Yayoi Kusama (3rd artists lecture of lockdown)

Honestly, I don’t know where to start with this blog post, I had never really looked into Yayoi Kusama or her practice before, but after watching this documentary I can clearly say I am in love. I Literally fell in love with Kusama watching this documentary, just in terms of practice I relate to her so much, installations, happenings, political work, therapeutic sensory art, interactive art, the list goes on and just overall I think she is a bad ass bitch and have been incredibly influenced from watching this documentary. I might even change my idea for my art history essay and write about Kusama instead.

My favourite of her works that I definitely resonate with a lot more are Kusama’s installations, performances and happenings, however I do appreciate her paintings and sculpture how she uses her fascination with dots to create abstract images of the real world, creating a dream like yet realistic effect is amazing, the amount of detail in each piece astonishes me and I truly don’t think I’d have the patience to do something like that ever in my life.

Anyway Yayoi’s work was breaking the boundaries of space and how artists use space, but during this time that she was making these works in America, the art world and let’s just say world in general was sexist as hell. The documentary stated how during this time women could be included in galleries but couldn’t get solo shows and the galleries where typically dominated by men. Not only being female but also being Asian, Kusama’s fight to get her artwork out there was not made easy and honestly I feel so grateful for her and the other women like her who have struggled and continued to fight for themselves and their art to make changes and make it that much easier for people like me to make the work I want to make, yes the art world is still dominated by men, which sucks, but where getting there. 

Anyway (I feel like iv just went on a proper rant) Kusama was making incredible installations such as ‘peak show’ more well known as her infinity mirror rooms. This installation is incredible and I would say ground breaking, the installation is a room filled with mirrors and Yayoi uses lights and light sequences to create this idea of infinity, she also used this mirrored installation with soft sculpture and performances. Truly amazing, but then this installation was copied by Lucas Samaras, a white male artist who recreated Kusuma’s work in a more established gallery and this wasn’t the only time this happened to Kusama.

Another installation called ‘Aggregation’ once again broke the boundaries of how artist where using space, the installation featured a sculpture of a boat made from phallic soft sculptures, she then photographed this and had the entire room covered in this image, with the sculpture in the centre of the room. She could have just presented the sculpture, but she had to break that boundary and make a sculpture into an incredible installation and I absolutely love it. But this idea was soon later stolen by Andy Warhol filling the walls with posters at his own show and of course getting the credit for coming up with such an eventful idea. (ew)

Despite being constantly pushed down Kusuma didn’t give up and continued to create amazing works such as her happenings which where very much political public demonstrations as much as there where art. Kusama organised naked anti-war happenings, which would not stop until the police would force them to. Another happening Kusuma organised involved Yayoi conducting a homosexual wedding, in fact it was proclaimed to be the first homosexual wedding to be performed in the United States. I’m sorry, but how frikin cool is that she literally be making history and still not getting noticed, like how. Seriously how. I Feel like I can go on all day about how much I love Kusama, she literally Illegally participated in the 1966 Venice biennale with a performance installation ‘narcissus Garden’, placing 1,500 mirrored balls in front of the Italian pavilion, wearing her kimono she sold these balls for cheap and when asked to leave the premises she stripped into a bright red leotard and began performing with her sculptures. Just this performance installation alone shows how innovative she is and how determined she was to make her art known and was never going to take no for an answer and finally positive news. In 1993 Yayoi was officially invited to the Venice biennale as Japans representative.

I think that watching this documentary and discovering Yayoi Kusama has impacted me in many ways. I think I’m going to definitely change my essay idea and write about Kusama for my art history essay coming up soon and as of artwork, I was actually really inspired by her infinity mirrors show. For a recent online exhibition I’m working on iv been experimenting using mirrors with the other materials I was already using to make installation out of like plastic bottles with liquid and UV paint to create this kind of infinity, dream like sci-fi kind of environment. Honestly, I don’t think iv ever felt this passionate about another artist before, I actually got quite emotional after watching this documentary as I just feel so grateful for her and her artwork, so thankyou Kusama.