This iconography, with the cloth's evocation of the U.S. flag, made the artist into a focal point of international exchanges involving the American artist Jasper Johns and William Lieberman, curator of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, eventually making Kojima an indispensable presence in Tokyo pop.
[1] Because Ōno City was located in the mountains, Kojima did not directly experience any air raids during World War II.
[1] The figures in these works, resembling something like a Japanese salaryman, was emblematic of Japan’s rapid postwar economic development under American reconstruction.
Originally, the material used in the 1962 performance that inspired the sculptures was an appropriated, red and white striped fabric often used in Japanese ceremonies.
[5][6] On November 28 of this same year, Kojima shared the stage of Sogetsu Arts Center with Robert Rauschenberg, Ushio Shinohara, and the art critic Tono Yoshiaki for “Twenty Questions to Bob Rauschenberg.”[7] On stage also appeared Shinohara’s “Marcel Duchamp Thinking” (Shinko suru Maruseru Dyushan), 1963, and one of Kojima’s standing figures.
[7] While the Japanese interlocutors asked Rauschenberg questions he silently worked on a Combine, “Gold Standard,” 1964, using things he had collected during his visit to Tokyo.
[10][11] More recently, a 1976 figure was shown at the Walker Arts Center’s “International Pop” exhibition, part of the museum’s permanent collection since 2016.
[12][13] An untitled standing figure was prominently featured on the cover of New York Times Arts & Leisure section for the story on the exhibition, “When The World Went Pop.”[14][15]