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Kazuko Miyamoto
Kazuko Miyamoto (b. 1942, Tokyo) is an important protagonist of New York’s Lower East Side art scene, pushing the boundaries of Minimal Art by building bridges between Western art practices and her Japanese heritage. Since her move to the US in 1964, she has promoted the presentation of feminist and (post-)migrant art, first as an early member of A.I.R. Gallery and later with her own Gallery Onetwentyeight, founded in 1986. Miyamoto came to Linz in 1980 as a production assistant for works by American artist Sol LeWitt, and established a lifelong artistic and friendship network here.
Miyamoto’s multilayered, radical works defy sim-ple categorization and attribution: they find their starting point in Minimal Art, but go beyond its strict geometric abstraction. Her impressive string constructions—two- and three-dimensional works consisting of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of nails and cotton threads—as well as her later works made of twisted paper ropes and painted kimonos convey a strong, corporeal presence in space despite their ephemeral character.
The Belvedere honors Miyamoto’s oeuvre with the largest international retrospective to date and the first exhibition in a Viennese museum. The exhibition comprises around 100 exhibits from the late 1960s to the 2010s and brings together key string constructions, early paintings, photographs, drawings, and installations by the artist.
The exhibition was conceived by MADRE · museo d'arte contemporanea donnaregina, Naples, and is accompanied by a comprehensive publication.
Curated by Eva Fabbris (MADRE · museo d'arte contemporanea donnaregina, Naples).
Assistant Curator: Andrea Kopranovic
Belvedere 21
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Biography
Kazuko Miyamoto was born in Tokyo in 1942, as the daughter of a dancer and an art dealer. She was introduced to the arts at an early age, receiving training in dance, painting, and kimono-making. After visiting an art program in Tokyo, she moved to the United States in 1964 and studied painting at the Art Students League in New York.
In 1968, she began working with Sol LeWitt, assisting him with his sculptures and wall drawings. Miyamoto held her first solo exhibitions, in New York and Bari, in 1973. From 1974 to 1983, she was a member of A.I.R. Gallery in New York, where she exhibited regularly and co-curated, among other exhibitions, Dialectics of Isolation in 1980.
In 1980, Miyamoto came to Austria for the first time, where she worked for Sol LeWitt in Linz. In the same year, she welcomed her son. Having established strong connections within New York’s Bowery art scene, she founded Gallery Onetwentyeight there in 1986 as a platform for the BIPOC and diaspora artist community. In 1987, she presented her first solo exhibition at the Neue Galerie Linz (now Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz).
In the 1990s, Miyamoto increasingly focused on performance while continuing to develop her string constructions, kimono objects, and drawings. International exhibitions and travels, including trips to Europe and Austria, marked the 2000s. Notable retrospectives of her work include an exhibition at the Japan Society in New York in 2022, followed by one at Madre in Naples in 2023.
The Belvedere 21 in Vienna is currently presenting the most comprehensive retrospective of her career to date.
Videos
Kazuko Miyamoto (Part 1)
Kazuko Miyamoto (Part 2)
Kazuko Miyamoto (Part 3)
Kazuko Miyamoto (Part 4)
