Yayoi Kusama, Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore, Victoria Miro, London, David Zwirner, New York
Yayoi Kusama (born Japan 1929) is one of the world’s most influential artists, and has played a crucial role in the development of art in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Titled YAYOI KUSAMA: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow, the exhibition at National Gallery Singapore will feature over 120 works, including new, never-before-seen, pieces. It will offer an unprecedented opportunity to explore the creative journey of one of the world’s most widely recognised artists.
Yayoi Kusama. Infinity Mirrored Room–Gleaming Lights of the Souls. 2008. Mirror, wooden panel, LED, metal, acrylic panel, water. 415 × 415 × 287.4 cm. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore ©Yayoi Kusama. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/ Singapore, Victoria Miro, London.
Life Is the Heart of a Rainbow, 2017, Oil on canvas, 194 x 194 cm, ©YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, David Zwirner, New York
Kusama began her epic painting series ‘My Eternal Soul’ in 2009, initially intending to complete 100 canvases. Still ongoing, the series now comprises over 500 paintings, 24 of which are featured here. They contain familiar motifs from Kusama’s work over the decades, such as eyes, profiles, dots and nets, but also introduce new forms and colours, continually extending her rich visual language.
The Gallery’s highly anticipated exhibition follows well-received Yayoi Kusama shows in both Washington D.C. and Tokyo, and will include signature pieces, such as her infinity net paintings and infinity mirror rooms. Her most recent works – a cluster of soft sculptures and several paintings from her ‘My Eternal Soul’ series (2009–ongoing), including the exhibition’s titular painting Life is the Heart of a Rainbow – will also be on display for the first time. In addition, Kusama’s mirrored peep room, I WANT TO LOVE ON THE FESTIVAL NIGHT, which has been specially created for the Gallery, will be featured alongside rarely seen works from private and public collections.
YAYOI KUSAMA: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow takes a specific perspective on Kusama’s vast body of work, where visitors can discover the development of her iconic themes and trace their formal and conceptual interconnections through her seven-decade long career. Works on display range across different media from paintings, sculptures, collages and video to large-scale installations.
The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens, 2017, Mixed media, Dimensions variable
The humble pumpkin is one of Kusama’s most beloved motifs. The origin of her distinctive yellow-and-black colour scheme, these whimsical, bulbous forms appear regularly in her paintings, prints, sculptures and installations. This work creates the illusion of a vast field of pumpkins stretching to infinity.
“Kusama’s world is complex: full of colour and powerful symbolism. In each of her works you are transported into a universe that is deeply intimate as well as potentially boundless. We hope that the exhibition will draw visitors to the visual impact and virtuosity of Kusama’s works as well as convey the development of her style and motifs, and their personal, artistic and social context.”
said Russell Storer, Deputy Director, Curatorial & Collections, National Gallery Singapore.
The exhibition culminates in a series of spectacular installations in the Gallery’s public spaces, such as the historical City Hall Chamber, extending the experience beyond the exhibition galleries.
The exhibition is a collaboration between National Gallery Singapore and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane, Australia. The exhibition is co-curated by Russell Storer and Adele Tan of the Gallery and Reuben Keehan of QAGOMA. The show will travel to QAGOMA in November 2017 after its presentation in Singapore.
With All My Love for the Tulips, I Pray Forever, 2013, Metal, fibreglass, urethane, paint, stickers, 201 x 170 x 295 cm; 181 x 170 x 235cm; 210 x 170 x 229.5 cm, Collection of the Artist ©YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, David Zwirner, New York
Kusama made her first environment installation in 1963. These invited audiences to enter a space full of repeated forms and images, such as phallic objects and dots. This work creates a world as seen through a screen of dots, invoking the hallucinations that Kusama experienced at a young age. It also evokes her concept of self-obliteration – the giant tulips merge into a white room covered entirely in psychedelic dots, becoming a part of the space around them.
Exhibition Dates: 9 June – 3 September 2017
Art Talk with curators Russell Storer and Adele Tan: 10 June, 5 – 6pm
Venue: Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery, City Hall Wing, Level 3, National Gallery Singapore, 1 St. Andrew’s Road, Singapore 178957
Hours: Sun – Thu 10am – 7pm; Fri – Sat, Eve of PH, PH
Admission: $15 (Singaporeans/PRs) / $25 (Non-Singaporeans)
