When an artist is hot you can’t help but notice an absolute deluge of media coverage, both good and bad, in the art sections of the media. One artist hitting this level is Yayoi Kusama – indeed she has always been in the media and her ongoing longevity is evidence of her transcendental talents and iron will. She’s lived more than ninety years and yet she continues to produce world changing art, with the latest exhibition at the Tate in London hailed as one of her best.
In our previous posts we highlighted the topsy-turvy life of Kusama. Born in Matsumoto in rural Japan, she first moved to Tokyo, then New York and various places around the world, creating her impressive and jaw dropping examples of installation art and other pieces, such as oil paintings. She is most well known for her polka dot patterns, usually created on a wide range of mediums including paper and canvas. Kusama has also made a name for herself through her soft sculptures (paintings mixed with sculptures), the most famous of which are her Infinity Net and Accumulation artworks.
A large part of the fascination with Kusama lies not just with her artwork, but the artist herself. Since 1977 – so that’s 35 years, the lifetime of many - Kusama has lived willingly in a psychiatric institution and much of her artwork has been marked with a desire to run away from psychological disturbance, which in her case occurred from a very young age (notably it was more the artist’s own mind, rather than external forces traumatising her, so to speak). Thus her artwork creates installations that uniquely immerse the viewer in her visualization of eternal dots and nets or infinitely mirrored spaces.
Thus the latest Kusama exhibition at the Tate is really a series of immersive environments in corresponding rooms that reflect each new scenario of the artist’s creation. This includes the Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life 2011, Kusama’s largest mirrored room to date and a definite must-see at the exhibition. The show also includes vivacious and redolent collages she has created since the late 1970s, which reflect a unique coalescing of her work as a novelist and poet. Other major parts of the exhibition include the sculpture The Clouds 1984, which comprise of 100 individual and unique black and white sprayed sewed stuffed cushions, and Heaven and Earth 1991, which features serpent or worm-like creatures emerging from 40 boxes. The exhibition’s last room features the most bright work known as I’m Here, but Nothing 2000 -, where a darkroom is lit with glowing polka dots.
The best thing about Kusama’s art is that it is readily accessible to children as well. So why not make a day out of it and visit with the family? Yayoi Kusama’s latest English exhibition is curated by Tate’s Head of Collection, International Art, Frances Morris, along with Tate Modern’s assistant curator, Rachel Taylor. Associated museums and galleys are The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. You’d be dotty to miss it.
