[yasr_overall_rating]
Artist Yayoi Kusama and experts discuss her life and work, from her modest beginnings in Japan to becoming an internationally renowned artist.
Born in Matsumoto in 1929, Yayoi Kusama has been fighting prejudice throughout her long, turbulent life. Deeply affected by her deceitful father and abusive mother, as well as the brutality of war, Kusama found fleeting peace in creating intricate, complex conceptual paintings and sculptures, ranging from minimalist to surrealist, from pop art to what can only be described as psycho-sexual feminist statements on the oppression of men – and perhaps humanity in general. She was the first to utilize mirrors and space in order to create an “infinity room,” a kaleidoscopic immersion into a different reality. But there’s a connecting thread to her impressive body of work: thousands and thousands of dots, like cells or stars, of varying colors and shapes, at times coming together, tissue-like, to form a larger image.
Kusama escaped Matsumoto, hoping to escape her demons. Upon coming to America, she was met by sexism and plagiarist men – including Warhol! – and yet the artist lurched ahead, creating subversive pieces and installations that wowed critics but failed to be recognized on the same scale as her male peers’ work. Beaten down to a suicide attempt, Yayoi could never get rid of the lingering depression – she went to her first officially solo show with her therapist. Granted, depression and loneliness haunt the majority of artists, and Kusama is no exception. But it’s a demon that also fuels great art; without it, arguably, there would be no Kusama – a vicious, ouroboros-like circle. Akin to said ouroboros, Kusama’s life comes full circle as well: her art is now displayed in Matsumoto, a city she used to hate and fear but which now brings her joy.
Narrated by gallery directors and owners and consisting of many interviews, archival footage and photos, Heather Lenz’s “Kusama: Infinity” is succinct and incisive, at times borderline-reverential but never preachy. Lenz is careful not to sugarcoat her subject, though her admiration for the small-but-never-fragile Kusama is palpable. Whether portraying her platonic romance with reclusive, genius, obsessive artist Joseph Cornell, or going over Kusama’s “phallic” and “hippie body-painting” phases, or reminiscing about how Kusama performed the first gay wedding in the U.S., Lenz stays laser-focused on Yayoi’s uphill battle to world-renowned success. The doc is by turns inspiring, informative and entertaining. Yet it’s when Kusama herself speaks that the film becomes most compelling, all the dots coming together to form a larger, powerful image.
Opens at the Texas Theatre September 28th and at the Magnolia at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth October 5th
