on the mother of video art
“Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality.” The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, 2021, www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5324. Accessed 10 Mar. 2022.
Last week, I published a blog on my trip to New York for Fashion Week. During my short stay, I was fortunate enough to be able to take a quick look at the Museum of Modern Art.
I will publish many blogs on this visit, but what really caught my eye was the Shigeko Kubota Liquid Reality exhibition.
The exhibition was held in a tall dark room right to another group of brightly-lit rooms. Just walking into the dark room, it felt as though I had entered a different realm. Three installations loosely occupied the floor. Video Haiku (1981) biomorphic mirror on the left with a swinging spherical projector on it. River (1979 - 1981) was an organically shaped boat to the right of the room, filled with running water. Three television screens on top of it. In the centre was Nigara Falls (1985), made of a metal stand, perhaps, with small cuts of mirror and screens embedded on an angle, never one upright. Water trickled slowly in front of the stand and into a small rectangular pool in front. The neon-green, hot-pink, and bright-orange lights glowed in the room and reflected on the walls. The reflections themselves were works of art, biomorphic, and surreal. The sound of flowing water and the hissing of technology filled the room. The combination of nature and digital devices felt unreal and strangely attractive.
“Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality.” The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, 2021, www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5324. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
What is interesting about Kubato’s works is its unconventional combination of nature and digital devices that, when looking at it, still feels futuristic. Her use of water in River to twist the brightly coloured TV commercial clips reflect the passive position the audience are when watching TV. The direct combination of digital media with an element associated with nature also reveals that contemporary humans are living in a mixed world of virtual reality and nature, or reality. Kubato’s shocking placement of video with sculpture further breaks the boundaries of video and sculptural art: it not only challenged the video as an isolated medium away from the norm, but it also broke the idea that sculptures had to be concrete material.
Pruitt, Ida. “Shigeko Kubota: River.” The Brooklyn Rail, 7 Mar. 2019, brooklynrail.org/2019/03/1by1/Shigeko-Kubota-River. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
A little on Kubota as a feminist artist. Although the modern world regard her Vagina Painting (1965) as a pioneer feminist piece, Kubota herself resisted the title of a feminist artist. What I find interesting is that many, or most, women artists are identified as feminist artists, but not just as artists. Kubota’s story poses the question “do women artists have to be feminists in order to be recognized by society?”.
“Shigeko Kubota, 1937–2015.” Artreview.com, 2015, artreview.com/news-28-july-2015-shigeko-kubota-19372015/. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
The Fluxus movement was to promote revolutionary art and anti-art, challenging the definition of art. Kubota not only achieved so but still remained a beacon in contemporary art.
“Everything Is Video: The Radical Imagination of Shigeko Kubota | Magazine | MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, 2021, www.moma.org/magazine/articles/606. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
Reed, John. “‘Liquid Reality’ at MoMA Explores the Intersections of Shigeko Kubota.” Observer, Observer, 2 Dec. 2021, observer.com/2021/12/liquid-reality-at-moma-explores-the-intersections-of-shigeko-kubota/. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
“Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality.” The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, 2021, www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5324. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
Watlington, Emily. “Who Was Shigeko Kubota, and Why Was She Important?” ARTnews.com, ARTnews.com, 5 Aug. 2021, www.artnews.com/feature/shigeko-kubota-who-was-she-why-is-she-important-1234601001/. Accessed 13 Mar. 2022.
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