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Shigeko Kubota. Detail of Niagara Falls I. 1985. Four-channel video (color, sound; 30:55 min.), ten cathode-ray tube monitors, plastic mirrors, plywood, water, and sprinkler system, 8 ft. × 54 in. × 8 ft. (243.8 × 137.2 × 243.8 cm). Courtesy Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation. © 2021 Estate of Shigeko Kubota / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Digital image © 2021 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo by Denis Doorly
Exhibition
Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality
21 Aug 2021 – 13 Feb 2022
Regular hours
- Saturday
- 10:30 – 19:00
- Sunday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Monday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Tuesday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Wednesday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Thursday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Friday
- 10:30 – 17:30
Cost of entry
Adults: $25 (Concessions available)
Address
- 11 West 53 Street
- New York
New York - NY 10019
- United States
Travel Information
- From the east side of Manhattan M1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 to 53rd Street From the west side of Manhattan M50 cross-town to 50th Street. Proceed to 53rd Street.
- From the east side of Manhattan 6 train to 51st Street, transfer to the E or M train; one stop to 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue From the west side of Manhattan E or M train to 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue, or B, D, or F train to 47-50 Street Rockefeller Center
Likening video technology to a “new paintbrush,” Shigeko Kubota was among the first generation of artists to embrace video, exploring the potential of the nascent medium in the early 1970s.
About
She developed a unique form of video sculpture that extended her otherworldly portraits and landscapes into three-dimensional forms made from plywood and sheet metal, often incorporating mirrors and flowing water. By combining “the energy of electrons” with these raw materials, she proposed a life for video beyond the constraints of the “TV box.” The first solo presentation of the artist’s work at a US museum in 25 years, this exhibition sheds light on how these sculptures—which draw parallels between nature, technology, and time—continue to resonate in today’s digitally interconnected world.
Kubota observed, “[In] video’s reality, infinite variation becomes possible...freedom to dissolve, reconstruct, mutate all forms, shape, color, location, speed, scale...liquid reality.” This exhibition focuses primarily on the period between 1976 and 1985, when, alongside her Duchampiana series, Kubota looked to the natural environment as a means of examining the video medium, the world, and her place in it. From Three Mountains (1976-79), which draws on the artist’s time spent in the deserts of the western United States, to Berlin Diary: Thanks to My Ancestors (1981), an electronic monument, Kubota examined how technology can offer new ways of understanding our own humanity.
