SHIGEKO KUBOTA
SEXUAL HEALING
Kyodo News, Japan

Work Sketches 1: Sexual Healing
“April is the cruelest month,” once wrote British poet T.S. Eliot. It was also in April, when my husband and video artist, Nam June Paik, due to stroke, collapsed the night before Easter three years ago. “I’m an Easter baby. Since Jesus resurrected, I will get better for sure,” he said, with the left side of his body paralyzed.

The following morning after Nam June was hospitalized, two healthy and young female therapists took him out of the bed to start his rehabilitation. These single women, who just graduated from college, were wearing red lipstick and tights. They held Nam June like a baby, pressing him hard against their voluptuous breasts.

When Nam June practiced taking a shower for the first time, these girls curiously looked at his naked body and complimented by saying “Your skin and bones looks as young as if you were in your forties.” At that time he was actually sixty-four years old. They went on asking things like, “Are you officially married with your wife?” or, “Do you have children?” If didn’t have children, were they interested in having an affair? I was puzzled.

Like the song “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye, this hospital conducts rehabilitation by assigning each patient with therapists of the opposite sex.

They also asked me, “You and Mr. Paik are video artists, right? Why don’t you bring your camera? Why don’t you videotape his walking therapy so he can watch himself?” Until then, I was reluctant to take the camera to the hospital, thinking maybe the other patients would feel intimidated. Encouraged by their suggestion, I shot the video of Nam June engaged in exercise.

“I don’t want to see it, “ Nam June said, and refused to watch the video. Perhaps he did not want to confront the reality of what had happened to him.

To the melody of “Sexual Healing,” I made a video work for healing, for Nam June and his therapists.


Work Sketches 2: Happening: Slipped In Front of the President
Last May my husband, Nam June Paik, slipped his pants of in front of President Clinton and the First Lady at a dinner party that was held surrounding Korean President Kim Dae-Jung. The incident took place in front of a few hundred photographers and TV crews.

After his collapse, Nam June lost weight and his pants became too baggy. And he was cautioned by his doctor not to constrict his body too tight with belts or suspenders. The moment he stood up from a wheel chair to greet Mr. and Mrs. President, he literally stepped out of his pants. It was a pure accident.

Meanwhile, the President’s sex scandal case with an ex-intern at the White House was a big topic of discussion. Since Nam June is known for his wild and parodic acts, people mistakenly took the accident as his typical performance.

Informed of his physical disability, most of the TV and newspaper restrained from the report, however, the cable TV networks specializing in live news seemed to cover the entire event.

Happenings are events that take place in everyday life. In Downtown Manhattan during the 60’s, we created numerous Happenings. They were anarchistic performances. For example, in Fluxus Olympics, we made a parody of the official Olympics by making a big hole in the middle of Ping-Pong paddles or tennis rackets, or playing basketball with a deflated ball. We also made a demonstration against the Vietnam War by covering our face and body with shaving cream.

When Nam June was granted the Kyoto Award and was honored to meet the Japanese and Empress, I firmly sewed suspenders and a belt on his pants after the incident at the White House. As long as President Clinton stays in his office, we would never receive an invitation to the White House again.

Work Sketches 3: Readymade
My husband, Nam June Paik, won the Kyoto Award last fall, and on our way back to Miami, we were refused to bring his wheelchair onto the airplane at Narita Airport.

In the United States, passengers are allowed to bring their own wheelchairs onto the airplane. We were troubled, since the permission was granted on the flight from New York to Narita with the same Japanese airline. Furthermore, a young female flight attendant asked why were going to Miami even though our home address was in New York. She did not seem to know that Miami was a paradise for old people. Situated in the south of the United States, on the seashore of the Florida peninsula, Miami is endowed with warm weather, and many old people move there for their retirement.

Thus, all the public buildings such as airports, post offices, museums, banks, restaurants, and apartments are equipped with gentle ramps and elevators so that people can move by wheelchair. Sidewalks are not raised above the ground and cars immediately stop for people in wheelchairs.

On the local TV channels, hospitals are competitively running commercials to attract customers. Indeed, the old people are good customers.

As the elderly population changed Miami, after Nam June collapsed our house made similar transformation. Handrails were installed from the bed to the bathroom, as well as to the sofa and the bathtub. The inside of our house almost looks like a hospital room for rehabilitation. Furthermore, my own video sculpture began to change. I used to make a series of works a la Marcel Duchamp, who presented Duchampian ready-mades in my recent pieces, I placed on a hospital bed three TV monitors that played the video of Nam June sleeping, or in another piece, constructed a male and female doll with wires that contain liquid crystal TV showing scenes of his rehabilitation. These are the documentations of our everyday life, our video diary.

Work Sketches 4: Mind Medicine
Since my husband, Nam June Paik collapsed three years ago; many people began to bring all kind of medicine. A Korean herb doctor vitiated him with a plastic bag containing some juice that was too bitter to drink. Nam June’s body was too weak to take it, so we kept it in the freezer for a while, but eventually threw it out. We were also offered such strange things as the liver of a white polar pair, the navel of a pregnant seal, and testes of a soft-shelled turtle. These were seemingly popular items among the old Koreans. To pay their incredibly high prices, several tens of thousand of dollars would be gone.

The doctor reminded me of itinerant peddler from Toyama selling antidotes from a wicker trunk he carried on his shoulders. I am still not sure how helpful that medicine really was for my husband.

Meanwhile, Bob Dole is doing a commercial for Viagra; the anti-impotence pill that has been much talked about. This former Senator, an ex-presidential candidate, is supporting his young and beautiful wife, Elizabeth Dole, the first female presidential candidate. It is said that Viagra may cause some side effects. What is going to happen if some old people take Viagra and have a heart attack? Also, I have heard that marijuana, the illegal drug, can be used legally as a painkiller for terminal patients. Drugs are really confusing.

In 1965 I made the piece called Fluxus Medicine as a part of Fluxus, an art movement characterized by its event-oriented works. For this piece, I filled a clear plastic medicinal box with lots of transparent capsules with nothing inside them. At that time George Maciunas, the leader of the movement, was suffering from cancer. The piece was my mind medicine, a prayer for his recovery with all my heart. George laughed heartily as he saw those empty capsules. And of course, no one bought my piece.

Work Sketches 5: Fluxus Couple
In 1963 I had a solo exhibition at Naika Gallery in Shinbashi, Tokyo. The gallery, owned by a doctor, was a hangout for avant-garde artists.

I piled up fragments of love letters from the floor up to the ceiling of the gallery, and on top of it laid a white cloth a metal pipe was placed. The visitors were forced to work their way up the file of paper scraps. The installation was designed as a performance piece that involved audience participation, or was then called “environmental art.”

Contrary to my confidence about the show, no newspapers or art magazines reviewed the show. At that time, I was twenty-four and was mentally depressed. As I realized that female artists could not become recognized in Japan, I flew to New York the following year.

In America, Fluxus was popular. Transforming everyday activities into artistic expressions, this art movement posed a challenge to the mainstream art institutions and systems. Artists are anarchists. Joining the National Federation of Students’ self-government Associations, as well as working as a member of the Board of Teacher’s Union, I was belligerent, and Fluxus was just right for me.

Thanks to my participation in Fluxus, I also had the fortune to meet my husband, Nam June Paik. Even before that, I was curious about the man who had eaten a piano in Germany, and I was really impressed with his performance in Tokyo, where he destroyed a piano and threw raw eggs at it.

Later, I met Nam June in New York, and he and I began to work with video art. What Fluxus and video art have in common is that both are art of the moment. The process of capturing events that are invisible to others, with you own eyes becomes art. In other words, life itself is equal to art. Through Fluxus we became a couple and since then have lived in the same ex-factory building. During these years many of the artists who were involved in the movement with us have passed away.

However, we want to live forever. Nam June comforts me by saying, “Shigechan, I am always with you.” As long as he lives, I cannot die.