Tag: Yayoi Kusama

#653 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Bobbing, Serendipity1 Comment

Last night our evening bob was a little more bumpy than we had anticipated. Getting in and out took more care than usual but swimming in a lively summer sea was invigorating and buzzy. Conversation afterwards was lively and touched on a new exhibition in Manchester by Yayoi Kusama.

https://factoryinternational.org/whats-on/yayoi-kusama-you-me-and-the-balloons/

Sex Obsession © Yayoi Kusama

I’m not sure we can fit a trip to Manchester into our summer plans but we did catch her exhibition in Hong Kong earlier this year. She translates life experiences into distinctive abstracts featuring dots and serpiginous and fascinating shapes. At 92 she is unlikely to take up cold water swimming but I wonder how she would depict an experience like last nights swim.

I might have a go at trying a chilly coloured watercolour. Depicting swimming in a bumpy sea with unexpected icy splashes as waves bump into each other. Showering bobbing swimmers with droplets of salty, very cold water.

Spot the blogger at Yayoi Kusama Hong Kong.

Spot the blogger + last night’s seascape.

Reel with music below.

#616 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

One week on, from our trip to the Yayoi Kusama Exhibition in Hong Kong.

Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi, born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan,[1] the world’s top-selling female artist,[2] and the world’s most successful living artist.[3] Her work influenced that of her contemporaries, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

We were both early to the party and late to the party. We were there as the doors opened on the last day of the exhibition.

I was overwhelmed by the experience. Ordinarily if this exhibition had been in a home city I would have booked at least two further visits to fully absorb the significance and depth of what I was seeing. For this blog I am just going to ponder the large installation that was in the basement of the art gallery.

Her work is immediately joyful. When I walked into the installation I felt like I had symbiotically absorbed more champagne than would be conducive to steady walking. A smile appeared in my soul instantly. I could quite happily have laid in a great big bean bag and stayed there all day. The perfect thing would have been to be dressed all in black laying on a black bean bag watching the instant pleasure playing out on every visitor in the room. I realise, of course, that I would have been a hazard, slips, trips, and falls magnet and completely forbidden by the Health and Safety Axis of power. But a woman can dream.

As you can see in the picture above I was dressed to impress. Largely an accident of very minimal packing and a fortuitous find of earrings in Zara.

Every moment in this installation was a feast for the mind.

This was the moment a door opened.

I may stop wittering at this point and just share some photos. Have a fabulous Saturday.