Yayoi Kusama (TBC)

We visited the Yayoi Kusama exhibition on the 18th of March. It’s been amazingly popular and very crowded which is great for the gallery but perhaps a trial for viewers. We attended a special members viewing so it was not crowded at all – NGV membership is really worthwhile. We’ve seen a lot of her work but some of this was new. Especially her early work. This is in the foyer. So far so familiar.

The exhibition is divided into two parts. The first one focussing on her early work – which clearly displays her interest from the start in ideas that continue to resonate in her work. These are the earliest works on display. Clockwise from the left – The Germ, A Flower, Tree, (all 1952)and Untitled (1953.

They were behind glass and hard to photograph – but there’s a consistency with her later style here. This is Untitled.

And this is Germ.

Kusama’s interest in both infinity and in using dots in her painting started in the 1950’s. This is Net No. 6 1952.

This is Infinity Dots from 1953.

She travelled to New York in 1958. She found the city a fierce and violent place. She used a repetitive creative process to paint large canvases that immerse both artist and viewer in an expansive monochromatic field. At the time New York was dominated by large canvases from artists like Jackson Pollock. Kusama created a series of paintings known as the Infinity Nets. While these look like dot paintings, they’re not, she has obsessively layered small, looped brushtrokes over large expanses of canvas. This is one of the first of these canvases. It’s huge – and hard to photograph. Untitled (No. White A.Z.) 1958-59.

Another from 1961. No. N2

This is a later one, Infinity Net from 1965.

And a later one again, Infinity Nets 1970

And this is Airmail Stickers from 1962/1992

Up close you understand the title.

I didn’t think I’d like the works featuring distinctive stuffed fabric shapes and painted white that Kusama made in New York. This is Walking on the Sea of Death (I love her titles – remind me of Magritte, make you think). The first iteration of this phallus-covered rowboat and room was displayed at the Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show at the Gertrude Stein Gallery in 1963 and later at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1965 where it remained in the collection. This version was made in 1981.

It reflects what became a signature of Kusama’s artistic practice: the extension of repetitive motifs to create an all-encompassing environment. This is Ceremony for Suicide 1975-76.

Here’s the dress up close.

There is so much variety in her early work – and always a political purpose. The exhibition contains a series of portraits of famous women(mostly) framed behind wire mesh – imprisoned by fame. This is Marilyn Monroe 1970.

This is Danny La Rue (Caged) 1970 from the same series.

She was so avant garde! She called her experiments in fashion design a part of a Holy War against the establishment. Her first Orgy Dress was designed in 1968, although this version was made in 2002. Each dress could accommodate several bodies encouraging intimate contact. … The radical nature of Kusama’s designs contributed to, and were informed by, the 1960’s movement of sexual liberation.

These items are less confronting, Avantgarde Fashion 1 1968/1969.

As are these. Timeless really – could be worn today.

In 1973 Kusama moved back to Japan after 16 years in the USA. Her father died in 1974 and a period of introspection and psychological breakdowns followed leading her to choos, in 1977 to live with regular access to psychiatric care. While her working space was limited she created small-scale collages. Which were very beautiful – but very hard to photograph. This is two from a series called Dream of the Sea from 1994.

This is a painting from the time she moved back to Japan. Woman with a Shadow of a Bird 1978

There are a number of videos in Part One mostly about her early installations in New York which were ground-breaking at the time. Often her ideas were co-opted by the bright young men of the period like Andy Warhol – unattributed. This is all laid out in a terrific documentary which is worth seeing. The trailer for Kusama Infinity is here. Both the documentary and the exhibition reinforce my view that for great artists to be recognised they have to be obsessive! Perhaps. In Part Two of the exhibition we are back in a very familiar world – of pumpkins. She created her first pumpkin painting in 1946! Likening the ritual of painting pumpkins to Zen meditation. She returned to this theme in the late 1970’s. This is from 1979.

Viewers walk through a number of pumpkin themed paintings and installations which allowed for some artistic endeavour from ourselves. This rather stunning portrait of Joe is by Pauline.

This is a wall feature made of fibre-reinforced plastic, urethane paint, stainless steel, Pumpkin 2024.

We were on our way to see this. In 1991 Kusama created Mirror Room (Pumpkin) which was exhibited at the 1993 Venice Biennale. The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens is a reprisal of that earlier room.

We also walked through a corridor adorned by mirrors on our way in to the mirror room. As seen here.

And here.

The mirrored corridors led to this room of soft botanical sculptures and repetitive multi-panel paintings.

This is Black Flower 1986, sewn stuffed fabric, synthetic fibre, metal, synthetic polymer paint. The dotted phallic forms covering this sculpture resemble reproductive organs and other twisting and irregular bodily shapes. In full bloom, yet coloured black and white, this sculpture evokes the cycle of life – birth, growth, decay and rebirth.

This is Genesis 1992-93. It’s one of several large sculptural installations Kusama created betwwne 1976 and 1994. Wooden boxes have been filled with stuffed fabric forms and painted silver, forming a grid. These are elongated and intertwined biomorphic forms, resembling vines, roots and even bodily organs. The work has a generative quality, like cells that divide and multiply to produce a vast web or nexus … the process of creation.

From there we moved on to Kusama’s Dots Obsession. She created her first room featuring dots in 1996. For Kusama, dots symbolise both the individual and, when presented in great numbers, the cosmos. … with its proliferation of mirrors and polka dots creating the illusion of endlessness, visitors are invited to contemplate their place within the universe.

There was then a room of Kusama’s latest paintings. Given she is now ninety six years old it’s a bit hard to work out how involved she is in these productions. Nevertheless they reflect her early work and are lovely and bright.

Another wall in this gallery. All very colourful and somehow life enhancing!

From there we came to another immersive experience although I don’t know what this is called or it’s meaning. But it was pretty amazing – and a little disorienting.

The next immersive room is Love is Calling, a landscape of inflated, polka-dotted tentacular forms extending from the floor and ceiling. They changed colour. Pretty amazing.

And this is a new infinity mirror room has been created since 2021. These rooms are a lovely expeeience although you are only in them for a few moments during an exhibition. But they are hard to photograph!

Nearby were two walls of Kusama’s most recent paintings. Kusama’s mobility has decreased and her living space has become her work space. Consequently, the size of her canvases has reduced.

These paintings are filled with imagery drawn from nature and childhood memories, as well as other ideas that have preoccupied the artist since her earliest years.

One final immersive experience before we left – in the flower room that the NGV displayed at the first Triennium and which I think may have been acquired for the permanent collection. You’re given a flower and have to put it somewhere. Joe was looking for somewhere high.

Which wasn’t an option for me.

So farewell to a wonderful exhibition.

And to a wonderful artist; Yayoi Kusama.