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Japanese conceptual pioneer Yayoi Kusama has become one of the world’s most popular artists in recent years, thanks in large part to her immersive Infinity Mirror Room installations. But she’s not just about fancy lights and mirror tricks; she also does a fine line in enormous, psychedelic gourds, and the Serpentine has announced that it’s bringing one of her gargantuan pumpkins to London this July.
The towering yellow squash (measuring a whopping 6 metres tall and 5.5 metres in diameter) will take pride of place in Kensington Gardens, and will mark Kusama’s return to the Serpentine, the location of the first British retrospective of her work in 2000. Kusama herself said: ‘I am sending to London with love my giant pumpkin. Since my childhood pumpkins have been a great comfort to me, they are such tender things to touch, so appealing in colour and form. They are humble and amusing at the same time and speak to me of the joy of living.’
News of the pumpkin’s arrival comes hot on the heels of the announcement that east London gallery Victoria Miro will be staging a new show of Kusama work, including an ‘Infinity Mirror Room’, later in the summer, making for a Kusama-tastic 2024.
Let’s hope this pumpkin is properly nailed in place, lest it suffer a similar fate to the Naoshima pumpkin which was swept to sea by a typhoon a few years back.
Yayo Kusama’s ‘Pumpkin’ (2024) will be unveiled in Kensington Gardens on Jul 4. Free. More details here.
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