ArtEco: Dream I Dreamed Last Night

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Dream I Dreamed Last Night

Aggregation: One Thousand boats Show

1963

YAYOI KUSAMA

Tate Modern

(1929-)

After seeing the Yayoi Kusama's exhibit at the Victoria Miro Gallery last year I have been following the buzz around Kusama. Kusama is finally getting the attention she deserves. In the 60's and 70's she was one of the most influential artists in New York, dating Donald Judd befriending Eva Hesse and Georgia O'Keeffe, appearing in exhibits alongside Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal and James Rosenquist at the Green Gallery. Always doing her own thing she has also been quite influential as you can see here with the repeated wall paper in "Aggregation" (three years before Warhol's cow wallpaper...). But after overworking and in ill health she moved back to Japan. There she found the art world to be a lot more conservative and ended up spending years on writing before she in 1977 admits herself in to a hospital where she still lives.

With her studio conveniently located across from the hospital, she works on her art every day. For the opening of this Tate Exhibit, Yayoi Kusama left the hospital for the first time in 12 years (Guardian).

Following almost chronologically her development as an artist is a treat that I would highly recommend, should you be in London anytime from now until 5th of June. It is a psychedelic trip, quite hallucinatory with a touch of phallic fear, but also filled with humor and great imagination, actually a world it was a bit hard to leave.

Accumulation Sculptures

1962-

Accumulation 17A

1962

Eyes of the Night

1975

"If it were not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago."
Kusama

Heaven and Earth 1991

Prisoner's Door 1994

Revived Soul 1995

The Clouds 1984

Sprouting (The Transmigration of the Soul)

Flame

A green plain

Recently she has painted these captivating paintings, full of life. Kusama now in her 80's looks like she is enjoying life more now, than ever before, blossoming at peace with her demons and life with art.