Going dotty for Yayoi Kusama. By Louisa Buck.
The name Yayoi Kusama conjures up spots before the eyes; an infinity of spots. And maybe the odd pumpkin too. The 87-year-old purveyor of polka dots is Japan’s best known artistic export and one of the world’s most popular artists: in 2014 the attendance figures for her shows in Rio, Sao Paulo and Brasilia were the highest for the year, far surpassing those for Jeff Koons’ retrospective at the Whitney. Recently she has also had major exhibitions at the Serpentine and Tate Modern – the latter in 2012, curated by the now-recently appointed director Frances Morris – and has created collections for Louis Vuitton, as well as t-shirts for Uniqlo.
And judging by the exhibition of her latest work, all made within the last year, which currently occupies both the east and west-end branches of the Victoria Miro Gallery, she shows no sign of stopping. For those wanting trademark Kusama, one of her three new mirror rooms in Miro’s East End Wharf Road galleries is called ‘All the Eternal Love I have for the Pumpkins’ and provides a total immersion in a reflected infinity of her distinctive yellow and black spotted kabochasquashes, which recede in all directions and are illuminated from the inside like a multitude of lanterns. Three new bronze pumpkin sculptures, impressed with patterns of black circles within their mirror-polished surfaces, stand sentry outside...
