‘A celebration’: Amsterdam museum unveils Yayoi Kusama show weeks after death
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The exhibition at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum features a huge “infinity room” with black walls covered by yellow polka dots.
PHOTO: AFP
- An exhibition of over 300 works by Yayoi Kusama opened in Amsterdam, featuring ceramics, drawings and her iconic polka dot pumpkins, including 50 pieces never shown before.
- The show’s centrepiece is an "infinity room" with yellow polka dots and mirrors, creating a never-ending visual effect, reflecting Kusama’s art inspired by her hallucinations and mental illness.
- Curators view the exhibition as a tribute to Kusama’s 70-year career and her recent death, presenting the show as she intended, marking a final celebration of her life and work.
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AMSTERDAM – More than 300 works by Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama go on display in Amsterdam from Sept 11, an exhibit that has become a tribute to the “polka dot queen” who died in August.
The exhibition at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum features dozens of ceramics, etchings and drawings by Kusama, one of the world’s best-known artists, as well as her trademark polka dot pumpkins.
Around 50 of the pieces have never been displayed, said curator Leontine Coelewij, who pulled together works from several museums in Japan, including in Tokyo and Kusama’s birthplace, Matsumoto.
“I think the show will be a highlight for people who do not know the work of Kusama, but also people who’ve seen her work on several occasions,” Coelewij, 62, said at a press preview on Sept 9.
“I think there will be many surprises,” she added.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is a huge “infinity room” with black walls covered in yellow polka dots, featuring mirrors that give visitors the disorienting impression the dots are never-ending.
Kusama died aged 97 in August, after a career spanning 70 years that saw her work exhibited around the world.
She channelled hallucinations and well-documented battles with mental illness into vibrant art that inevitably featured polka dots – how she saw the world.
“What I think is very characteristic of Kusama is that, for her, making art and drawing what went on in her mind was a way to deal with the difficult issues she had,” said Coelewij.
“Art can be like a healing power. And that has been so in her early years, but also continued all through the years,” she added.
‘Marvellous tribute’
After studying art in Japan, Kusama moved to the United States in the late 1950s, becoming a leading figure in New York’s avant-garde scene.
On her return to Japan in the 1970s, she checked herself into a Tokyo psychiatric hospital, where she lived and worked until her death.
News of her death came as the Amsterdam exhibition was being installed.
“We were very sad when we heard the news. On the other hand, we could say that this exhibition is a great celebration of her work, a tribute to a wonderful life and a wonderful body of work,” said Coelewij.
Curators decided not to make any changes to the exhibition, as they had worked with Kusama on the composition.
“This is how she wanted the show to be,” said Coelewij.
But Coelewij said she felt a weighty responsibility to put on an exhibit that has come to mark what she called a “full stop” on Kusama’s career.
“This is the end with her passing, and there will be no more new works,” she said. “So we can take a step back and look at her work and see this as a marvellous tribute to what she has done through the years, more than 70 years of making art.” AFP