Through January 1, 2022, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is exhibiting Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality, the first solo presentation of work by the artist at a U.S. museum in 25 years On September 20, 2021, Lia Robinson, Director of Programs and Research at the Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation, was joined by Liquid Reality curator Erica Papernik-Shimizu, Associate Curator, MoMA, to introduce recent research at Kubota’s archive and a behind the scenes look at the artist’s seminal video sculptures presented in the exhibition at MoMA.
While the work of New York–based artist Shigeko Kubota (1937–2015) has been widely referenced in postwar art history, featured in numerous exhibitions and part of many major collections across the globe, the scope of her activities as an artist, curator and critic are less well known. Kubota’s inception of video diary and video sculpture, writing as a correspondent for the journal Bijutsu Techō, and inclusive programming as Video Curator at Anthology Film Archives (1974–82), contributed significantly to the expansion of the video canon and exploration in this nascent media.
The exhibition Liquid Reality examines Shigeko Kubota’s visionary approach to video and highlights six video sculptures from a key period when she began to explore increasingly complex content and sculptural forms, including motors, mirrors, and water. These video sculptures, which expanded the potential for video art and interrogated our relationship to new technologies, resonate perhaps even more strongly in society today where video is ubiquitous.