Just how big is global art star Yayoi Kusama?
Exhibitions by the 95-year-old artist regularly sell out, her pumpkin sculptures are so huge you can walk under them … and then there are her mirrored rooms and polka dots, which represent infinity.
Kusama’s retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria is her biggest ever show in Australia , and with 200 works on display, it’s one of the most comprehensive presented globally.
Titled simply Yayoi Kusama, it takes up the entire ground floor of the gallery and begins even before entering the exhibition, with trees on the street outside covered in her signature polka dots – and a five-metre high dancing pumpkin sculpture in the gallery foyer.
The biggest drawcard is the world premiere of the artist’s latest immersive work, a mirrored room with a series of steel half spheres radiating points of coloured light, titled My Heart is Filled to the Brim with Sparkling Light.
“I think yours will be too when you see it, it’s never before seen, it’s beautifully conceived, and it does celebrate a celestial universe,” said NGV director Tony Ellwood.
Inside this Infinity Mirrored Room, multiplying reflections of light appear to extend forever – Christmas decorations, eat your heart out.
“Since birth, I have always transmitted through resplendent art, a message of Love to the world. It is Love that illuminates our lives and makes life beautiful,” the artist stated in a message for the people of Melbourne.
“I aim to deliver in my art a heartfelt prayer. My hope is to experience the beauty of a world where Peace and Love have fully arrived.”
Gallery-goers will need to queue for several of these installations within the ticketed show, and may only stay inside for 30 seconds, timed with a stopwatch by gallery staff.
Who knows whether this will be enough time to appreciate the far reaches of infinity, take the perfect selfie, or both.
The exhibition is set out in two parts, opening with early ink and pastel works, including some of the first infinity net and polka dot designs from the 1950s that Kusama has become known for over her eight decade career.
Since the 1960s, the artist has also expressed a horror of sex and domesticity through her work – with a series of chairs, ladders and even a rowboat covered in silvery phallic sculptures on show.
And for all the exuberance of Kusama’s palette, the darkness, grief, and desire for self-obliteration that drives much of her art will be apparent to those who look for it.
Chandelier of Grief is another encounter with infinity within a confined mirrored space – this time featuring a rotating chandelier with flashing lights.
“It’s so trippy, it’s incredible,” said one early visitor.
Yayoi Kusama is so influential her visual language has permeated global culture – her pumpkins and polka dots seem familiar, even for those unacquainted with her work.
But where did it all come from? The polka dots reference Kusama’s childhood in the 1930s, when she lived on a farm and became lost in an infinite field of flowers – which began to speak to her.
Pumpkins, too, are interlocutors from her past. When Japan’s food supplies were disrupted during World War II, the Kusama family’s storehouse was full of them.
Then there’s the 1400 stainless steel globes of 1960s artwork Narcissus Garden, each reflecting the person looking at it – which is really its own kind of contemporary infinity.
Yayoi Kusama is on display from 22 December to 21 April at NGV International, St Kilda Road, Melbourne.
