Going dotty …
The polka dots that make Yayoi Kusama’s 2018 Pumpkin appear to pulse go back to the Infinity Net paintings, which first established her in New York’s art firmament in 1960. Channelling the disturbing visions of all-consuming patterns she’d had since girlhood, these canvases were partly a challenge to tired abstract expressionism.
Vegging out …
Pumpkins have become one of Kusama’s recognisable motifs. The pumpkin mirror room for the 1993 Venice Biennale put her gourds on the art map, with fat, yellow and black sculptures reflected and multiplied to infinity.
Dear gourd …
Kusama has said she likes pumpkins for their “human-like” form and humour. Her fixation on repetition and infinity, however, has a darker side: a kind of obliteration, where you lose yourself in the vastness of her singular universe.
Spot light …
She’s one of the few artists who has become a global brand, with work proliferating way beyond the gallery, from fashion design to Instagram.
Yayoi Kusama: The Moving Moment When I Went to the Universe, Victoria Miro, N1, to 21 December
