Performance as Protest: Kusama and the Counterculture Movement in the 60s and 70s

The second half of the 1960s marked a major shift in Kusama’s artistic practice. Between 1967 and 1969, she presented roughly seventy-five ‘happenings’ - events linked to the broader countercultural movements of the period, including sexual liberation and anti–Vietnam War protests. Most of Kusama’s happenings took place at prominent public locations throughout New York, including Central Park, Trinity Church and the Brooklyn Bridge.

This program will explore this experimental period in Kusama’s early artistic career, and the broader socio-cultural developments that inspired the artist to move beyond the gallery and into the streets. Speakers will also consider the socio-cultural links between Melbourne and New York during this period, and the importance of performance and protest in supporting diverse countercultural efforts.

Moderated by Meg Slater, Curator, International Exhibition Projects, NGV.

Speakers

Sammaneh Pourshafighi is the MAPAA (Midsumma Australia Post Art Award) coordinator at Midsumma. Sammaneh is a Queer genderfluid Muslim who arrived in Australia as a refugee after the Iranian Revolution and grew up on the problematic paradise of the Gold Coast. Her work frequently examines identity politics, mental health, diasporic tensions, ethno- futurism, and the complex relationships between bodies and environments through an intersectional feminist lens. As part of a trans-disciplinary practice, Pourshafighi’s work encompasses film, performance art, digital art, poetry, collage, painting and photography often with an emphasis on the element of colour, surprising contrasts, autobiographical events, and humour. Her works have been exhibited at the Immigration Museum, Melbourne and UCLA, United States as well as being published in British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Britain Volume 5.

Dr Mimi Kelly is a Lecturer in Art History and Curatorship in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her research sits at the intersection of art, popular culture and feminism. She has a particular interest in performance art and photomedia, having studied a Bachelor of Visual Arts, First Class Honours, at the University of South Australia, majoring in photography. Prior to her academic employment, she worked for 14 years in the arts sector. Her publications include book chapters, journal and magazine articles, and catalogue essays. She is co-editor of What Is Performance Art? Writings on Contemporary Performance Art (Power Publications, 2018). Her most recent journal article (with Dr Victoria Souliman) is Reclaiming Surrealist Aesthetics in Popular Visual Culture: The Music Videos of Angèle, FKA Twigs, and St Vincent in the Journal of Romance Studies Vol. 23 No 3, 2023. She completed her PhD through Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney, in 2019.

Dennis Altman is a writer and academic who first came to attention with the publication of his book Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation in 1972. This book, which has often been compared to Greer's Female Eunuch and Peter Singer's Animal Liberation was the first serious analysis to emerge from the gay liberation movement, and was published in seven countries, with a readership which continues today. Since then Altman has written fifteen books, exploring sexuality, politics and their inter-relationship in Australia, the United States and now globally. Altman is a Vice Chancellor's Fellow and Professorial Fellow in the Institute for Human Security at La Trobe University. He was Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard in 2005 and listed by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever.