art scene. Exploring Kubota’s legacy at the Japan Society Gallery is particularly meaningful, as the institution organized an early exhibition of her video work in 1978. Forty-five years later, the forthcoming exhibition will shed new light on her expansive oeuvre, in dialogue with the works of her contemporaries from Fluxus.
Since emerging in New York’s downtown art scene in 1960, Yoko Ono has made profound contributions to conceptual and performance art. Ono spent her childhood in Japan and the US, and upon relocating to New York in 1952, she studied music and poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Through her first marriage to Japanese composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ono was introduced to the New York avant-garde circle, including experimental composers, such as John Cage and La Monte Young, and began to present conceptual art pieces that were often participatory. In 1961, Ono was invited to stage her first solo show at George Maciunas’ AG Gallery and became a key contributor to the Fluxus movement.
This exhibition will feature a selection of Ono’s earliest performances, including Cut Piece and Bag Piece, both originally staged in 1964. In her landmark Cut Piece, which has been performed in various iterations, Ono invited audience members to cut off pieces of her clothing, while she kneeled alone on the stage in a meditative state. Merging various dichotomies—performer and viewer, public and private, masculinity and femininity—this performance broke new ground for participatory art.
Notable, too, is Japan Society’s longtime connection with this eminent artist. In 2000–2001, Japan Society organized Ono’s first major museum retrospective in the United States, Yes Yoko Ono, which traveled to over a dozen institutions in the US, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Building on previous exhibitions and scholarship, the forthcoming exhibition will revisit Ono’s early performances in juxtaposition with other Japanese women artists.
Takako Saito is a Japanese artist, who played a seminal role in the production of Fluxus objects and multiples. Through her involvement in the S?z? Biiku Ky?kai [Society for Creative Art Education] in the 1950s, Saito met the artist Ay-O, who introduced her to the New York avant-garde art scene after his move there in 1958 and eventually to George Maciunas. Several months after her arrival in New York in 1963, Saito joined the Fluxus community, assisting Maciunas with the creation of multiples. Though largely self-taught, Saito applied her meticulous handcraft skills to produce her Fluxus works, including a series of whimsical chess sets. Saito moved to Europe in 1968, she continued to collaborate with Fluxus artists, expanding her practice to multimedia installations and performance works.
This exhibition will bring together Saito’s chess sets, a key body of her Fluxus contributions, including Grinder Chess (1965) and Sound Chess (1965/77), which illuminate the multi-sensory and participatory nature underpinning her work. This exhibition will celebrate the significant role that Saito played, both collaboratively and independently, in the production of Fluxus art, and how she developed the playful art of games in the following decades.
Mieko Shiomi crossed the lines of art, music, and performance in her work. While she was a student in Japan, Shiomi co-founded the avant-garde collective, Group Ongaku, with her classmates and explored novel ways of improvisation in music and performance. Through other artists’ introduction, Shiomi sent her work to George Maciunas, leading to her year-long sojourn in New York City in 1964-65. Upon her arrival with Shigeko Kubota, Shiomi joined Fluxus and participated in its events and performances.
This exhibition will introduce the breadth of Shiomi’s contributions to Fluxus, including Endless Box (1963–65) and Water Music (c. 1964). The highlight will be, Spatial Poem, a series of nine mail-art events that took place between 1965 and 1975, and the recreation of the 2023 version, which will be displayed in the exhibition. Exploring the concept of “global art,” Shiomi invited Fluxus artists and friends across the world to perform a simple event and send back reports of the performances which were later published by George Maciunas’s Fluxus editions. Along with other works from her time in Japan and the United States, this exhibition will serve as a crucial opportunity to examine the artist’s active and continued participation in the New York International Fluxus community.
Works in the exhibition will be on loan from significant holdings, including The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Archives at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation, the Walker Art Center, Paula Cooper Gallery, the Emily Harvey Foundation Collection, and several important private collections.
A robust program of public events will accompany the exhibition throughout its duration, including in-gallery interactive experiences, live performances, lectures, and film screenings. In addition, a concert series entitled John Cage’s Japan, organized by Japan Society’s Performing Arts department, explores the rarely examined but profound impact of Japan on the composer John Cage and his influence on the avant-garde period, including his chance operations method embraced by Fluxus artists.
An exhibition catalog will also be published, including newly commissioned texts and documentation of the exhibition as well as photographs and other ephemera. Unique exhibition and graphic design have been newly commissioned for Out of Bounds: Japanese Women in Fluxus by the Brooklyn-based firm Other Means.
The exhibition is organized by Midori Yoshimoto, Guest Curator, and Tiffany Lambert, Curator and Interim Director, Japan Society, with Ayaka Iida, Assistant Curator, Japan Society. Out of Bounds: Japanese Women in Fluxus enters a canon of historic exhibitions held at Japan Society, which has been a thought leader in the arts since its gallery was first established in 1971, supporting such artists as Yayoi Kusama, Kyohei Inukai, Kazuko Miyamoto, Shigeko Kubota, and Yoko Ono, among others, at critical inflection points in their careers. Japan Society Gallery has been focused on diversifying narratives of Japanese art, including re-examining underrepresented artists and positions. This exhibition builds upon this history and the ideas and threads that will be explored throughout Japan Society’s exhibition calendar and related programming in 2023–2024 and beyond.
About Midori Yoshimoto
Midori Yoshimoto is professor of art history and gallery director at New Jersey City University. Yoshimoto’s areas of expertise are post-1945 Japanese art and its global intersections, with a particular emphasis on women artists, Fluxus, and intermedia art. Her dissertation, Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York, was published in 2005 (Rutgers University Press). She has contributed to numerous museum catalogs, including: Yes Yoko Ono (Japan Society, 2000); Japanese Women Artists in Avant-garde Movements (Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Art, 2005); Dissonance: Six Japanese Women Artists (Toyota Museum of Art, 2008); Yayoi Kusama (Centre Pompidou, 2011); Ay-O Over the Rainbow Once Again (The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2012); Gutai: Splendid Playground (Guggenheim Museum, 2013); and Yoko Ono One Woman Show (MoMA, 2015).
ABOUT JAPAN SOCIETY GALLERY
Since 1971, Japan Society Gallery has been the premier institution in the United States for the display and interpretation of Japanese art and culture in a global context. Through groundbreaking exhibitions and related programs, the Gallery cultivates a broader understanding and appreciation of Japan’s contributions to global artistic heritage; explores the artistic interconnections Japan shares with Asia, the U.S., Latin America, and Europe; and celebrates the diversity of Japanese visual expression from prehistoric times to the present day.
ABOUT JAPAN SOCIETYShigeko Kubota, a pioneering figure in the history of video and multimedia art, played a key role in the Fluxus movement and engaged with the intersections between art, music, and performance. After moving to New York City with fellow artist Mieko Shiomi in 1964, she joined the Lithuanian American artist and founding member of Fluxus, George Maciunas, in organizing Fluxus activities. Kubota also conceived her own works, such as Flux Napkins (1967) and Flux Medicine (c. 1966). These two works, critical to the movement’s early years, will be on view.
A major highlight of the exhibition will reconsider her 1965 performance Vagina Painting along with her 1975 Video Poem which pioneered the genre of video sculpture. Transcending the conventional boundaries of artistic expression, Kubota’s diverse body of work invites audiences to reflect on the pivotal role that women played in a predominantly male art scene. Exploring Kubota’s legacy at the Japan Society Gallery is particularly meaningful, as the institution organized an early exhibition of her video work in 1978. Forty-five years later, the forthcoming exhibition will shed new light on her expansive oeuvre, in dialogue with the works of her contemporaries from Fluxus.
Since emerging in New York’s downtown art scene in 1960, Yoko Ono has made profound contributions to conceptual and performance art. Ono spent her childhood in Japan and the US, and upon relocating to New York in 1952, she studied music and poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Through her first marriage to Japanese composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ono was introduced to the New York avant-garde circle, including experimental composers, such as John Cage and La Monte Young, and began to present conceptual art pieces that were often participatory. In 1961, Ono was invited to stage her first solo show at George Maciunas’ AG Gallery and became a key contributor to the Fluxus movement.
This exhibition will feature a selection of Ono’s earliest performances, including Cut Piece and Bag Piece, both originally staged in 1964. In her landmark Cut Piece, which has been performed in various iterations, Ono invited audience members to cut off pieces of her clothing, while she kneeled alone on the stage in a meditative state. Merging various dichotomies—performer and viewer, public and private, masculinity and femininity—this performance broke new ground for participatory art.
Notable, too, is Japan Society’s longtime connection with this eminent artist. In 2000–2001, Japan Society organized Ono’s first major museum retrospective in the United States, Yes Yoko Ono, which traveled to over a dozen institutions in the US, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Building on previous exhibitions and scholarship, the forthcoming exhibition will revisit Ono’s early performances in juxtaposition with other Japanese women artists.
Takako Saito is a Japanese artist, who played a seminal role in the production of Fluxus objects and multiples. Through her involvement in the S?z? Biiku Ky?kai [Society for Creative Art Education] in the 1950s, Saito met the artist Ay-O, who introduced her to the New York avant-garde art scene after his move there in 1958 and eventually to George Maciunas. Several months after her arrival in New York in 1963, Saito joined the Fluxus community, assisting Maciunas with the creation of multiples. Though largely self-taught, Saito applied her meticulous handcraft skills to produce her Fluxus works, including a series of whimsical chess sets. Saito moved to Europe in 1968, she continued to collaborate with Fluxus artists, expanding her practice to multimedia installations and performance works.
This exhibition will bring together Saito’s chess sets, a key body of her Fluxus contributions, including Grinder Chess (1965) and Sound Chess (1965/77), which illuminate the multi-sensory and participatory nature underpinning her work. This exhibition will celebrate the significant role that Saito played, both collaboratively and independently, in the production of Fluxus art, and how she developed the playful art of games in the following decades.
Mieko Shiomi crossed the lines of art, music, and performance in her work. While she was a student in Japan, Shiomi co-founded the avant-garde collective, Group Ongaku, with her classmates and explored novel ways of improvisation in music and performance. Through other artists’ introduction, Shiomi sent her work to George Maciunas, leading to her year-long sojourn in New York City in 1964-65. Upon her arrival with Shigeko Kubota, Shiomi joined Fluxus and participated in its events and performances.
This exhibition will introduce the breadth of Shiomi’s contributions to Fluxus, including Endless Box (1963–65) and Water Music (c. 1964). The highlight will be, Spatial Poem, a series of nine mail-art events that took place between 1965 and 1975, and the recreation of the 2023 version, which will be displayed in the exhibition. Exploring the concept of “global art,” Shiomi invited Fluxus artists and friends across the world to perform a simple event and send back reports of the performances which were later published by George Maciunas’s Fluxus editions. Along with other works from her time in Japan and the United States, this exhibition will serve as a crucial opportunity to examine the artist’s active and continued participation in the New York International Fluxus community.
Works in the exhibition will be on loan from significant holdings, including The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Archives at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation, the Walker Art Center, Paula Cooper Gallery, the Emily Harvey Foundation Collection, and several important private collections.
A robust program of public events will accompany the exhibition throughout its duration, including in-gallery interactive experiences, live performances, lectures, and film screenings. In addition, a concert series entitled John Cage’s Japan, organized by Japan Society’s Performing Arts department, explores the rarely examined but profound impact of Japan on the composer John Cage and his influence on the avant-garde period, including his chance operations method embraced by Fluxus artists.
An exhibition catalog will also be published, including newly commissioned texts and documentation of the exhibition as well as photographs and other ephemera. Unique exhibition and graphic design have been newly commissioned for Out of Bounds: Japanese Women in Fluxus by the Brooklyn-based firm Other Means.
The exhibition is organized by Midori Yoshimoto, Guest Curator, and Tiffany Lambert, Curator and Interim Director, Japan Society, with Ayaka Iida, Assistant Curator, Japan Society. Out of Bounds: Japanese Women in Fluxus enters a canon of historic exhibitions held at Japan Society, which has been a thought leader in the arts since its gallery was first established in 1971, supporting such artists as Yayoi Kusama, Kyohei Inukai, Kazuko Miyamoto, Shigeko Kubota, and Yoko Ono, among others, at critical inflection points in their careers. Japan Society Gallery has been focused on diversifying narratives of Japanese art, including re-examining underrepresented artists and positions. This exhibition builds upon this history and the ideas and threads that will be explored throughout Japan Society’s exhibition calendar and related programming in 2023–2024 and beyond.
About Midori Yoshimoto
Midori Yoshimoto is professor of art history and gallery director at New Jersey City University. Yoshimoto’s areas of expertise are post-1945 Japanese art and its global intersections, with a particular emphasis on women artists, Fluxus, and intermedia art. Her dissertation, Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York, was published in 2005 (Rutgers University Press). She has contributed to numerous museum catalogs, including: Yes Yoko Ono (Japan Society, 2000); Japanese Women Artists in Avant-garde Movements (Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Art, 2005); Dissonance: Six Japanese Women Artists (Toyota Museum of Art, 2008); Yayoi Kusama (Centre Pompidou, 2011); Ay-O Over the Rainbow Once Again (The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2012); Gutai: Splendid Playground (Guggenheim Museum, 2013); and Yoko Ono One Woman Show (MoMA, 2015).
ABOUT JAPAN SOCIETY GALLERY
Since 1971, Japan Society Gallery has been the premier institution in the United States for the display and interpretation of Japanese art and culture in a global context. Through groundbreaking exhibitions and related programs, the Gallery cultivates a broader understanding and appreciation of Japan’s contributions to global artistic heritage; explores the artistic interconnections Japan shares with Asia, the U.S., Latin America, and Europe; and celebrates the diversity of Japanese visual expression from prehistoric times to the present day.
ABOUT JAPAN SOCIETY
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