Lili's Art Portfolio

Who is Yayoi Kusama???

Kusama Yayoi has been known for her eccentric artwork of dots, repetition and mirrors. She is born on March 22, 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan. 

 

Kusama, at a young age, experienced traumatic events during war-time Japan. Kusama stated that “Accumulation is the result of my obsession and that philosophy is the main theme of my art. Accumulation means the stars in the universe don’t exist by themselves nor does the earth exist by itself. It is just like when I saw the flowers everywhere and when I chased them, I felt panicked and so overwhelmed that I wanted to eat them all.” because seeing those flowers was stressful. Kusama uses her art to express her feelings like how infinite it felt with the flowers and how it represents what she sees.

 

In one of Kusama's artworks, Accumulation, it is also noted that Kusama is nude in the middle of the work. And the reason for creating this image is highly related to Kusama’s cultural background. As sex was/is a taboo and a kind of dirty topic in Japan, women were forbidden to talk about sex in the public place. After leaving her own country, Kusama was affected by the open mind of western culture and tend to challenge her culture by presenting nude portrayal of herself and dots on her body. It shows the idea to refuse male domination and the courage to show female power.

 

What is the Obliteration Room?

The Obliteration Room represents Kusama Yayoi’s view. Direct dialogue with Yayoi Kusama's art world, directly feel the process of artistic creation. She covered everything with bright wave patterns and endless dots, confusing the real and illusory space and giving people a dizzy and psychedelic illusion. In fact, this is the world Kusama sees. The room brings introduces the idea of juxtaposition because of the idea of having a clean white room clashing with a lot of colourful dots. How everyone is able to have interaction with the room shows if they have an organized brain or a scattered mind. She uses gazing a lot with her mirrors because it makes the audience question the reasoning and why they see themselves. She also uses recontextualization with dots and repetition because people can see many different meanings just by one look.

 

Using a white room and white furniture, viewers of the exhibition become apart of the process by adding circular dot stickers to the blank surfaces. Viewers of the art become apart of the piece by placing colourful circular stickers onto various surfaces in the space. This allows each “Obliteration Room” to have a unique personal connection with each of its viewers. The viewers of the piece take an active role in the production of the art and as more viewers participate in the room, the piece continues to evolve, transforming from a bare, plain space into a colourful mess of layered dots. 

 

My Analysis

When I see the start of the Obliteration Room, I think of hospital for mental patients: the white being so dull and a constant reminder of how they are stuck in the hospital. Kusama Yayoi had experienced such trauma that it felt like herself obliterating. White makes me feel like pure insanity that I want to add shapes or something to ruin its state. I want to destroy it because nothing can feel better than corrupting the white.

 

The reason the mirror tells you “just a room and a narcissist” because when you look at a mirror, you instantly look at yourself. The first thing you see is yourself in the room of corruption. Having white walls being destroyed to see that there are more people in the world. An infinite amount of people who are different. The more dots being placed shows how overwhelming everything is. You surrounded by a bunch of dots; each different to show how everyone looks.