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.