Programme produced on the occasion of Playbill Act IV: Mieko Shiomi at Torpedo Theatre, Amsterdam March 9, 2023.

Mieko Shiomi is most-known for her substantial contribution to the Fluxus movement, where her investigations into the nature and limits of sound, music and auditory experience began as a student in Tokyo in the late 1950s, during which time she co-founded the seminal postwar Japanese experimental music collective Group Ongaku.

Central to Shiomi’s body of work is the creation of Fluxus editions—printed matter often taking the form of instruction cards and action invitations—and events, for which she gained most recognition in 1960s and 70s after relocating temporarily to New York in 1964 on the invitation of George Maciunas. During this time she began scoring ‘action poems,’ most notably Spatial Poem (1965), whereby she removed musical notation from the score entirely, instead favouring verbal instructions that were to be interpreted by the performer.

Designed by Maud Vervenne.

Edition produced on the occasion of Playbill Act IV: Mieko Shiomi at Torpedo Theatre, Amsterdam March 9, 2023.

Mieko Shiomi is most-known for her substantial contribution to the Fluxus movement, where her investigations into the nature and limits of sound, music and auditory experience began as a student in Tokyo in the late 1950s, during which time she co-founded the seminal postwar Japanese experimental music collective Group Ongaku.

Central to Shiomi’s body of work is the creation of Fluxus editions—printed matter often taking the form of instruction cards and action invitations—and events, for which she gained most recognition in 1960s and 70s after relocating temporarily to New York in 1964 on the invitation of George Maciunas. During this time she began scoring ‘action poems,’ most notably Spatial Poem (1965), whereby she removed musical notation from the score entirely, instead favouring verbal instructions that were to be interpreted by the performer.

Designed by Maud Vervenne.

First Edition of Yayoi Kusama’s first novel, published in Japan in 1978 and never translated into English, is best described as a faux autobiography, describing Kusama’s years in New York in the 50s and 60s. Having left behind a strict family life in post-war Japan, Kusama entered a period of heightened creativity. She was free to make what she wanted, but plagued by fears of intimacy and inadequacy. Her art became a form of therapy, and she went on to create a unique body of work that not only parallels and transcends Pop art, Minimal art and Happenings of the ’60s, but remains influential today.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

Atsuko Tanaka was a Japanese avant-garde artist best known for her Neo-Dada Electric Dress (1956), a garment made from hundreds of lightbulbs painted in primary colors. This iconic work, which she wore to exhibitions, functions as a conflation of Japanese traditional clothing with modern urbanization, bringing an unexpected and challenging interpretation to both. “I wanted to shatter stable beauty with my work,” Tanaka once said. A member of the Gutai movement, much of her work used domestic objects like lightbulbs, textiles, doorknobs, and doorbells. With these objects, the artist was able to create work about the body without a body present. She maintained a broad practice that included performance “happenings,” sculpture, and installation, while her later work focusing on two-dimensional painting, with colorful organic abstract shapes connecting circles and lines.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

Booklet for Yayoi Kusama’s exhibition at Fuji TV Gallery. Yayoi Kusama’s (b. 1929) work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: Pop art and Minimalism. Her highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture at The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, 19 October–2 January 2, 1967. Including artists Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Tomio Miki, Atsuko Tanaka, Kumi Sugai, Nobuya Abe.