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THE POLKA-DOT WOMAN New York, Boston and then Europe, with Berlin, Cologne and Basle. Two intense years packed with shows, exhibitions and documentaries dedicated to the chameleon-like figure of Yayoi Kusama, the world’s best-selling female artist by Micaela Zucconi
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ne day a young Yayoi Kusama was looking at a tablecloth when she realised that the same floral
design was printed on the ceiling. “I was looking at the
red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness… I realized it was actually happening and not just in my imagination…” This resulted in the artist’s obsession with her “Infinity Net” paintings comprising thousands of dots, as wells as installations, sculptures, mirrored rooms, flowers and the famous pumpkins. This intense focus on nature was perhaps inspired by her grandfather’s gardens, where he grew “violets, zinnia and much more besides”, and it has had a striking effect on Kasuma’s work. The show entitled Kusama: Cosmic Nature at the New York Botanical Garden (originally planned for spring 2020, has been rescheduled for spring–fall 2021) explores the link with the plant world, expressed through repetitive floral patterns reflecting the concepts of obliteration, infinity and eternity. Multiple installations will be on view, including her signature mirrored environments and organic forms, colossal polka-dotted sculptures of flora, and paintings of plants and flowers. Several of these works are newly completed and will be shown along with archival works never previously placed on public display. To complement the
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Credits for Love is Calling: Courtesy David Zwirner, New York; Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai; Victoria Miro, London/Venice. Photo by Ernesto Galan © YAYOI KUSAMA
Above, Yayoi Kusama, “Love is Calling,” 2013. ICA Boston. Various materials, lighting elements, speakers, and sound, 443 x 865 x 608 cm. Below, left, “I want to go to the Universe”, 2013, New York Botanical Garden. Acrylic on canvas, Collection of the artist. Right, “Summer Flower”, 1988, acrylic on canvas, Collection of the artist. NYBG. Opposite page, a portrait of Yayoi Kusama: it will be on show (spring–fall 2021) at the New York Botanical Garden
Credits for I Want to go to the Universe: Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro, and David Zwimer
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art works the Garden horticulturists have designed spectacular plant displays in step with the seasons. Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) presents its recent acquisition “Love is Calling” (1987), the largest and most immersive of the artist’s “Infinity Mirror Rooms”. A series of vividly-coloured inflatable sculptures with tentacle-like shapes, covered in polka dots and surrounded by mirrors with an infinity of reflections. It is complemented by the exhibition Beyond Infinity: Contemporary Art after Kusama (September 24-February 7, 2021), where fifteen of Yayoi’s works are placed in the company of pieces by contemporary artists. A more in-depth understanding of the artist can be gained from her autobiography “Infinity Net” (2002) and a documentary by Heather Lenz called “Kusama - Infinity” (2018). Both describe the elements of a vocation that Kusama first displayed at the age of ten, even though her mother tried to stop her painting. Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, a town in the district of Nagano, the artist fled the suffocating atmosphere of family life in 1957 when she moved first to Seattle then New York, finally returning to Tokyo in 1975. She experienced initial difficulties, but encouraged by Georgia O’Keeffe she went to live in the heart of the artistic avant garde, led by such figures as Joseph Cornell, Eva Hesse, Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. “If I hadn’t gone to New York, I doubt that I’d be what I am today”, Kusama says in her autobiography. At the age of 91
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Credits for ALONE, BURIED IN A FLOWER GARDEN: Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro, and David Zwimer
Above, “Alone, Buried in a Flower Garden”, 2014, acrylic on canvas, NYBG. Collection of the artist. Left, top, “Pumpkins Screaming About Love Beyond Infinity”, 2017, various materials, different sizes, NYBG, Collection of the artist. Below, “Portrait of Kusama around the age of ten”, c. 1939. NYBG. Courtesy of the artist
she remains immersed in her fantastical world and continues to paint
fetched 7,710,000 Hong Kong dollars (909,165 euro). Finally, “Immortal
obsessively and lucidly in her studio. “I’ve transformed my traumas into
Soul” (1987) was sold for 200,000 pounds (237,249 euro) by Sotheby’s
art” she says, and lives by choice in a psychiatric hospital. Kusama is
London on 12 February this year. In Europe, a travelling exhibition
still the best-selling, highest-priced female artist in the world. While in
organised in collaboration with the artist will take her work to three
1959 the paintings in the “Infinity Net” series sold at 200 dollars, in
cities, opening at the Gropius Bau in Berlin next September, the Ludwig
13 February 2020 an “Infinity Net” canvas went for £525,000 million
Museum in Cologne in April 2021 and hopefully Beyeler Foundation
pounds (622,781 euro) at Phillips in London, and last November another
in Basle in October.
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