Kusama fans in London are in for a treat. The ‘priestress of polka dots’, as she is known for, will be presenting a new body of sculptures and paintings in Victoria Miro gallery. The exhibition will be dedicated to her iconic pumpkins, an object which has come to represent for her a kind of alter-ego or self-portrait.
Photograph of Yayoi Kusama with her Pumpkin painting (2000). Acrylic on canvas. © Yayoi Kusama
Kusama fans in London are in for a treat. The ‘priestress of polka dots’, as she is known for, will be presenting a new body of sculptures and paintings in Victoria Miro gallery. The exhibition will be dedicated to her iconic pumpkins, an object which has come to represent for her a kind of alter-ego or self-portrait.
The exhibition at Victoria Miro gallery, which opens on 16 September 2014, comprises of two elements: the main gallery will house a new body of paintings and large scale mosaic pumpkins which will be on show until 4 October, and a major new series of bronze sculptures will be on display in the gallery’s unique water garden until 20 December.
Courtersy of Victoria Miro gallery. © Yayoi Kusama
The bronze pumpkins have been two years in the making and mark the first time the artist has worked with bronze on such a large scale.
From tiny pumpkins no bigger than a key ring or monumental ones, to pumpkins placed in box structures or mirror rooms. This vegetable has even been the star of her iconic dot-patterned paintings and textiles.
For Kusama, pumpkins are a fascination that goes back to her youth: when she was little, the family consumed pumpkins in abundance and the artist always maintained an attachment to its irregular, bulbous form.
On her admiration, she has written: “‘Pumpkin head’ was an epithet used to disparage ugly, ignorant men, and the phrase ‘Put eyes and a nose on a pumpkin’ evoked a pudgy and unattractive woman. It seems that pumpkins do not inspire much respect. But I was enchanted by their charming and winsome form. What appealed to me most was the pumpkin’s generous unpretentiousness. That and its solid spiritual base” (Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, trans. Ralph McCarthy, London 2011, p.76).
We find pumpkins in many of her early works, across much Japanese avant-garde art of the early 1950s. After her return from New York to Japan in the 1970s she rediscovered the theme, with notable examples in the 1980s and 1990.
Mirror Room (Pumpkin), inside view, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan, 1991 / Image courtesy: Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / © Yayoi Kusama, Yayoi Kusama Studio inc.
© Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin Chess Set 2003, hand-painted porcelain, leather, timber. Courtesy of RS&A Ltd, London.
“YAYOI KUSAMA: New Sculptures and Recent Paintings”. Installation view. Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio
© Yayoi Kusama at Kunsthal Rotterdam.
© Yayoi Kusamaat . Soft sculpture Pumpkin