An exhibition of famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (1929-) is one of the few instances in the art world today where the curators and artist never meet, but instead, work ‘together’ through a network of intermediaries. According to stockpiles of art history books and her closest confidants, Kusama is a brilliant individual – though often not fully understood by those around her – and obsessed with art-making. She’s a natural artist born into turbulent times.
She is also bold, assertive and cunningly entrepreneurial. In a cold-call letter to American painter Georgia O’Keeffe in 1955, who by then was a well-established artist and 40 years Kusama’s senior, the aspiring Kusama introduced herself and asked for feedback on her water colour paintings. Within a month, O’Keeffe had replied with words that would become the cornerstone to Kusama’s move to New York in 1958. Both letters are on view at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) as part of its summer blockbuster, Yayoi Kusama, alongside early paintings, sketches, fashion garments, sculptures and archival material that speak to who she is as an artist, but also as an emblem of the avant-garde.
Of course the drawcards of any Kusama show are the monumental pumpkin sculptures (Dancing Pumpkin in the NGV foyer – tick!) and immersive rooms (world-premiere Infinity Mirrored Room – My Heart is Filled to the Brim with Sparkling Light – tick!) but, to this writer, ‘the largest and newest’ barely stand up against what makes Kusama a truly great artist – her ability to move and provoke.
This attempt to capture Kusama’s eight-decade career (the artist is now 95) in a long overdue Melbourne retrospective is what makes Yayoi Kusama feel like an intricate act of counterbalancing.
The show begins in the smaller gallery space on NGV International’s ground level with rarely seen early works that embody talent, vision and raw emotive power. Accumulation of the Corpses (Prisoner Surrounded by the Curtain of Depersonalization) (1950) is one example, the enfolding formation of flesh-like tendrils reflect inner turmoil, as well as Kusama’s early fascination with botany, influenced by her family. An example of her flower sketches, dated circa 1945, is nearby, capturing her meticulous attention to detail and depiction of decay and, by extension, death.
Depression, anxiety, sex and suicide are common themes for Kusama before her commercial break. Her off-pitch, and slightly haunting, voice can be heard in Song of a Manhattan Suicide Addict (1978) while viewers make their way through The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe (2019) with black and orange tentacles.
Read: Has Kusama sold out to Louis Vuitton?
Alongside Kusama’s obsessiveness with dots and nets (all leading to the representation of infinity and the universe) is the ethos of ‘Go big or go home’. In 1960 she created an Infinity Net painting so large that it could not be brought into the gallery space for her second solo exhibition in New York. On view, instead, is an off-cut from the canvas, where loop upon loop interlock against a tan background.
But head over to part two of Yayoi Kusama and that’s where the exhibition starts to feel like a theme park. Enter through a disorientating walkway of convex mirrors and welcome to the pumpkin patch in the form of paintings, sculptural relief and the pumpkin-lovers peephole, The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens (2017).
When the NGV announced that it will amass the largest number of Kusama’s immersive works, including infinity rooms, for this exhibition, the question that comes front of mind is crowd control. With only an eight-person capacity limit in even the largest of the infinity rooms, visitors are ushered in and out with a 30-second duration – faster than a roller-coaster ride.
If wait time is the prime concern, this restraint worked considerably well for the media preview (13 December), but once the crowds start rushing in, will the number of immersive experiences help spread the load or will it encourage obsessive FOMO behaviour? Also, try to imagine being one of the gallery attendants, repeating a 30-second routine for hours on end.
And to what extent will all the groundwork in part one change the overbearing perception that there’s no other depth to Kusama beneath the polka dots, glittering chandeliers and winter squash? Yayoi Kusama seems to offer visitors two options down the rabbit hole. Want the context? Part one. Want the fun and games? Part two.
If the universe is but a glittering, technicoloured room reflecting upon itself, Yayoi Kusama has spared little time to ponder on the poetics of such a notion. Just as with a fun fair ride, you walk out with a slight wooziness – and on to the next!
Read: Exhibition review: Cats & Dogs, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
The nonagenarian artist does not need another marketing campaign. Perhaps at this point, a retrospective without the selfie magnets of infinity rooms and eye-candy installations would be more radical than one that breaks records on volume and scale.
Yayoi Kusama is on view at NGV International from 15 December 2024 to 21 April 2025; ticketed.
