One of the highlights of our vacation in Denmark was visiting the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Fredensborg Kommune in Denmark. The experience was surreal! I never thought that I would ever get to see Yayoi Kusama's exhibition of her mystifying modern art. The exhibit opened on September 17 and will be open to the public until January 24, 2016. So if you are in Denmark or scheduled to travel to Denmark, I would highly recommend to include this in your itinerary. It'll be worth it I promise.
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The Louisiana Museum exhibition unfurls the whole of Kusama's life work: from early watercolours and pastels to her ground-breaking paintings and sculptures from the 1960's, psychedelic films, performances, installations and political happenings in the 1960's and the early 1970's, as well as shedding new light on works from the 1980's, after the artist's return to Tokyo. -Louisiana Museum website
Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929 in Japan and still very influential in the world of modern and avant-garde art. Even at 86 years old, she's still making waves in the industry. She has expanded her infinity world by collaborating with leading brands such as Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs for a line of whimsical products. Aside from her use of dense patterns of polka dots and nets, she is also well-known for her immersive installations.
This is one of Kusama's very large yellow painting - this masterpiece consists of yellow circles/semicircles painted on a dark ground. There is little texture but the obsessive pattern can hook you in an instant. From a distance, it looked as though the painting is monochromatic but up close you will see intricate details. I spent a few minutes ogling this piece. It's a classic example of perfectly imperfect work.
The Louisiana Museum exhibition unfurls the whole of Kusama's life work: from early watercolours and pastels to her ground-breaking paintings and sculptures from the 1960's, psychedelic films, performances, installations and political happenings in the 1960's and the early 1970's, as well as shedding new light on works from the 1980's, after the artist's return to Tokyo. -Louisiana Museum website
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| Pumpkins! Can you count all the pumpkins? So much optical illusion here. |
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| Yayoi Kusama's Mirror Room (Pumpkin) |
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| Infinity Nets Yellow, 1960, Oil on Canvas, 94.5 x 116 inches |
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| One of the hundreds if not thousands of museum viewers admiring Kusama's work on the day that we visited the museum. |
"My desire was to predict and measure the infinity of the unbounded universe, from my own position in it, with dots – an accumulation of particles forming the negative spaces in the net. How deep was the mystery? Did infinities exist beyond our universe? In exploring these questions I wanted to examine the single dot that was my own life". (Autobiography, page 23).
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| This piece appears to be alive. I did not dare to come near this installation. |
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| One of her famous "pumpkins". |
As a child, Yayoi Kusama dreamed of a world covered in polka dots. Steadily, she built that world around herself and her eccentric personality, in a prolific career that spans performance art, sculpture, installation, collage, film, and painting. -Artsy Editorial
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| This room started out as stark white until every guest were given stickers inspired by Kusama's "The Obliteration". |
THE SOULS OF MILLIONS OF LIGHT YEARS AWAY
INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM
I feel so lucky to have been inside this room alone. I stood mesmerized in this mirrored room on a platform with a shallow pool of water around and a dazzling array of LED lights suspended from the ceiling. I felt like I was in a different dimension. This made me conclude just how powerful Kusama's mind is - very unconventional. This could be vertigo-inducing I suppose. I dreamed of this room as a matter of fact after visiting the museum.
DOTS OBSESSION
"My artwork is an expression of my life, particularly of my mental disease". -Yayoi Kusama
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| The best time to go and visit the museum is during a weekday at night. The museum closes at 10PM so I was lucky enough to have this room to myself. So surreal. Here's another room that I got to experience all by my self. |
See all these installations and more at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Bring a friend so you get to go home with pictures in Kusama's "In Infinity" works of art.
After Louisiana, Denmark the exhibition will travel to:
Henie Onstad Kunstcenter, Oslo, Norway
Moderna Museet/ArkDes, Stockholm, Sweden
Helsinki Art Museum, Finland
I would love to visit another Kusama exhibition again in the future. Crossing fingers! Have you been to one? Let me know what you think of her modern art by leaving a comment. I would love to read about it.
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