PRESENTATION: Yayoi Kusama-Dancing Lights That Flew Up To The Universe

Born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929, Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s best-known contemporary artists. Over the past seven decades, she has created painting, sculpture, drawing, and film, as well as performance, fashion, design, literature, and immersive installations such as her celebrated Infinity Mirrored Rooms. Kusama’s steadfast exploration of infinity and the limits of our human existence are imbued with both disquiet and wonder, underscoring the spiritual and philosophical depth of her work.

By Efi MIchalarou
Photo: PHI Foundation Archive

The exhibition “Dancing Lights That Flew Up To The Universe” introduce visitors to the spiritual and philosophi¬cal depth of the artist’s work. Since her early forays into painting, sculpture, and performance, Kusama has long explored the concep¬tual and formal aspects of phenomenology and immersion in her work. At a time when the digital and virtual have overwhelmed our sensibilities, Kusama’s environments proffer analog experiences that both situate viewers within and beyond our universes. Three of Kusama’s bronze pumpkin sculptures in different sizes are presented. The artist first saw pumpkins as a child when she visited a large seed-harvesting ground with her grandfather. The mirrored surfaces of the sculptures allow our reflections to engage with what Kusama has referred to as their “charming and winsome form.” The G2 gallery has two new “peep-in” mirrored rooms, “The Universe as Seen from the Stairway to Heaven” (2022) and “My Evanescent Dream Within a Dream” (2022). These smaller mirrored rooms each take on a discrete sculptural form and invite the visitor to peer in for a momentary glimpse of the wondrous and disorienting sensation of infinity. The G3 gallery offers a historical timeline of the artist’s life and career, and also includes a reading area with an assortment of Kusama’s publications. The exhibition continues with a selection of eight paintings from Kusama’s “My Eternal Sou”l series, which she began in 2009, is presented in the G6 gallery. These large, square acrylic paintings feature bold and detailed brushstrokes as well as a vivid palette. Biomorphic forms such as cells, amoebae, and eyeballs, in addition to flowers, polka dots, and profiles of a human face, completely fill the canvasses. The show culminates with “INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM — DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE” (2019), one of her most recent Infinity Mirrored Rooms, and “INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM — BRILLIANCE OF THE SOULS” (2014). Inside these two rooms, visitors and their reflections are fully enveloped in the endless expanse of dots of light, as they experience Kusama’s idea of “self-obliteration,” in which one feels as though one is “dissolving and accumulating, proliferating and separating.” As the digital and virtual have overwhelmed our sensibilities, Kusama’s environments proffer analog experiences that situate the viewer within and beyond our universes. Since her early forays into painting, sculpture, and performance, Kusama has continuously explored the conceptual and formal aspects of phenomenology and immersion in her work, part of the prodigious contributions she has made to the history of art. As a key figure in contemporary art, Kusama continues to reach more and more visitors every day. Given the challenges and turbulence of our current moment, compounded by the isolation and uncertainty of the last two years, the artist’s body of work facilitates in us feelings of comfort and peace.

Photo: Yayoi Kusama, INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM – DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE, 2019. Mirrored glass, wood, LED lighting system, metal and acrylic panel. © Yayoi Kusama, Courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner and PHI Foundation

Info: Curator: Cheryl Sim, PHI Foundation, 451 Saint-Jean Street, Montréal, Québec, Canada, Duration: 6/7/2022-15/1/2023, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 12:00-19:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, https://phi.ca/