With a career spanning over more than six decades, Yayoi Kusama’s major retrospective will open at the Tate Modern this week. The exhibition promises to show Kusama’s earlier works with the more unknown pieces, shining a new light on Kusama’s vast body of work. Here sleek talks exclusively with Rachel Taylor, assistant curator of the show, about the installations present at the exhibition and what the viewer can expect from stepping into „Kusama’s World“.
sleek: Yayoi Kusama has had an incredibly extensive career, why is now the right time to do a retrospective and what will it mean for her future career? Rachel Taylor: Although much of her recent work is familiar to art lovers, Tate felt that it was an opportune moment to introduce the broader public to a fuller range of her innovative and exciting work from her extensive career. The exhibition focuses on moments of innovation in Kusama’s practice, showing how her work has developed in tandem with the times. We hope that this exhibition will enable Tate Modern’s British and international audience to be fully immersed in ‘Kusama’s world’ and that she will garner plenty of new fans in the process!
sleek: With such a huge history of work behind the artist, how did you go about the selection process for the exhibition? RT: The selection was made with moments of innovation in mind, privileging the first iteration of each new phase in the artist’s work. So, for instance, rather than showing Infinity Net paintings from recent years, we have a strong selection of the very first, all white Infinity Net paintings Kusama produced between 1958 and 1960. The exhibition is a chronological retrospective and includes work from across the artist’s career. However, as the 1960s was such an important decade for Kusama, we have dedicated a number of rooms to work from this period.
sleek: Much of Yayoi Kusama’s work relies heavily on installation views that completely immerse the viewer. How did you translate this into the retrospective? RT: We have included three of Kusama’s installations in the exhibition. Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show of 1963, her first installation, pairs a phallus-encrusted rowboat with posters depicting the same object that surround the viewer. I’m Here, but Nothing is a beautiful immersive polka dot installation first realised in 2000 in which an ordinary living room is transformed into a polka dotted phantasia. The exhibition concludes with Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life, 2011, which was commissioned specially for this exhibition and is the largest Infinity Mirror Room Kusama has made to date. Visitors are invited to walk through this magical mirrored space while brightly coloured lights flash on and off around them. In addition to these works we have sought to install the whole exhibition as a series of immersive environments, giving a sense in each room of what it would have been like to encounter Kusama’s work in her studio or in one of her exhibitions at a given moment in time.
sleek: How would you describe Yayoi Kusama’s work to the public who have never experienced before? RT: It is hard to describe such varied work in simple terms! Kusama’s work is magical, experimental, psychologically-charged, colourful, hallucinatory, inspiring, allusive, surprising, sometimes joyful, sometimes sombre, always full of life. She has remained true to her vision and her unique worldview throughout her career.
sleek: Out of the pieces of work on display in the exhibition, is there a specific piece that patricularly stands out for you and why? RT: Kusama’s less well known early works on paper are luminous and beautiful and we have a wonderful selection in the exhibition. And I am also looking forward to spending time in the Infinity Mirrored Room!
sleek:How much input did Yayoi Kusama have with the show? What was the main goal she wanted to achieve with the retrospective? RT: Kusama has been involved in the exhibition from its inception. She was closely involved in the selection of works, particularly the room featuring her recent paintings. She wanted to ensure that her career was articulated in the exhibition with the appropriate detail and respect.
Interview by Amy Binding