Whitney Retrospective Of Yayoi Kusama Misses Artist's Energy

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A Yayoi Kusama retrospective at the Whitney Museum has been described as“tepid,” a“dutiful and limited presentation” of the Japanese artist's larger-than-life work. The exhibition, originally reviewed on July 18, 2012, features pieces spanning her career, from early paintings to her renowned polka-dot installations and happenings.

Born in Matsumoto in 1929, Kusama created fragile, hallucinatory oil, enamel, and housepaint works such as Heart ( 1951 ) and Fern Kingdom ( 1953 ) in the early 1950s. These pieces, made with materials like sand and seed sacks, are on display in two rooms. Wall text at the Whitney attributes the use of eccentric materials to rationing in postwar Japan, though Kusama herself recalls pilfering supplies from her parents' plant nursery during a teenage rebellion. Her signature dots began to appear in paintings like God of the Wind ( 1955 ).

Before moving to the U.S., Kusama sought out Georgia O'Keeffe's address from Who's Who at the American embassy and sent a determined letter. O'Keeffe's 1955 reply is featured in the show, stating:“It seems to me very odd that you are so ambitious to show your paintings here. But I wish the best for you.” Kusama arrived in New York in 1958 at age 29, residing in a Zen center. Her early New York works, rhythmic, cellular monochromes with thick, porcelain-like surfaces, are considered among her best.

Kusama's artistic project evolved to patterns on flat surfaces and sculptural forms. Her labor-intensive work made an impression in a New York art world then focused on Action Painting. She rented a Downtown loft where she lived frugally but had artist neighbors like Claes Oldenburg, John Chamberlain, and Larry Rivers. A tiny 1959 self-portrait depicts her as fresh-faced and headstrong.

Since around age 12, Kusama has experienced visual and aural hallucinations, including visions of nets and dots, which often led her to Bellevue. These hallucinatory experiences resonated with the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s, leading to her fame through happenings, including“polka-dot dance parties,”“body festivals,” and“impromptu nude-ins.” The Whitney's wall text describes her 1966 Endless Love Show as featuring“pot-smoking, go-go dancing and general carousing until dawn.” Her 1968 film, Self-Obliteration, a 24-minute psychedelic exploration, captured the era's mood, particularly in its reflection of America's sentiments during the Vietnam War.

Kusama's staged sex parties, where she applied polka dots to“comely hippie girls and gay call boys,” were seen as political statements against war, and for gay rights, feminism, and drug culture, challenging laws in the name of art. These performances gained an international audience, traveling to Belgium and Germany. While Kusama claimed no interest in sex or drugs, stating,“I absolutely never slept with one of them,” in reference to her many nude dancers, many attendees viewed her performances as opportunities for sexual encounters.

The exhibition's strongest room features her“accumulation sculptures,” which are ordinary objects like suitcases, couches, rowboats, high-heeled shoes, and dresses covered with fabric phallic shapes. These pieces are described as humorous with a“kinky glamour.” Notable omissions from the show include her boat wallpaper, said to have inspired Warhol's cow wallpaper, and the pornographic posters she sold via mail-order. Articles from the late 1960s depict“Miss Kusama” at art events in phalli-covered dresses and handbags. She leveraged her status as a“pretty Japanese woman in New York” into connections with artists like Frank Stella and Salvador Dali, and a decade-long relationship with Joseph Cornell. Works by Cornell from her personal collection are displayed, including one with the inscription:“Fly back to me spring flower and I shall tie a string to you like this butterfly.”

The retrospective also highlights Kusama's commercial collaborations, such as a tie-in with Louis Vuitton, with Marc Jacobs positioning her alongside artists like Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince. Kusama's Louis Vuitton presence extended to an installation at the Christopher Street pier with red and white polka-dotted sculptures, and a display at the Fifth Avenue Louis Vuitton store. This commercialization stands in contrast to her earlier manifesto, which included the sentiment,“Nudism is the one thing that doesn't cost anything. Clothes cost money. Kusama will cover your body with polka dots.”

Since 1977, Kusama has lived voluntarily in a psychiatric institution in Japan. Her 1980s works, such as the large-scale Cornell Box-like construction Leftover Snow in a Dream ( 1982 ), and biomorphic plant drawings from the late 1970s, are more introverted but also more ambitious than her earlier happenings. Her continued willingness to be photographed in front of her art has perhaps made her the world's most photographed recluse.

A criticism of the Whitney exhibition is its failure to contextualize Kusama's work within a broader artistic lineage, either with past peers like Eva Hesse, Lee Bontecou, and Louise Bourgeois, or contemporary artists such as Kembra Phaler and Ryan McGinley. Instead, the final gallery of the show features Kusama's more recent,“pretty terrible Keith Haring-like paintings,” which are described as low-grade acrylics hung floor-to-ceiling. Her work has been a notable influence on American contemporary artists and the market, with major exhibitions and collaborations extending her reach globally.

Source: Observer Arts

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