Portrait of the artist. Pencil on paper by Phong Bui Rail: Right. He named you the Vice President of Fluxus.
At any rate, what was your friendship with Duchamp and Cage like? In what sense did their work have an influence on you? Kubota: I knew of John Cage because of his first visit to Japan in 1962, and through him I learned about Duchamp and his work.
Later, I met Duchamp on a plane as we were both going there for Merce Cunningham s opening of Walk Around Time , in Buffalo. Kubota: Exactly. It was a great coincidence since I ve always admired both of their work.
Cage s chance operation, embracing any sound as potential music, and tying that with his interest in Jazz and the philosophy of Zen Buddhism, and Duchamp s anti-art spirit, was all very important to what we were doing at Fluxus. I was also influenced by their lifestyles. Rail: Yeah.
You paid homage to both of them in several pieces, including Duchampiana: Video Chess , 1968-1975, and, a moving tribute to Duchamp in Duchamp s Grave , 1972-75. Kubota: After meeting Duchamp on a plane, a few months later, I came to Toronto to photograph him and Cage playing chess at the Reunion concert. Later I made these images into a sculptural piece.
The idea was to have the video monitor facing up with two layers of transparent chessboard below and chess pieces sitting above. So that when two people play Video Chess , not only will every move they make be accommodated by the original soundtrack that Cage had composed for the concert, but they will also be accompanied by the images of the two great artists playing from the other side of the world. For Marcel Duchamp s Grave (part of a series of homages I made) I used a freestanding plywood construction with openings of several monitors and its mirror piece on the floor.
Later I added the same structure for the ceiling and the opposite wall so that the image would flow all around the space. And the soundtrack was simply the wind in the cemetery where he was buried in Rouen. The homages began with the first one I did for my father when he passed away in 1975, and I also made one later for Nam June, Korean Grave in 1993.
Rail: With Moving Image technology, which for a while was only through 16mm film and never had the advantage of instant playback like the video technologies, there was an immediate attraction to artists because they could now experiment with all kinds of so-called low-tech tricks in their work. Kubota: Right. In the 1960 s Sony invented the Portapack, which was revolutionary; like what you d just said, film was chemical, but video was more organic.
To me Portapack was like a new paint brush. It was certainly in the same spirit as Fluxus, do it yourself. Rail: Would it be fair to say that after your visit to Duchamp s grave in Rouen in 1972 which you made a video of with your Portapack you started to think more seriously about video sculpture?
Kubota: Absolutely. Also, it coincided with all the works I was putting together as a curator at the Anthology Film Archives. Every Saturday and Sunday I had to show the same single channel video tape, face to face, screened and facing two-way communication, over and over again; so I thought why not make it a video environment.
Since I was trained as a sculptor, I could combine the moving image and object together like a sculpture. There s another benefit to this form: since most viewers never quite stay and see the whole video, they may stay longer if they can move around it with more freedom and appreciation. Rail: How would you describe the difference between Nam June s work and yours?
I mean, his background was in music whereas you were trained as a sculptor. Kubota: Nam June s work is experimental in a different way. You know, he was obsessed with the synthesizer.
And since TV is already a sculpture in its solid, rectangular form, he wanted to pile many of them up like a pyramid. This was a different concept about sculpture. But now, too bad, because TV has become so thin like a mirror.
I don t know what you can make a sculpture out of now. The 70 s was a good time for all of us because we could make all kinds of things, video art, video sculpture, video environment, etc Rail: You have said that the invention of video has allowed both men and women to co-exist in the same space. Kubota: Right.
It was equal to both men and women because it was new and fairly inexpensive and we all had the same access to it. Rail: Did you get involved at all in the Feminist Art movement which arose out of the late 1960 s and into the 1970 s? Kubota: I didn t.
Male or female, art is art. People can put me in the Feminist category all they want, but I didn t think I can make any real contribution other than my work as an artist. Rail: Yeah.
Carolee Schneeman, for example, has been interpreted in all kinds of ways as a pioneer of body art, or by way of performance, installation, video work and so on. All of which did contribute a great deal to the feminist movement and the field of woman s studies in general. But she s always insisted that she s a painter.
Anyway, did you have any contact with her? Kubota: I participated in Snow , her anti-Vietnam War demonstration. I like her and her work very much.
Rail: Could you tell us when, in fact, you got to know Nam June? Kubota: 1960 s, Canal Street loft; there was no elevator at the Fluxus building, and TVs and even the Portapack in those days were quite heavy, so it wasn t easy to carry them up and down the stairs. I used to help George Macuinas and Nam June to do all of that carrying.
I used to say to Nam June, why don t you cover the TV box, it s so ugly! He said no; no time, he didn t really take my advice seriously. So I said, why don t I do it?
That s when I used plywood to cover the TV box, partly because I didn t want people to know what brand the TV was; I just want them to see it as a sculpture. Anyway, I got to know him well through all of those episodes. Eventually I left my first husband, David Behrman, and got married to Nam June.
Rail: Did your parents object to the fact that you were married to a Korean? Kubota: From having a Jew to a Korean? Forget about it.
They gave up on me a long time ago. (laugh) Rail: (laugh) Thinking back to what I ve seen in your retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image in 1991, several pieces for instance, River (1979-81) and Niagra Falls, I, II and III (1985-87) were inspired by the American natural landscape, while others Rock Video Cherry Blossoms (1985), for example, which I thought was an awesome piece, Dry Mountain, Dry Water (1987-88) and Video Byobu I, II, and III (1988, 1991, 1991) could be seen as an attempt to connect to your Japanese roots, no? Kubota: Yeah.
It s more like the universal spirits and learning about the alternative nature of philosophy. Why not combine nature and video, the natural organic and the mechanical industrial.
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