Yayoi Kusama: Give Me Love

(Hardback)

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Description

Yayoi Kusama: Give Me Love documents the artist's most recent exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, which marked the US debut of The Obliteration Room, an all-white, domestic interior that viewers are invited to cover with dot stickers of various sizes and colors. Taking The Obliteration Room as its centerpiece, this catalogue reveals, in vivid large-scale plates, the transformation of the space from a clean white interior to a stunningly saturated room, with ceilings, walls, and furniture covered in myriad multicolored stickers put there by viewers over the course of the exhibition. The catalogue also includes beautiful reproductions of Kusama's new largeformat paintings from My Eternal Soul series. Ranging from bright and densely pixelated forms, to umber figures with darker blues and muted oranges, these paintings demonstrate the artist's striking command of color, and her exceptional control over balance and contrast. The catalogue continues with a selection of new, large Pumpkin sculptures, a form that Kusama has been exploring since her studies in Japan in the 1950s, and which gained prominence in the 1980s, continuing to remain an essential part of her practice. Made of shiny stainless steel and featuring painted dots or dot-shaped perforations that recall The Obliteration Room, these immersive works seem created on human scale, with the tallest measuring 70 inches (178 cm). Vibrant plates capture how color, shape, size, and surface merge in these sculptures and mesmerize the viewer. Texts include a "Hymn to Yayoi Kusama" by art critic and poet Akira Tatehata and a poem by the artist herself.

Reviews

The Obliteration Room is "one of the most hotly anticipated aspects of the Give Me Love show."--Christina Ohly Evans "Financial Times"
"If a few minutes inside The Obliteration Room simply isn't enough to satisfy your dot needs, the fun continues off-site..."--Alanna Martinez "Observer"

Author Bio

Yayoi Kusama's work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. Her extraordinary and highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.

Akira Tatehata is an art critic and poet based in Japan who has written extensively about Yayoi Kusama's work. In 1993, he invited the artist to represent Japan at the 45th Venice Biennale. He now serves as the President of the Kyoto City University of Arts, Director of The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, and Chairman of the Japanese Council of Museums.