SHIGEKO KUBOTA
EARLY VIDEO WORKS
X Initiative
548 West 22nd Street, Ground Floor
New York, NY 10011
Wednesday - Sunday, 11 am - 6 pm
EAI presented a program of early video works from the 1970s by Shigeko Kubota. A prominent Fluxus artist in the 1960s, Kubota's body of work includes video sculptures, installations and single-channel videos. In her earliest works, she developed an idiosyncratic video style that blurs the boundaries between personal diary and art-historical homage, often layering vibrant electronic processing techniques over everyday images.
Marcel Duchamp and John Cage (1972) is part elegy, part documentary, combining Kubota's own photos of the famous ìmusicalî chess match between the artist and composer with abstract image processing and compositions by Cage. Europe on 1/2 Inch a Day (1972) is an informal travelogue inspired by budget guidebooks. Armed with her Portapak (and half-inch videotape), Kubota presents an alternative tour of Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris: underground performances, topical graffiti and a visit to Marcel Duchamp's grave. Video Girls and Video Songs for Navajo Sky (1973) is a surreal and surprisingly funny diary of the artist's month-long sojourn with a Navajo family on a reservation in Chinle, Arizona.
