1980 - 1990

Video Installations

I want to create a fusion of art and life, Asia and America, Duchampiana modernism and Levi-Straussian savagism, cool form and hot video, dealing with all of those complex problems, spanning the tribal memory of the Nomadic Asians who crossed over the Bering Strait over 10,000 years ago. Then, I came, flying in a Boeing 707, on July 4th in 1964, drawn to the glittering Pop Art world of New York.

The landscape of the Navajo enchanted me: the incredible colors of Arizona, the skies of the high desert. When I finally had to leave, I resolved to return. In 1976 I traveled throughout western America, recording the landscape in color video in the mountains of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the deserts and canyons of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Many great ancient sculptural works―Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Peru’s Nazca Lines―bear within their grand scale and precisely composed form another, religious and reflexive, dimension. Sculpture mirrors nature while containing the imprint, the consciousness, of its maker.

Chronology: Video Installations

1981
■ Video Artist in Residence, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
■ The Museum of Modern Art purchased Duchampiana: Nude Descending a Staircase as the first video installation for its collection.
■ [June 26‒Aug. 23] Options 9, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
◎ Grave / Staircase / Video Chess / Window / Video Haiku - Hanging Piece (Hereafter Video Haiku)
■ [Aug. 1‒Sept. 6, 11‒28] The Exhibition of Marcel Duchamp, The Museum of Modern Art, Seibu Takanawa, Nagano, The Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo.
◎ Window / Staircase
■ [Sept. 30‒Oct. 17] [solo show] Atholl McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art institute Annual Exhibition.
◎ Staircase / Window
■ [Dec. 12‒Jan. 24, 1982] Shigeko Kubota: Video Sculptures, toured from daadgalerie, Berlin, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Kunsthaus Zürich
◎ Chess / Staircase / Window / Door / River / Shigeko in Berlin [daadgalerie. Other venues unknown]
■ Video Classics, The Bronx Museum, New York.
◎ Staircase

1982
■ [June 10‒13] National Video Festival, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C. et al.
◎ Staircase / Window

1983
■ [Mar. 15‒29] Whitney Biennial 1983, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
◎ River / Allan ’n’ Allen ’s Complaint
■ [June 23‒30] “Eye to Eye” An event surveying recent Asian American artist works, Asian Arts Institute, New York
◎[unknown]
■ [July 1‒Sept. 4] Art and Technology, The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama.
◎ Window / Staircase
■ [Sept. 10‒25 ] [solo show] Japan American Cultural and Community Center, Los Angeles.
◎[unknown]
■ [Oct. 1‒31] Shigeko Kubota / MATRIX 65, The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum.
◎ River
■ [Oct. 3‒Jan. 3, 1984 ] Video Art: A History, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
◎ My Father
■ [Nov. 2‒Nov. 26] Shigeko Kubota Video Sculpture, White Columns, New York.
◎ Window (Snow / Flowers / Stars) / Video Haiku / Video Relief / Green Installations / Chess / Berlin Diary: Thanks to my Ancestors (Hereafter Berlin Diary) / Duchampiana: Bicycle Wheel (Hereafter Bicycle)
■ [Dec. 6‒18] Shigeko Kubota Video Sculptures, Fondo del Sol, Visual Art and Media Center, Washington D.C.
◎ Meta Marcel: Window (Snow / Flowers / Stars) / Video Haiku / Video Relief / Green Installations
■ [Dec. 14‒23] Ten-day Video “Snow”, Grey Art Gallery, New York.
◎ Meta-Marcel: Window
■ [solo show] Japan House Gallery, New York.
◎ Video Poem
■ Transformations, Focal Point Media Center, Seattle, Washington.
◎[unknown]
■ [exhibition title unknown] Palais de Beaux-Art, Bruxelles
◎[unknown]

1984
■ [February ] River was featured on the cover of Art in America magazine.
■ [Summer] Trip to Korea with Paik after his show in Tokyo (Nam June Paik: mostly video, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum).
■ [Sept. 14‒Oct. 28] The Luminous Image, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
◎ Three Mountains
■ [Nov. 23‒Jan. 1, 1985] A Survey: Artist’s TV Lab, WNET/ Thirteen, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
◎[unknown]
■ [Dec. 18‒29 ] Shigeko Kubota: Marcel Duchamp’s Grave (Revived),The Kitchen, New York.
◎ Grave
■ Societe des Expositions, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles.
◎[unknown]
■ [exhibition title unknown] Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin.
◎ River
■ [exhibition title unknown] Sprengel Museum, Hanover.
◎ Staircase
■ TiJD show, Louisiana Museum, Copenhagan.
◎ Staircase

1985
■ Received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.
■［Mar. 9‒30］Shigeko Kubota Video Installation: Niagara Falls, The Kitchen, New York.
◎ Niagara Falls (Hereafter Niagara)
■［July 18‒Sept. 8］The Box Show, Tamayo Museum, Mexico City.
◎ Window (Snow / Flowers / Stars)
■［Nov. 6‒Jan. 6, 1986］[title unknown] Kulturhuset, The Stockholm Culture House, Sweden
◎ Staircase
■［Nov. 14‒Dec. 22 ］TV Sculpture, Hofstra Emily Lowe Gallery, Hofstra University, New York.
◎ Green Installation / Window (Snow / Flowers / Stars)
■ [exhibition title unknown] Kunsthalle Mannheim, West Germany.
◎［unknown］

1986
■ [Jan. 31‒Mar. 30] Broken Diary: SoHo Soap/Rain Damage, Story of a SoHo Artists’Co-op, The New Museum, New York.
◎ Broken Diary: SoHo Soap/Rain Damage (Hereafter SoHo Soap)
■ [Sept. 18‒Oct. 12 ] Shigeko Kubota Video Sculpture and Drawings, Piezo Electric Gallery, Los Angeles.
◎ Window (Star?) / Chess / Rock Video Cherry Blossoms (Hereafter Rock Video)
■ [Sept. 21‒Jan. 18, 1987] The Window in Twentieth Century Art, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, et al.
◎ Window
■ [Sept. 27‒Nov. 2] Talk event, The Other Television: Video by Artists, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana.
◎ River
■ [Nov. 19] Talk Event “Cycles: Revolutions in the Electronic Arts” presented by The Center for New Television, Chicago.
◎ Single Channel Video (Trip to Korea)
■ [solo show] New Langston Arts Gallery, San Francisco.
◎ Rock Video
■ [exhibition title unknown], Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana.
◎[unknown]
■ [exhibition title unknown], Villa Stuck, Munich.
◎[unknown]

1987
■ Received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
■ June 12‒Sept. 20］documenta 8, Kassel.
◎ Niagara / Broken Diary / Chapter 12 / SoHo Soap
■ July 29‒Aug. 11］Japan 87 Video Television Festival, Spiral, Tokyo.
◎ Niagara
■［Oct. 1‒Jan. 3, 1988］A Centennial Tribute apropos of Marcel Duchamp, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
◎ Chess

1988
■ Received an NEA grant in Visual Arts.
■ ［Jan. 15‒Feb. 6］Uebrigens Sterben Immer Die Anderen. Marcel Duchamp und die Avantgarge seit 1950, Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
◎［unknown］
■［Feb. 8］Al Robbins, assistant / collaborator of Kubota passed away.
■［Feb. 18‒Mar. 30］Video Art: Expanded Form, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
◎ Meta-Marcel: Window
■［May 22‒Sept. 5］Interaction: Light, Sound, Motion, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield.
◎ Dry Mountain, Dry Water
■［Aug. 24‒Sept. 25］The 3rd Australian Video Festival, Art Space, Sydney.
◎［unknown］
■［Sept. 11‒16］Shigeko Kubota und Keigo Yamamoto, Japanisches Kulturinstitut, Cologne.
◎ Video-Byobu
■ 3rd Videonale, Japanisches Kulturinstitut, Bonn.
◎［unknown］

1989
■ [Mar. 16‒Apr. 23]Video-Skulptur retrospektiv und aktuell: 1963‒1989, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, et al.
◎ Three Mountains
■ [Apr. 20‒May 30 ]The Arts for Television, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
◎ Merce by Merce by Paik
■ [July 22‒Aug. 27]4th Contemporary Art Festival: Image of Today, The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama.
◎ Window / Staircase