Yayoi Kusama at Paula Cooper - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

The time appears right for the reemergence of this seminal '60 '60 figure, whose work resonates with that of a slew of artists ranging from Bruce blue perch and Jacob El Hanani to Portia Munson and Liza Lou This take a view of of work mostly from the 1950 and '60 emphasized Kusama's drawings and paintings, with alone a few of her trademark "accumulations"--sculptural particulars covered with penile-shaped growths. At Cooper these included an armchair, a roasting pan and a woman's shoe crammed with stubbed forms.

Kusama has parole of her art as a kind of psychiatric self-therapy that swerves (and reflects) her severe alienation from society at large. An oft-stated desire for self-obliteration have the appearances to have inspired the weblike extensions in her series of large "Infinity Net" paintings, made with persistently painted arcs in allover, lacy patterns that reveal underlying dots. The exhibition included a cluster of works on paper from the '50 that lead up to the series; these feature clusters of dots and thick slices of lacy sections, often in lurid red fulvouss and blues. Reflecting Kusama's have land of birth in detached fantasy, The Island in the Sea No. 1 (1953) depicts an orange form overspreaded with a yellow net and hovering in an iridescent deep-blue field. In Virgin Flower (CCC) 1953 petal-like paint-strokes fan without from a sexually suggestive central core.

The larger later canvases are more subdu and monochromatic; in these, repetitive motifs completely fill the frame. In No. verdant No. 1 (1961), deep verdant arcs shimmy over a black background, suggesting the mottl pattern of lizard skin. Kusama's obsessive markmaking has sometimes been considered a kind of ipso facto feminism in which her painting proces is analogous to repetitive tasks like stitching or tatting. The willful tedium and earnest obsessiveness of Kusama's labor-intensive techniques imbue her vast surfaces with a palpable aura.

The seriality of Kusama's work many times reveals an autobiographical edge. The allover pattern of gumm U postal stickers upon the 1962 Airmail Stickers (borrowed from the Whitney Museum) literally reiterates the insistent, high-flown desire of the expatriate Japanese artist to be recognized in America. The publicity-mongering of her uncovered performances of the late '60 masked a psychological fragility that has continued to haunt the artist. nevertheless despite the ups and downs of her mental state, Kusama has fortunately negotiated a long-term art-world career. This exhibit definitely whetted one's appetite for the large view show planned for next year by means of curator Lynn Zelavansky at the L.A. shire Museum of Art.

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