Polka dots and pumpkins: Artist Yayoi Kusama showcases seventy years of her work

Polka dots and pumpkins: Artist Yayoi Kusama showcases seventy years of her work
Copyright Afptv
Copyright Afptv
By Louise Miner with AFP and AP
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Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is exhibiting sculptures and art inside and outside in Berlin and in New York, with her signature polka dots and infinity rooms.

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Large pink inflatable tentacles are part of a retrospective exhibition of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama in Berlin.

More than seven decades of her work is being celebrated, from her signature polka dots to infinity rooms.

Stephanie Rosenthal, curator of show and director of Martin Gropius Bau said, "We have almost 250 works in 19 rooms. It is really an exhibition that shows that she both wrote art history and that she is still today one of the most progressive artists."

Kusama became famous in Japan with her paintings before she moved to New York in 1956. She then became a leading figure in the pop art scene.

Some of her works have been reconstructed and others show videos from events she organised such as the "Polka Dot love rooms" - where she painted naked bodies.

The exhibition is on until 15 August.

AP Photo
"A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe" by Yayoi Kusama 2021, Martin Gropius Bau, BerlinAP Photo

New York - "Kusama: Cosmic Nature"

For her pumpkins, peas, and peonies work, the New York Botanical Garden is exhibiting the 92-year old's art inside and outside - a year after it was scheduled because of the pandemic.

Called, "Kusama: Cosmic Nature" it highlights her early years growing up near fields of sunflowers, and pumpkins.

AFP
"My Soul Blooms" by Yayoi Kusama, New York Botanical GardenAFP

"There really hasn't been a show like this that has incorporated interior and exterior works, and a really broad view of her career based on the lens of flowers and plants and the natural world," explained Karen Daubmann, Vice-President for Exhibitions, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx.

Kusama's work has been influenced by bouts of hallucinations and mental illness. Since 1977, she's been living in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo voluntarily and continues to paint daily. This exhibition will be on show until the end of October.

AFP
"I Want To Fly To The Universe" sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, New York Botanical GardenAFP
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