Yayoi Kusama — Manifestation non identifiée, 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 342921. Very good condition with light handling wear consistent with careful storage.

Exhibition postcard published by the Centre Pompidou in 2019 in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition Harry Shunk et János Kender: Art Through the Eye of the Camera. The image reproduces Harry Shunk and János Kender’s photograph of Yayoi Kusama’s 1968 New York happening, Manifestation non identifiée, one of the artist’s provocative “Anatomic Explosions” staged in public spaces during the height of the anti-war movement.

The performance belongs to a pivotal moment in Kusama’s career, when she abandoned the studio in favour of public interventions that merged body art, political protest, performance, photography, and media spectacle. Her body-painting happenings around the Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Central Park, and other New York locations became some of the most enduring images of the late-1960s counterculture. Today these photographs are regarded as primary documents of both conceptual performance and feminist art history.

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. The postcard was produced under licence from © Yayoi Kusama Inc., Tokyo 2019, and © Centre Pompidou/MNAM-CCI/Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Fonds Harry Shunk et János Kender/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais.

Although produced as a museum postcard rather than contemporary exhibition ephemera from 1968, this edition occupies an interesting position within the history of Kusama’s work. It reproduces one of the canonical images through which these ephemeral performances continue to circulate, making the photograph itself an object of collection. Individual museum postcards from major exhibitions are rarely expensive, yet specific images connected to iconic performances become less common once exhibitions conclude.

Shipping and handling included in the listed price.