Shigeko Kubota

Shigeko Kubota
Fluxus is an international group of artists, created in 1960. In this group were a mix of different artists using different media, as well as diverse disciplines. One artist who was an important part of this group since the beginning is Shigeko Kubota; born in Japan 1n 1937. Kubota stated her participation in Fluxus in 1964. During this time Kubota discoverd and started working with video.f Kubota is known as an important artist for elevating video as an art form. In 1965 she presented, during the Fluxus movement public festival in New York, Vagina Painting a really controversial performance. She painted over a horizontal paper using a brush that extended from her vaginal position. This work was referred to as a “subversion” of the Jackson Pollock technique of painting, or dripping paint over a canvas. The artist was creating a parody of the work of Yves Klein, who in his Happening of the 1950, used naked women as paint brushes. According to Peggy Phelan in Art and Feminism, “using her vagina as a source of inscription. Kubota questioned the western cultural designation of female genitalia.”(p.65)

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/feministbloggers/2007/10/page/2/

Phelan, Peggy. Art and Feminism, Paidos