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. 

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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-full

Mirror Room (Pumpkin), inside view, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan, 1991 / Image courtesy: Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / © Yayoi Kusama, Yayoi Kusama Studio inc.

pumpkin chess

© Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin Chess Set 2003, hand-painted porcelain, leather, timber. Courtesy of RS&A Ltd, London.

sculptures and recent paintings

“YAYOI KUSAMA: New Sculptures and Recent Paintings”. Installation view. Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

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© Yayoi Kusama at Kunsthal Rotterdam.

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© Yayoi Kusamaat . Soft sculpture Pumpkin