Yayoi Kusama at the Pompidou

"My life is symbolized by one polka dot or one particle among millions of them" Kusama, 1975.


In a similar manner to my experience of the Edvard Munch exhibition at the Pompidou I could not help feeling a resoundingly melancholic atmosphere seeping from the works of Kusama. It was not till after seeing two thirds of the exhibition that I realized I was completely just in my thinking. At that point I felt strange. I felt as though what I was actually looking at wasn't paintings, sculptures, videos and collages by the artist but instead a deep psychological report of her inner self.

The exhibition is a retrospective dedicated to Kusama, one of the most famous contemporary Japanese artists and shows works produced between 1949 and 2011. Through tracing her life story alongside her pictures it is fascinating to observe the evolution of her subjects and medium.


Lingering Dream, 1949

Her first paintings show clearly her training at the Kyoto School of Art. However, many also bear certain motifs that would become characteristic to her future work. I believe these first works hold a great aura of mystery and intrigue. While some are quite dark and deep, others capture the simplicity of an abstract pattern. What is definitely evident to me is the effectiveness of a repetition of marks, be it graphic, organic or dreamlike. It was interesting to learn that following the annihilation of Hiroshima, exploration of Dada and surrealism became a cult for the Japanese avant-garde of the 1950s.

At this point I should explain, or try to, the founding element of her artistic practice- the Dot pattern as this first appeared, as a subsitute for her Self-Portrait in 1950. Basically, in a nutshell, Kusama and her Dot legacy was born from an early childhood memory of a hallutionation she experienced at 10 years of age. Whilst sitting at her kitchen table, the red flower pattern of the tablecloth multiplied itself covering ceiling, walls, the floor and even Yayoi herself. She describes the event as the beginning of her Self-Obliteration and feeling like a soul without a body. From this, her work developed with the idea of reinhabiting her body.

In 1958, the artist moved to New York feeling that she had no future as a female artist in post-Hiroshima Japan. Here her work changed dramatically.



Kusama in front of her 33 foot white Infinity Nets painting in New York, 1961



From a simple brushstroke technique a texture has grown to give the canvas a tactile, wrinkled effect. Her obsession with the repetition of a simple mark on a large scale is highly impacting and spectacular.




Infinity Nets Yellow, 1960

I was particularly struck by her yellow and brown version as it reminded me of the beautiful hues of the sunflowers I bought in the market yesterday. A flower that is so symbolic of the French summertime.

After this period of experimenting with simple techniques during the 1960s Kusama's work took on a very different direction as she turned to the creation of collages using found and accumulated objects. She became particularly intrigued by the discards of consumer society and worked closely with the artist Donald Judd. Her work became a bit conceptual for my liking as she gradually descended into a bizzare world of obliterating dots. At this point, amongst the bizzare video performances of Kusama, horses, trees and lakes all covered in dots I read something which confirmed my suspicions.

Her return to Japan in 1973 was an extremely challenging and painful experience. Her feelings of displacement combined with the death of a friend, her father and her own suicide attempt led her to decide to live in a psychiatric institution where she continues to rest today.

Despite this tragic turn in her life, she continued to work and in 1993 she even represented Japan at the Venice Biennial. It was now that she decided to focus her energies on designing new environments which give the spectator the experience of sensory immersion. They cause you to become completely absorbed and lose all point of reference as a cause of the reflections and light. She wants us to "question the place of man in the cosmos". Two 'environment' rooms are in this exhibition. Although I'm pretty sure they didn't cause the majority of people to do some profound reflecting, it was true that they caused one to get totally lost and immersed in an unknown location which could in fact be interpreted as quite unsettling.




Looking at Kusama's most recent paintings which sit near the beginning of the exhibition and her earliest works continue to surprise with yet another style. I personally think that her choice of colour and the simplicity of her repetition of abstracted shapes give her most recent images a Mexican vibe.



What a varied exhibition which is bound to get people talking. The interactive rooms are definitely going to appeal to many, however the melancholic thread that runs throughout the evolution of her work is, in my opinion something that has come to define her as an artist.