Yayoi Kusama
‘The first time I ever saw a pumpkin was when I was in elementary school and went with my grandfather to visit a big seed-harvesting ground…and there it was: a pumpkin the size of a man’s head… It immediately began speaking to me in a most animated manner.’
Yayoi Kusama – Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, 2003
Yayoi Kusama is Japan’s most prominent contemporary artist. She’s also been described by some art critics as the most successful living female artist on the planet.
However, as Akira Tatehata – former director of Japan’s National Museum of Art – puts it, ‘Kusama is actually a very lonely person, despite there being so many people around her.’
These days art collectors, galleries and museums pay extraordinary amounts of money to acquire a piece of Kusama’s work. It hasn’t always been this way. For despite having been born into a wealthy family, she experienced extreme poverty, humiliation and despair before she became famous in America and Europe.
Kusama has arguably become the most popular photographed artist on Instagram. This could explain why the serious subtext of her art is frequently ignored or underplayed.
In Melbourne the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) is showing about 200 pieces of Kusama’s work. The exhibition is divided into two parts – the first being her early work and the second part being her more recent artworks.
Over the years the polka dot has become one of Kusama’s most recognizable motifs. Subsequently outside the NGV, an avenue of 60 elm trees have come out to play – dressed in swathes of hot pink fabric smothered in white polka dots.
Kusama is 95 years old and the NGV exhibition is a significant retrospective. Giant pumpkins exude a playful aura, while massed pink polka dots, ‘orgy dresses’, massive twisted inflatable snakes and large metallic balls offer an irresistible lightness of being. Children are especially drawn to Kusama’s artworks. Her constructions are fantastical, whimsical, beautiful and mysterious.
The Infinity Rooms provide immersive experiences featuring dazzling lights and reflective surfaces. The effect is sensational. Gallery visitors are ushered into the small mirrored rooms in small groups by gallery attendants. Fortunately, the doors are only closed for about thirty seconds per viewing.
The male penis is featured heavily in phallic sculptures and they flourish throughout the exhibition in amusing and laconic ways. I had to smile at the retro black and white short film that involved semi naked humans and curious felines in a forest being gently covered in polka dots by Kusama. A particularly playful cat seemed delighted at being decorated with autumn leaves.
Kusama’s early work encompasses photography, paintings, documentary films and sculptures from the 50’s and 60’s. Unfortunately over the years Kusama’s work has been blatantly copied by other artists without her permission.
Andy Warhol copied aspects of her unique style, as did Claes Oldenberg. Kusama has confirmed that at Oldenberg’s solo show in 1962 his wife said, ‘Yayoi, I am sorry we took your idea.’
Born in 1929 Kusama has been voluntarily living in a Tokyo psychiatric hospital since 1977. She creates her art either at the hospital or in art studios in the local area.
Despite being outwardly bright, light hearted and joyful, Kusama’s artwork carries with it an underlying sense of sadness and melancholy. She acknowledges her hallucinations and obsessional images are the foundations of her work. And willingly admits her art practice helps manage her depression.
Kusama’s mother treated her cruelly when she was a child. She was forced to spy on her womanizing father when he was getting it on with his lovers. Kusama found the experience so traumatic she developed a lifelong aversion to sex. She was also beaten by her mother when she became furious about her husband’s ongoing infidelity.
She also tried to prevent her daughter from becoming an artist by repeatedly destroying her work and humiliating her. Subsequently Kusama suffered a nervous breakdown and decided to the get the hell out of Japan and flee to New York.
‘My mother beat me and kicked me on the derriere every day, irritated that I was always painting…When I left for New York, my mother gave me 1,000,000 yen and told me never to set foot in her house again.’
A reoccurring motif for Kusama is the common garden pumpkin and she’s been painting and sculpting pumpkins for decades.
‘I would confront the spirit of the pumpkin, forgetting everything else and concentrating my mind entirely upon the form before me…I spent as much as a month facing a single pumpkin. I regretted even having to take time to sleep. Morning, noon, and night, I scrupulously painted each tiny bump on the rinds of my subjects.’
I think Yayoi Kusama should have the last word – ‘I adore pumpkins … they make me feel at peace … it is for pumpkins that I keep going.’
photo: portrait of Yayoi Kusama