In 2016, Kusama was included in the TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, and in 2017 a 50-year retrospective opened at the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (February-May 2017 ) the most important North American tour of Kusamas in nearly two decades began at the Seattle Art Museum (September-September 2017 ), Broad, Los Angeles (October 2017 ), Art Gallery of Ontario (March-May 2018 ), Cleveland Museum of Art (August-October 2018
Over the past five years, I have lined up and taken a few more to catch a glimpse of Yayoi Kusama’s work. The 89-year-old Japanese artist has lived in a mental hospital for the past 41 years – The Mirror Years.
Breathtaking installations showcase Kusamas’ multifaceted art, including monumental flower sculptures that transform the 250-acre New York City landscape. A small presentation of photographs and moving images – some of which are shown for the first time – provide a historical context for the global phenomenon that the Kusamas mirror rooms have become today. These immersive installations take you into a unique vision of the endless reflections of the Kusama gallery.
The Mirror Room of Infinity – filled with the glitter of life – is one of Kusamas’ largest installations to date – built in 2012 at Tate Modern – behind the Chandelier of Sorrow – a room that creates the illusion of a limitless universe of rotating crystal chandeliers. Love Calls, which was premiered in Japan in 2013, consists of a dark mirror room illuminated by inflatable tentacle-shaped tentacles.
The 13 square foot (1.2 m2) space filled with over 60 pumpkin sculptures was one of the museum’s most popular attractions. His adorable pumpkins Screaming Love Beyond Infinity (2017) are on display in the visitors center gallery. Yayoi Kusama, well known for her use of dense polka dots and grids, and her intense large-scale medium, works with a variety of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance and immersive installation.
Kusama continued to create gigantic, bright yellow pumpkin covers. with an optical pattern of black spots like a street sculpture in 1993 after the success of his project for the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale – a dazzling mirrored room filled with pumpkin sculptures like an elaborate pumpkin patch he presided over in magical robes – Kusamas’ works are in the collections of the largest museums in the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in
After the advice of her mentor, Georgia Okeeffes, young Yayoi Kusama left her rural town in Japan in 1958 and moved to New York. The Kusamas family strongly disapproved of her passion and ultimately gave her an ultimatum – it was them or a picture. This second chapter of Kusamas’ journey began when he first encountered the work of Georgia Okiff in Matsumoto, her hometown.
While Kusama’s work is beautiful (the current Tate Modern exhibition, Mirrors of Infinity, is no exception), it is important to remember that struggles define this artist’s story. “Endless Rooms” have become some of the most popular works of contemporary art and for good reason : they are impeccably photogenic, their Instagram qualities are obvious and open.
Victoria Miro and Ota Fine Arts are proud to announce that they will share Yayoi Kusama’s new paintings “My Eternal Soul” this summer in London, Tokyo and New York. On June 4 at London’s Victoria Miro will show a dynamic installation of paintings as part of a major exhibition of new paintings and sculptures. Washington – DC, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and Delmonico – Prestel, 2017.
Yayoi Kusama (Cao Jian Mi Sheng, Kusama Yayoi, March 22, 1929) is a contemporary Japanese artist who is primarily involved in sculpture and installations, but is also actively involved in painting, performance art, film, fashion, poetry, fiction and other forms of art… Her work is based on conceptual art and shows some of the trappings of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, art brut, pop art and abstract expressionism
Yayoi Kusama grew up in Matsumoto and studied in the traditional Japanese Nihonga paintings at the Kyoto City University of the Arts. He was a vital part of the avant-garde scene of New York from the late 1950s to the early 1970s and developed a distinctive style using approaches associated with abstract expressionism, minimalism, pop art, feminist art and institutional criticism, but always defined himself in his own conditions.
