Tate Modern - Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama is one of Japans best know artist, since the 1940's she has worked excessively and has produced a large body of work including, painting, sculpture, drawing and collage as well as her large scale immersive installations which she is most recognised for. Her work reflects her unique vision of the world and has an almost 'hallucinatory intensity'. This exhibition is a representative selection of her work from her career as an artist which has lasted over 60 years. 
I decided to attend this exhibition as I was passing by and thought it looked interesting. I didn't have much knowledge about Kusama so I entered the exhibition with an open and willing mind. I found myself walking around quite confused and with my mouth open at the huge immersive instilations. In particular I enjoyed the mirrored room with the infinite lights, I find the concept hypnotising and I could have quite happily sat in there for a few hours. Quite clearly Kusama is a very disturbed woman as she has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric institution since 1977 which is apparent from the repetitive manor in which she works.
"This concern with obliteration and overwhelment moves through Kusama’s work as we enter the 1960s. We see chairs, suitcases and boats that she covered with phallic, spongy white shapes, or jackets covered in silver macaroni. Her use of griddy, repetitious images on wallpaper prefigures what Andy Warhol would do with his cow prints a few years later. As psychadelia and hippy culture began to take off, Kusama began making performances, covering the naked bodies of participants in spots and dots, hosting orgies, gay weddings and experiences in which she hoped people could feel obliterated, connected to the universe.

I saw this exhibition at the Pompidou, and Tate have done a much better job with it here. The hang is cleaner, and there is a less wacky, more threatening atmosphere, emphasising Kusama’s mental illnesses and hallucinations. The spots are ominous in their domination in works like I’m Here, but Nothing(2000/2012), where bright fluoro dot stickers cover a dark, domestic room with sofa, tables, chairs and TV, every spot illuminated by UV light and blocking the world behind it. There’s no escape, they seem to say." 

All images were scanned from booklet from exhibition and postcards. Information also taken from booklet.


Laura Mclean-Ferris. (2012). Yayoi Kusama, Tate Modern, London. Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/yayoi-kusama-tate-modern-london-7440491.html. Last accessed 6th Apr 2012.