The Spell To Re-Integrate The Self: The Significance of The Work of Yayoi Kusama in The New Era

The Spell to Re-integrate the Self: The Significance of the Work of Yayoi Kusama in the
New Era
Author(s): Yuko Hasegawa and Pamela Miki
Source: Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, Issue 13 (Spring/Summer 2006),
pp. 46-53
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Central Saint Martins College
of Art and Design, University of the Arts London
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20711605
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46 I Afterall
Yayoi Kusama in The Spell to Re-integrate the Self: The Significance
front of Net paintings of the Work of Yayoi Kusama in the New Era
that cover the studio ? Yuko Hasegawa
walls, New York, 1961
Since the late 1990s, Yayoi Kusama has been the subject of a remarkable re
evaluation. This process began with a solo exhibition at New York's Museum
of Modern Art in 1998 that, under the title 'Love Forever', focused on the time
Kusama spent in New York City between 1958 and 1968. It extended through
to a survey exhibition at Le Consortium in Dijon in 2000 and several retrospectives
in Japan, as well as her participation in many major international exhibitions.
This increased visibility was matched by an equally increased interest in her work
by the art market. The artist's pop installations incorporating elements of the
radicalism and cuteness of the 1960s, and her documentary videos of 1960s perfor
mances ? in which she addressed the audience directly disregarding the taboos of
the time ? have struck a chord with artists and critics, as well as with today's youth.
Kusama's career can be broken down into three distinct phases: her time
spent in New York in the 1950s and 1960s; a period spent mostly in Japan from
the mid-1970s until the 1980s; and her return to international attention from
the late-i990s onwards. During the first period, although she was recognised
and highly regarded as an artist who broke new ground in various fields, Kusama
failed to establish herself within the context of European and American modernism.
And while the work she produced in Japan throughout the 1980s had elements
that were so typically postmodern that they could perhaps be described as perfect
examples of the style, this latter work still retained many of the cliches of the 1960s
(due, perhaps, to the fact that it was postmodern avant la lettre), and for this reason
was perceived by many at the time as 'passe' or retrograde.
Today, attention is once again focused on the 1960s, including a return to the
utopianism of that period. There are several reasons for this: one is perhaps the
separation between bio-physiological and physical reality derived mainly from
our information-driven society. We live in a world of dual realities and survive
by reconciling the two. We are overwhelmed by an excess of information, and,
as information, knowledge and desire seem to escape our control or authorship.
It is harder than ever to establish and maintain integrity or a distinct identity.
The result is a separation between ourselves and the world at large. The rise in the
number of cases of schizophrenia ? a condition in which individuals are unable
to communicate effectively with other people and the outside world ? suggests that
there is an increasing number of people, particularly of a young age, who experience
reflexive reactions and obtain snippets of information yet are unable to integrate
the two. This lack of integration manifests itself in the form of otaku (extreme
obsession with manga and anime) culture and h?k?komori (acute social withdrawal)
mania, and leads to the kind of behavior in which people seek to reaffirm their
identity through some form of physical activity (constantly talking on mobile
phones or sending emails as a means of reassuring themselves that they are
connected to someone else or to the outside world).
For Kusama, who herself suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder
and various other minor psychological conditions, art production was connected
to living itself. The obsessive act of materialising through manual labour the fear
she experienced in her hallucinations ? a world overrun by polka dots and nets ?
Yayoi Kusama | 47
enabled her to preserve her own psychological balance and maintain a relationship
with the world. The dots and nets she wove everywhere were part of an attempt to
establish a 'distance' between herself and the world by creating a 'surface' between
the two. Although at first glance they appear to have been produced through a
monotonous series of repetitions, each of the negative polka dots is overflowing
with nothingness. Likewise, each mesh is different from the other, reflecting
a tendency towards overreaction that is a part of the artist's makeup. By making
this sensually receptive experience her trademark, Kusama came up with a way
of resisting her 'loss of a sense of reality'. The white, monochrome Net paintings,
in particular, feature a base of an intricate, tactile matter that resembles knitted
fabric completely devoid of depth, over which a light veil has been placed. The
surface in front of one's eyes and the layers below seem to be at odds with each
other. Of all her series of works, these paintings, produced on an overwhelmingly
large scale, have a peculiar significance.
'Active' repetitions are a method Kusama was forced to adopt in order to
relativise her life as a 'thing'. The keen relationship between her work and her life
has also enabled her to maintain a certain distance from the commercial aspects
48 I Afterall
of art making. At the same time, Kusama's production of independent or self
sufficient works in order to maintain a sense of integrity represents a method
that is the complete opposite of this. She seeks to throw into confusion, whip into
a frenzy and stir up every surface in the vicinity of her work.
Kusama thinks of hallucinations as moments of rapture that assault our senses
within a process of self-destruction or self-diffusion. This notion is clearly present
in works such as Invisible Life (2000), an installation in which the exhibition space
is covered with convex lenses, and Infinity Mirrored Room ~ Love Forever (1996),
a box with a peephole that uses mirrors facing each other to produce a infinite
number of reflections. The reason these works are more than simple optical devices
Infinity Nets (G.E.R.), is because they embody Kusama's monomaniac fears ? fears that compel her to
1999,acrylic on continue weaving surfaces in order to confirm her own existence. As we peek
canvas, triptych, into her installations, the polka-dot patterned pumpkins, multiicoloured lighting
194 390.9cm and other objects enter our perception like a dash, and slowly multiply inside our
consciousness, as if Kusama's fears were contaminating it. In other words, we share
that sense of uncertainty that lies somewhere between the external and internal,
and of which Kusama is always aware.
Yayoi Kusama | 49
Invisible Life,
2000, mixed media,
In her semiautobiographical novel, Sumir? Kyohaku (Violet Obsession, 1998), each mirror
Kusama's protagonist expresses gratitude for the physiological suffering she 60 80cm
experiences : 'There are ten billion bubbles inside my body. Which is precisely
why I feel at one with the ten billion stars that twinkle in the heavens, and why
I talk to the clouds made up of ten billion tiny drops of water, and why I hear
the voice of the wind carrying ten billion atoms.'1 1
Today we know about the atoms that make up the world, about the accumulation Yayoi Kusama,
of data that is continually repeating itself around us, and about the ability of viruses Sumir? Kyohaku
to contaminate any network. This new reality, until quite recently, was literally (Violet Obsession),
unimaginable. 'Infinity', 'eternity' and 'self-obliteration' are words that appear Tokyo: Sakuhin-sha,
frequently in Kusama's vocabulary, used ironically as a way to confirm life in the 1998, pp.94-95
form of solid matter. Although the term 'infinity' typically has spatial connotations,
when used by Kusama it extends to such things as the behaviour of atoms and the
flooding of data mentioned above, while 'eternity' refers to 'the present moment',
when activity cannot be stopped.
For Kusama, nothing is possible
after death. Questioned about it in
an interview with Damien Hirst,
she offered an intriguing response:
Hirst: Do you use playfulness,

fun and childishness
(in a good way) to deal
with death? As it*s
not easily visible in
your work.
Kusama: I don't know yet what

death is. I am prepared
for it, though.2 2
Damien Hirst and
Kusama uses the term 'self-oblitera Yayoi Kusama, in
tion' to refer ironically to her efforts Laura Hoptman (ed.),
to stave off her own obliteration, Yayoi Kusama, London:
and does so by stamping her mark Phaidon Press, 2000,
on every moment of life, facing her p.140
fears of being engulfed by the world
around her. The overflowing surfaces
Kusama creates are a metaphor for
overpopulation, contamination and Ladder to Heaven,
illness. At the heart of the concept 2000, mixed media,
of self-obliteration is the notion that 405 216cm
the reduction of everything to polka
dots or atoms, accumulation and collage are methods by which we can reunite
our two separated selves (our physical reality and our virtual reality). Although
the results may be unstable, the aim of this reduction and accumulation is in fact
a new kind of integration. In other words, Kusama adopts the role of a shaman
or exorcist in order to help bring some stability to our 'being', which, as a result
of contamination and dissolution and the overload of virtual information, feels
precarious and fragile. While Kusama talks of being prepared for death, she appears
to act like a scenographer that builds a bridge between heaven and hell, particularly
in works such as Fireflies on the Water (2000) and Ladder to Heaven (2000).
Kusama often makes reference to her childhood. She once stated, 'no matter 3
what colours I paint in, or what shapes I mould, they never match the beauty of my These words are
hallucinations', indicating the unparalleled intensity of the hallucinations at the often repeated by
Kusama in her texts
origin of her images.3 Those who suffer schizophrenia find it difficult to distinguish
between shades of colour when painting, and so tend to use strongly contrasting and interviews.
50 I Afterall
3
primary colours. This may partially explain why Kusama's paintings are either very
colourful or extremely monotone, with little in between. In her recent installation
Hi, Konnichiwa (Hello) (2004), Kusama adopted a strikingly honest approach to the
world of wonder and the 'wishes' of girls facing puberty. The installation was an
attempt to reclaim and celebrate the happiness she herself was unable to experience
during her own adolescence, when she was forced to spend most of her time paint
ing. Since 2002, Kusama has been producing drawings that contain girls as motifs.
The line-drawn girls take on simple and humourous shapes, they wear clothes remi
niscent of Kusama's objects and are all the same size, as if they were just samples.
Five paper dolls (each with names, such as Yayoi or Nao) and three dogs are
placed together next to a large, slowly revolving flower sculpture (Hanako) in a space
covered in hay, while 120 drawings of girls are pinned to the surrounding walls.
The girls' facial features are made up of three dots representing eyes and mouth.
The overall feeling of the installation is celebratory, but at the same time the figures Infinity Mirrored
appear uncanny. The scene has the air of something that might be waiting for us in Room ? Love Forever.
another world. The girls seem to be saying to Kusama in unison, 'Hi, Konnichiwa,. 1994, mixed media,
Compared to the tension in Kusama's earlier accumulations featuring photographs 210 240 205cm,
of people's faces, at first glance this work seems relaxed, recalling Alice in installation view
Wonderland's dream-like world. But for Kusama this is probably a manifestation
of her view of the afterworld. One of the paper dolls has grown and taken on
a three-dimensional form larger than the artist herself, and is waving in her
direction. This is Kusama's alter ego, appearing as she once wanted to be. This
too is a paradise contaminated with polka dots.
52 I Afterall
Illness can be represented as a mutation of the cells and molecules that make up
your own body. Kusama transformed the experience and reality of her own illness
4 into a universal form. As Lynn Zelevansky explains: 'The Infinity Net paintings
Lynn Zelevansky,that developed from [hallucinations] seem to have offered Kusama a sense of control,
'Driving Image: Yayoi
as if by recreating the patterns she had some power over their appearance and
Kusama in New York',
activity/4 Kusama's 'universality' is not something she set out to realise in the
in Love Forever: form
Yayoi of her work, but something that was developed as a result of the 'control'
Kusama. 1958-1968,
that went hand-in-hand with her desperate struggle. Her environmental sculptures,
Los Angeles County
in which day-to-day living spaces are covered with colourful stuffed phalli and
Museum of Art, macaroni,
1998, represent another example of Kusama's frantic effort to transform
p.14 the weakening, abnormal forces into living energy. The balance between these
Infinity Mirrored two interpretations is what makes up the essential strength that pervades Kusama's
Room (Fire-flies work. The fact that Kusama 'transcends illness' with her work implies that we, as
on the Water), 2000, viewers, are contaminated too, and experience a kind of mutation. That experience
mixed media, demands that we be honest in recognising this as an example of evolution, and
450 450 320cm, at the same time, pay due respect to ourselves as the subjects of that evolution.
installation view
Translated by
Pamela Miki
Yayoi Kusama | 53

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."iv ^^^Tj^?Im ''^>'fS

Hirst: Do you use playfulness,

Kusama: I don't know yet what

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