Yayoi Kusama retrospective at M+

Has everything been said and shown on Yayoi Kusama? It seems like there’s more to discover. M+ is the most impressive cultural centre of the busy and fascinating city of Hong Kong and to celebrate its first anniversary, the amazing museum presents a vast retrospective of works by Yayoi Kusama covering her oeuvre from 1945 to today. “It gives me great pleasure to present this exhibition as we commemorate the first anniversary of M+. My constant and heartfelt prayer is that the people of this world will forge a path through and beyond the quagmire of war and terror, hatred and sorrow. I seek to benefit society with the foundation stone that is my wholehearted pursuit of truth in art.” The show also coincides with Art Basel.

Kusama is one of the most important and influential Asian artists in the history of contemporary art. She is renowned for her prolific and innovative practice, spanning paintings, sculptures, performances, moving images, and large-scale installations. Trained in traditional Japanese painting, she moved to the United States in 1957 and soon established herself in the American and European avant-garde for her unique artistic language. She returned to Japan in 1973 and has reinvented and created art that resonates with the time in which she lives. The exhibition traces her life and work through paintings, drawings and large-scale installations showing her recurring themes and motifs deployed across the wide spectrum of media.

Inspired by her experience of viewing the Pacific Ocean from the aeroplane on her journey, she began to paint Infinity Nets, huge paintings covered with brushstrokes looping endlessly. Some of these remarkable paintings are on view in the exhibition. Ideas of connection are very significant in Kusama’s work. Particularly striking is the section dedicated to live performances. Her body-painting happenings, staged in the late 1960s, featured members of her collective covered in polka dots, nude or semi-nude, here by illustrating her concept of “self-obliteration” uniting the “self” with the “universe”. These events were also protests against the Vietnam war and the conceptual frameworks aligned with the broader protests for freedom of the Civil Rights and LGBT movements highlighted in the show. Kusama actively sought press coverage, anticipating her success on social media today.

In paintings created in later decades, Kusama continued to incorporate motifs informed by patterns found in nature, some of them on view in the exhibition. Capturing infinity through art became a way for Kusama to express her feelings towards the boundless complexity of life. The exhibition showcases both rare and popular works and it’s a chance to see the trajectory of a genuine and very talented artist. The exhibition is on view until 14th May 2023.

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