NYBG announces Yayoi Kusama Exhibition
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The New York Botanical Garden)
announced highlights of its expansive
2020 exhibition Kusama: Cosmic Nature,
featuring work by internationally
celebrated Japanese artist Yayoi
Kusama (b. 1929), including new experiences
and immersive installations,
four of which will debut at the Botanical
Garden. NYBG is the exclusive venue
for Kusama: Cosmic Nature.
On view May 9 through November 1,
the exhibition will be installed in and
around the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory,
across the garden’s 250 acres, and
in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library Building.
Tickets for the landmark presentation
go on sale Wednesday, February 26,
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The exhibition reveals Kusama’s lifelong
fascination with the natural world
beginning in her childhood spent in the
greenhouses and fi elds of her family’s
Nakatsutaya seed nursery.
Multiple installations will be on
view, including her signature mirrored
environments and organic forms, colossal
polka-dotted sculptures of fl ora,
and mesmerizing paintings of plants
and fl owers and their diversity of colors
and patterns. Several of these works
are newly completed and will be shown
along with archival works that have
never been publicly exhibited, and more
that will be on view for the fi rst time in
the United States.
Among the new works debuting
are: Flower Obsession (2020), Kusama’s
fi rst-ever obliteration greenhouse
where visitors apply coral fl ower stickers
throughout the interior; Dancing
Pumpkin (2020), a monumental, 16-foothigh
sculpture presented on the Haupt
Conservatory Lawn; Infi nity Mirrored
Room—Illusion Inside the Heart (2020),
an immersive outdoor installation responding
to changing light throughout
the day and seasons; and, I Want to Fly
to the Universe (2020), a brightly colored,
13-foot-high biomorphic form with
a yellow face and polka dots.
Complementing the artworks on
view, garden horticulturists will create
spectacular in- and outdoor displays
through the seasons. Glorious displays
of tulips and irises in spring transform
into masses of pumpkins and autumnal
fl owers in fall. Kusama’s plant-inspired
Opening May 9 at the New York Botanical Garden, experience this multisensory presentation
of the work of internationally celebrated Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.
Photo courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden
polka-dotted sculptures will be
installed across the garden in dialogue
with meadow grasses, bellfl owers, water
lilies, and other plantings. In the
Conservatory, stunning fl oral presentations
will bring one of Kusama’s paintings
on view in the Library Building to
life.
The exhibition will include works
from throughout Kusama’s prolifi c career
and multifaceted practice. On display
in the Mertz Library Building,
her sketchbooks from adolescence signal
the beginning of Kusama’s connection
with the natural world that has inspired
her aesthetic and practice across
mediums.
The Library Building presentation
will also feature examples of her botanical
sketches, paintings, works on paper,
biomorphic collages, assemblages, and
recent soft sculpture and canvas works
depicting fl ora and their limitless variety
of patterns.
On the Conservatory Lawn showcasing
Dancing Pumpkin, Garden horticulturists
will design an immersive
landscape of river birches, fl owering
plants, grasses, ferns, and whimsical topiary
inspired by the sculpture. The exuberantly
colored and patterned sculpture
Hymn of Life:
Two exhibition galleries in the Conservatory
will be transformed into a
horticultural celebration of Kusama’s
practice and her self-proclaimed biophilia.
Like Kusama, plant scientists examine
the connections among living
things, many of which are not visible
to the naked eye. In the Britton Science
Gallery of the Library Building, an exhibition
of highly magnifi ed images of
plants viewed through scanning electron
microscopes will disclose the hidden
patterns that appear on the micro
level—and what these connections reveal
about the interrelationships of organisms
on the macro level.
On view through November 1, 2020,
the exhibition will provide ample opportunities
to experience Kusama’s
work throughout the changing seasons
as new plantings, textures, and palettes
are introduced.
KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature will be
accompanied by a roster of public programs
for all ages, including lectures;
fi lm screenings of Kusama Infi nity
(2018) and Kusama’s Self-Obliteration
(1967); fun-fi lled Polka Dot Picnics in
spring; and Pumpkin Power Weekends
in October with activities amid thousands
of pumpkins of myriad shapes
and sizes. Artist-designed merchandise
will be available for purchase at
NYBG Shop and there will be special
Kusamainspired menu items offered in
the Hudson Garden Grill and Pine Tree
Café.
Coming in summer 2020, a fully illustrated
exhibition catalogue, co-published
with Rizzoli, will include essays
by Kusama: Cosmic Nature guest curator
Mika Yoshitake, art historian Jenni
Sorkin, curator Alexandra Munroe,
and NYBG curators and scientists that
focus on Kusama’s lifelong engagement
with nature and the ways in which her
interest in nature and plants has formed
her career-long investigation of themes
of infi nity and the interconnectedness
of all living things. Images of works displayed
throughout the 250-acre landmark
landscape and historic buildings
of The New York Botanical Garden will
make this a unique publication.
Tickets go on sale for NYBG patrons
and members on Wednesday, February
19, and to the general public on
Wednesday February 26. Visit nybg.
org/kusama for additional ticketing information
and pricing and to sign up for
e-mail alerts on the exhibition.
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