Yayoi Kusama is celebrated worldwide for her abstract paintings and objects that feature repetitive rendering of a single motif: most famously those iconic polka-dotted pumpkins. The very beginnings of her artistic journey, however, saw Kusama pursue accurate and finely detailed depictions of animals, plants and familiar everyday items. As this exhibition reveals, these fledgeling works nonetheless contain the seeds of Kusama’s later practice of translating her visions and inner perceptions into figurative, abstract forms.
Works featured here, spanning the 1940s through to the present, include sketches and traditional Japanese paintings that predate Kusama’s career-shaping 1957 relocation to the United States. There are also collages that the artist worked on intensively from the 1970s to the 1990s, and prints representative of those she has been producing prolifically since 1979.
Documenting the later decades of this ongoing artistic journey, meanwhile, are 21st-century paintings characterised by figurative images, such as eyes repeated to fill the entire canvas. Finally, the artist’s three-dimensional work is represented by an infinity room installation originally created to mark this museum’s inauguration, along with the world premiere of a soft sculpture-covered boat which embodies a concept Kusama first explored in the 1960s.
Note that tickets are not available at the door; they must be purchased in advance online.
The exhibition is closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays (except July 15, Aug 12).