A few weekends ago I went to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Tate Modern. To be honest I hadn’t heard about her before and so had no expectations about the exhibit. She seems like a pretty interesting character. She grew up in Japan and (I really love this) painted with house paints onto seed bags because she couldn’t get art supplies. Message from that: Just make s**t happen! Anyway she then moved to America and I can only imagine was high on something for most of the sixties and seventies hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol and gang. Eventually she moved back to Japan where she checked herself into a residential type hospital where I believe she still lives today.
The exhibition was really interesting following a chronological flow of her work. Her early pieces were more abstract and then moved into both sculpture, film and other mediums which involved a lot of repetition of patterns or objects. This lady loved spots!
There were several pieces which I really liked (like the one above) and I could even understand what her more abstract pieces were trying to say.
I would really recommend going (there is still a week left) if only for the last room in the exhibition which is a mirrored room with lots of hanging spots of light. It sounds weird but is pretty awesome to find yourself in.
Tags: Art, London, Tate Modern, Yayoi Kusama
