I was recently in New York City and went to the Whitney museum to see the Yayoi Kasuma exhibition there. I had previously seen her work in the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2009 here in Sydney and loved it. Her phallic themed, lively instillations and somewhat serious canvases from her early and later years made for one incredible exhibition in a huge space.
These installations lead you on a journey into a metaphysical world where fantastical ideas become reality. For example standing on a platform surrounded by water in a mirror room draped in fairy lights that lead into eternity. Kasuma wants to encourage escapism and projects her own mental instability (not necessarily in a bad way, however, she voluntarily lives in a mental asylum in Japan) onto her viewers.
Other works include a normal kitchen room with glow and the dark spots that respond to ultra-violet lights and a very in-your-face art-orgy also involving spots as well as panty hose. It's this juxtaposition of normality and found objects with simple, wacky ideas that enable her to have become one of the most successful modern artists today.
What also perfectly accompanied the exhibition, was how New York City embraced it. Scaffolding on buildings printed in Kasuma's dotted prints, buses covered in advertisements and best of all, Louis Vuitton. Their windows all over the city were spectacular and all in all made my trip.
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| Fireflies on the Water, 2002 |
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| Yellow Tree Furniture Room |
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| Louis Vuitton Window on 5th Ave, New York |
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