On a whim yesterday, I decided to ask Taz to go with with me to see the just-opened Yayoi Kusama retrospective at the Whitney Museum. Since my college art-history days, I've loved this diverse and controversial Japanese artist (who was most popular at the height of NYC's avant-garde group in the 60s and 70s and has been making a big re-appearance this year ), so I was looking forward to seeing the exhibit...
(and being the book-lover I am I did have to buy the book that went along with it)...
The show encompassed a range of different medias Kusama used in her 60+ year career (she's 83 now). These are her most recent paintings from 2009 to present...
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| Image from ARTINFO |
There was photographs, paintings, film, and sculpture....And a lot of paper paraphernalia (press, letters, flyers, etc.) which I would highly recommend taking the time to look at and read. I was a little disappointed that the show didn't encompass more of her "environments", particularly with her use of polka dots (which is what she's most recognized for)...example here (not shown at exhibit)...
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| Image from INTERACTIVE |
Although in all fairness large red polka-dot balloons reminiscent of the ones above did deck the front windows of the museum.
And I was really looking forward to seeing the 'main event' - the "Fireflies on the Water" installation...
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| Image from the WHITNEY |
but you need timed-tickes for this exhibit, and since we went on a very popular "Pay What You Wish" Friday, the tickets were already sold out. That's ok because the exhibit is on view till September 30th, so we have plenty of time to go back!
Just a note if you're in New York and do visit this exhibit at the Whitney, be sure to check out There's So Much I Want to Say To You (through Sept. 9th). This was a great "environment" exhibition by the New York-artist Sharon Hayes that reflects her work on speech & politics, through different medias (film, photography, sound, and performance). ALSO, I was also totally mesmerized by Space Light Art: A Film Environment, which is a re-creation of Oskar Fischinger's film events (first shown in Germany in 1926). Although I wasn't thrilled at the idea of someone else 're-creating' a past artist's work, the abstract colors (accompanied by instrumental sound) were just so visually stimulating I caved and admitted to liking it.
[All factual information in this post is sourced from the the Whitney site. All images (except the 1st which is my own) have links to their original sources.]
