Squatting over a large paper surface with a paintbrush dangling between her legs. Sitting onstage at Carnegie Hall while audience members come up to snip her clothing off with scissors. Blowing soap bubbles to make musical sounds. These are some of the actions taken in the name of art in Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus at the Japan Society, an exhibition that focuses on four revolutionary women, Shigeko Kubota, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, and one youve probably heard of before, Yoko Ono.

Fluxus was founded in the early 1960s and paved the way for Conceptual art, Minimalism, performance and video. It saw the future in other words. Rather than create traditional paintings or sculpture, these artists did things like play games, mail postcards, cook meals and offer instructions inspired by notated musical scores. (The composer John Cage was a central figure.) There was a logic or anti-logic to this approach. Serious, rational society had produced mass destruction in the 20th century. Maybe novel methods of producing culture could serve as a salvo or blueprint for a new society.

But by focusing on four Japanese women, the show asks: Who stands the test of time? Who doesnt? Was Fluxus really a blueprint for the future? The exhibition, organized by Midori Yoshimoto and Tiffany Lambert, with Ayaka Iida, features around 150 objects, which range from boxes full of curious objects to videos, films and photographs.

One of the things thats obvious immediately is just how international Fluxus was a portent of todays much more global art world. Kubota and Shiomi moved to New York in 1964 partly because they felt their career prospects were limited in Japan and quickly became involved with Fluxus. Kubota focused on everyday activities, preparing meals and making Flux Napkins (c. 1967).

Kubotas infamous Vagina Painting (1965) was a performance in which she either attached a paintbrush to her underwear or inserted the brush into her body (the details of this are left a little unclear) and waddled over a large paper surface. The idea of birthing a painting and using the body in such a crudely basic way was echoed in feminist art by Ana Mendieta and Marina Abramovic, or Carolee Schneemanns Interior Scroll (1975), which consisted of pulling a written text out of her own vagina. In many ways, this serves as a precursor of all the bodily performance you see in the art world today.

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Yoko Ono and the Women of Fluxus Changed the Rules in Art and Life - The New York Times