ART-PREVIEW:Yayoi Kusama-Festival of Life & Infinity Nets

Yayoi Kusama is the most famous artist to emerge from Japan in the period following World War II. Yayoi Kusama has shaped her own narrative of Postwar and Contemporary Art. Minimalism and Pop Art, Abstraction and Conceptualism coincide in her practice, which spans painting, sculpture, performance, room-sized and outdoor installations, the written word, films, fashion, design, and architectural interventions.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: David Zwirner Gallery Archive

Two concurrent exhibitions of recent work by Yayoi Kusama on view across three gallery spaces of David Zwirner in New York: “Festival of Life” and “Infinity Nets”. The exhibitions feature 66 paintings from her series “My Eternal Soul” , new large-scale flower sculptures, a polka-dotted environment,  two Infinity “Mirror Rooms” and a selection of new “Infinity Nets” paintings. Presented in a tight grid in one of the largest configurations ever executed by the artist the recent “My Eternal Soul” paintings are part of a highly celebrated, ongoing series begun in the late 2000s. Conveying the vitality that characterizes Kusama’s oeuvre, each composition is an innovative exploration of form, subject matter, and space, in which abstract and figurative elements combine to offer impressions of both microscopic and macroscopic universes. Kusama’s new stainless steel sculptures depict fantastically scaled, individual flowers featuring the artist’s distinctive bold palette. Made from stainless steel and covered with urethane paint, their features and horizontal orientation echo the dualism found throughout her work between the organic and the artificial. In the sculptural installation “With All My Love For The Tulips, I Pray Forever” (2011), oversized flower-potted tulips in fiberglass-reinforced plastic are painted with the same red polka dots as the floor, ceiling, and walls, creating an all-enveloping viewing experience while at the same time diminishing the appearance of depth. The exhibition debuts two new “Infinity Mirror Rooms”, one which invites the viewer to look inside through two peepholes, and another which can be experienced from within. In the former, miniature light bulbs in changing colors reveal a hexagonal pattern that is mirrored endlessly. The latter envelops the visitor inside a large mirrored room with stainless steel balls suspended from the ceiling and arranged on the floor; an enclosed column within the room offers yet another mirrored environment accessible through peepholes. A sense of infinity is offered through the play of reflections between the circular shapes and the surrounding mirrors. The balls recall Kusama’s installation “Narcissus Garden”, first shown outdoors at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966 and recently presented in the United States at The Glass House in Connecticut. The “Infinity Net” paintings on view are the latest works in a series begun in New York in the 1950s, when Abstract Expressionism was still the dominant style.

Info: David Zwirner Gallery, 525 19th Street, New York, 533 West 19th Street, New York and 34 East 69th Street, New York, Duration: 2/11-16/12/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com

 

 

 

 

 

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