Yayoi Kusama — Explosion anatomique, Pont de Brooklyn, New York, 1968, Centre Pompidou Postcard, 2019

10.5 × 15 cm. Offset print on coated card stock. Published by Éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2019. Barcode: 3 760146 342538. Very good condition.

Museum postcard issued by Éditions du Centre Pompidou in 2019, reproducing Harry Shunk and János Kender’s photograph of Yayoi Kusama’s Explosion anatomique on the Brooklyn Bridge, New York, 1968. The reverse carries the caption: Yayoi Kusama, Explosion anatomique, Pont de Brooklyn, New York, 1968. Paris, Centre Pompidou-MNAM/CCI-Bibliothèque Kandinsky. Gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation in memory of Harry Shunk and Janos Kender.

Originally staged on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1968, Explosion anatomique belongs to the series of anti-war “Anatomic Explosions” organised by Yayoi Kusama during her years in New York. These public performances combined body painting, nudity, political protest, and spectacle, transforming some of the city’s most recognisable landmarks into temporary stages for resistance against the Vietnam War and conventional social norms. The event was photographed by Harry Shunk and János Kender, whose images have become the principal visual record of Kusama’s radical performance practice.

Rather than documenting a finished artwork, the postcard preserves a fleeting public action that survives largely through photography and printed reproduction. As Kusama’s international reputation has continued to grow, these institutional editions have become accessible entry points into the history of her late-1960s happenings and the wider landscape of experimental performance, political activism, and conceptual art.

The photograph is held in the Centre Pompidou–MNAM/CCI–Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Fonds Harry Shunk et János Kender, as a gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation in memory of Harry Shunk and János Kender. Produced under licence from © YAYOI KUSAMA Inc., Tokyo 2019, and © Éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris 2019 / CP 3387 / Imprimé en France.

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