George Clooney portrait by Emma Summerton for W Magazine; Infinity Mirrored Room—All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (detail), 2016, Yayoi Kusama, collection of the artist, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore and Victoria Miro, London, © YAYOI KUSAMA; Yayoi Kusama portrait by Philip Game/Alamy
Inspired by Peter H. Reynolds’ beloved children’s book, The Dot, which tells the story of a teacher who dares a doubting student to “make her mark”, Dot Day is a global celebration of creativity, courage, and collaboration for children and adults.
But what is Dot Day without acknowledging contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama in the year of her passing.
David Zwirner, who represents Kusama’s work, summarizes her as transcending the two most important art movements of the second half of the 20th century: pop art and minimalism. Her work represents both microscopic and macroscopic universes. In dots.
News of Kusama’s passing in August brought with it these images. (What a sport, that George Clooney.)
In her Infinity Mirrored Room exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum in 2017, one was able to walk in, around, and through her creation. There is nothing more exhilarating – and a reminder of how small we are.
As with many artists, her art comes from a very dark place. Here’s an excerpt from Diane Solway’s 2013 piece from W Magazine:
In the late ’60s, Kusama’s celebrity rivaled that of Andy Warhol. A central figure on the New York avant-garde scene, Kusama was famous for her delicately patterned abstract canvases, soft furniture with phalluses, and happenings in which she painted naked participants with her now signature polka dots. She also had her own clothing shop, where she sold her racy designs. But when the emotional issues that had plagued her since childhood proved overwhelming, she quit New York and entered a Tokyo psychiatric hospital, where she has resided ever since. And yet she has never stopped producing bold, propulsive work that spans painting, sculpture, fashion, and installation, such as her mirrored infinity rooms, which surely reflect the cosmos of Kusama’s own imaginings. The sources for her celebrated polka-dot works, for example, are the hallucinations she first experienced as a child growing up in Japan during the war years. “Polka dots would cover my fingertips to the top of my head, expanding to the window and finally covering up the whole room,” says the artist at 84. “I was terrified by these hallucinations, so much so I had to tremble in the closet. However, by painting these psychological complexes and fears repetitively, I was able to suppress and overcome all of them.”
Dots are never just dots.
