Kazuko Miyamoto – String Constructions

In the organizer's words:

More than most artworks, my constructions with threads are subject to the passage of time.
They are absolutely ephemeral.
- Kazuko Miyamoto

KW presents the first institutional solo exhibition of Japanese artist Kazuko Miyamoto (* 1942, JP) in Germany. Miyamoto is considered a leading representative of the post-minimalist and feminist movement in New York, where she has lived since 1964. The exhibition String Constructions, which spans the first, second and third floors as well as the inner courtyard of KW, focuses on Miyamoto's eponymous sculpture series from the 1970s and 1980s and traces changes in her artistic methodology. The String Constructions are two- and three-dimensional sculptures made of cotton threads, which are created through an elaborate manual construction of repetitive but unique hand movements - marking, nailing, knotting and linking hundreds of threads. Like other sculptures, the works are on loan, but have to be reconstructed on site for each exhibition and cut up at the end of the exhibition. Her sculptural constructions thus interweave concepts of collectivity, liveliness, sustainability, transience and temporality into a conceptual framework. This approach follows the vision of director Emma Enderby, who programmatically focuses on collaborative work, sustainability and local production. At the same time, the exhibition builds on KW's institutional legacy of focusing on artists outside the established canon.

Miyamoto's sculptures made of strings, nails and drawn lines, as well as her spatial installations, address the artist's interest in the relationship of the body to urban, socio-economic and functional architectures. In the former factory spaces of KW, the works permeate the space with an immersive yet ephemeral quality, illustrating Kazuko Miyamoto's unique performative sensibility for the relationship between body, space, and material, and for themes such as labor and visibility.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Kazuko Miyamoto developed many of her works in the context of the A.I.R. Gallery in New York's SoHo neighborhood, which was run by and for (exclusively) female-identifying artists. In her own gallery on the Lower East Side, Onetwentyeight, she continues to promote feminist and collective practices. The program accompanying the exhibition will highlight the role of collaboration, performance and feminism in Miyamoto's work and their significance in the city of Berlin. As part of a seminar in collaboration with the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin), a group of students will reconstruct works by the artist - bridges made of rope and wood that were originally installed in Bryant Park in New York in 1982. They will be produced site-specifically for the KW courtyard and can be seen there for the duration of the exhibition.

Accompanying the exhibition is a new publication with conversations and statements by and with friends, family, artist colleagues and collaborators of Kazuko Miyamoto, published in collaboration with Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König.

Curators: Emma Enderby, Sofie Krogh Christensen
Assistant curator: Lara Scherrieble

Kazuko Miyamoto was born in Tokyo in 1942, where she studied at the Gendai Bijutsu Kenkyujo (Contemporary Art Research Studio). In 1964 she moved to New York and attended the Art Students League of New York (1964-1968). From 1968 she worked with Sol LeWitt and assisted him with his sculptures and wall drawings. In 1973, Miyamoto had her first solo exhibitions in New York and Bari. From 1974 to 1983 she was a member of the A.I.R. Gallery in New York, where she exhibited regularly and co-curated exhibitions such as Dialectics of Isolation (1980). She also participated in important group exhibitions, the most famous of which was the 1972 show 13 Women Artists with Louise Bourgeois, Loretta Dunkelman, Pat Lasch, Patsy Norvell and Joyce Robins, members of the Women's Ad Hoc Committee, at 117-119 Prince Street. In 1986, she founded the gallery Onetwentyeight in New York as a platform for BIPOC and diaspora artist communities. She has had solo exhibitions at Belvedere 21 in Vienna (2024), Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples (2023), Japan Society in New York (2022), A.I.R. Gallery in New York (2017), Circuit in Lausanne (2015), Japan Foundation in New Delhi (2015) and Kunsthalle Krems (Austria, 2008).

Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund
With additional support from the Henry Moore Foundation
With thanks to EXILE Gallery, Galleria Alessandra Bonomo, Take Ninagawa and Zürcher Gallery

Price information:

Tickets can only be purchased on site and by card payment. The following cards are accepted: Girocard, Mastercard, VISA, Maestro, VISA Electron and ApplePay. Regular 10 € / Reduced 6 €. Berlin Welcome Card holders €6 / reduced €4.50. Reduction applies to pupils, students, federal volunteers, BBK members, ALG 1 recipients, trainees, holders of the volunteer card and severely disabled persons (at least 50 % MdE) on presentation of proof. Free admission: up to and including the age of 18, for Friends of KW and Berlin Biennale and KW Lover*, holders of proof of eligibility (formerly berlinpass), recipients of ALG II, enrolled students of Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin and Berlin University of the Arts, ICOM members, Museumsbund members. Assistance animals are permitted in the exhibition rooms. Please identify yourself accordingly at the cash desk. Other animals are not permitted.