The Yayoi Kusama Retrospective in Tel Aviv that opened in 2021 was more of a hit than anyone could have imagined - a complete sell-out. Even after it was extended into the spring of this year, it was a real feat getting hold of a ticket.
I’d all but resigned myself to missing out on seeing it when a friend invited me - last minute - to a special ‘after hours visit’. From 7pm onwards, once the museum had closed to the public where we could wander at our leisure from room to room, gazing at these wild installations that had made their way to Israel. Preceded by a stylish cheese and wine buffet in the museum’s sculpture garden, it was an offer that was hard to refuse.
To say that the retrospective surpassed all of my expectations would be an understatement. In a word - wow! With works showcasing her career from its infancy in Japan through to heady years in New York and exhibits all over Europe, this was an exhibition that simply took my breath away. The fact that I (in my ignorance) had never before heard of this extraordinary woman made the experience even more special.
Photo courtesy of Yayoi Kusama Studio
Who is Yayoi Kusama anyway?
Only one of the most important women artists of our time, apparently!
Born and raised in Japan, at 19 she moved to Kyoto to study traditional nihonga painting, but her dislike of the ‘teacher-pupil’ dynamic (which was extremely hierarchical at that time) meant she already had her sights on a life abroad. At the encouragement of Georgia O’Keefe, she moved to the USA in the late 1950’s.
Within a few years had gained a reputation in both North America and Europe. But there’s something else. Not only is Kusama a woman working in a male-dominated field, creating works that are really ‘one of a kind’ but she has also struggled with mental health issues her entire life.
This makes her art even more personal, because it’s a constant reflection of her struggle with her demons. Kusama has, over the years, suffered from panic attacks, hallucinations and had more than one nervous breakdown. These began when she was not even in double digits - as early as aged 7, Kusama heard dogs, pumpkins and violets talking to her (indeed, pumpkins would become one of her leitmotifs, later in her career) and had auras where all around her, she saw objects glittering.
Kusama actually grew up in a middle-class home, and her father - at her insistence - bought her art supplies. However, her mother considered art to be an inappropriate career for a Japanese woman and tore up her daughter’s paintings. By the time she was a teenager, Kusama needed to find a means of ‘coping’ that didn’t involve doctors (after all, depression in Japan in the 1950’s was a forbidden topic). It was art and, today, it’s quite arguable that art saved her life.
Something else that’s astonishing is that Kusama actually checked herself into a psychiatric facility in Tokyo, in the 1970’s, since she felt she needed to ‘protect herself’. She has remained there ever since, although she leaves each morning to walk to her studio (close by) where she works.
Polka Dots, Infinity Rooms and Splurges of Colour
Kusama has no one genre, and that is what makes her - sculpture, installation, video, fashion, painting and collage. But this retrospective has focused on some of her large-scale installations. The idea of them, essentially, is to overwhelm the viewer’s senses, using colour and repetition. And Kusama succeeds with me.
As I look at thousands of dots (spread across pumpkins, walls and doors) I’m utterly dizzy. I peer through an Infinity Mirror Room, a tiny space inside which is endless LED lights that constantly change colour (green to red to blue to yellow - it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. (Warning - if you suffer from epilepsy or have any sensitivity to light, you really need to avoid this one!)
Then I wander into a gallery full of inflatables - well really they look like the tentacles of an octopus, but they’re all hot pink (and I mean really hot pink) with black polka dots all over them. I can’t believe my eyes and wander between them, overwhelmed with the size and colour before sitting on a chair and just gazing at them for quite some time.
Next, it’s into the Narcissus Garden (or ‘silver ball room’ which is the name that struck me as appropriate as I walked in), first shown at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1965. Made up of 1,500 shimmering metal balls, Kusama’s aim was (is) to build a reflective space, in which images are repeated and distorted (by using mirror surfaces that produce virtual images, all appearing smaller and closer than reality). No doubt she envisaged the viewer staring into each ball, with only his or her reflection staring back. Narcissus and his reflection - a confrontation with one’s own vanity.
I could write about this retrospective for some time more but I’m not going to.
I simply can’t do it justice. Not only am I no art expert but it simply is the kind of experience that is hard to put into words.Instead, I urge you to go online, look at the images yourself, read about this exceptional woman and, if you’re able to, go and see it for yourself (tip: it’s arriving at London’s Tate Modern soon, if you’re in England…)
You won’t be disappointed. This is the kind of thing that needs to be seen, up close and personal.
Oh - finally, thanks to my friend Dani Lux who bought me the ticket - what a great gift, girlfriend.
