This is a focus post about the Yayoi Kusama exhibition in Melbourne. If that doesn't sound interesting, I would skip it. 👋
This exhibit traveled the US a few years ago and I was disappointed that I was not able to work out a visit so I was thrilled to see it was in Melbourne.
Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s most celebrated living artists. Her polka-dotted pumpkin and flower sculptures are recognised globally, and her infinity mirror rooms are pivotal to the twenty-first century’s turn towards art as an immersive experience.
Yayoi Kusama explores Kusama’s unique worldview, starting with artwork created during her childhood and culminating with works made this year. In between, Kusama’s extraordinary career is surveyed, from her experimental years in postwar Japan to her contributions to New York’s avant-garde scene in the 1960s, through to her return to Japan in 1973 and subsequent re-emergence as an artist of international renown.
Comprising close to 200 works, this is the largest exhibition of Kusama’s work presented in Australia and one of the most comprehensive retrospectives of the artist ever presented globally. Featuring painting, sculpture, collage, fashion, film and installation, the exhibition reveals the astonishing breadth of Kusama’s multidisciplinary practice.
They wrapped the trees in front of the NGV. 🌳
I was pretty excited about being there and just had to hug a tree. 🤗
According to the exhibition notes:
Yayoi Kusama arrived in New York City in 1958. She found it to be 'a fierce and violent place' but she persevered. She painted large canvasses to immerse both the artist and viewer in an expansive monochromatic field.
Kusama saw her first pumpkin as a primary school student. She found a pumpkin the size of a man's head and it began to speak to her. Enchanted, the young Kusama adopted the pumpkin as a recurring motif in her art.
In 1965 and 1966, Kusama presented her first infinity room mirrors in a New York gallery. These installations took her a step closer to realizing her ambition of losing herself in endlessly proliferating space.
I really enjoyed the exhibit and wished that I could have lived there. 👋
