The Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Yayoi Kusama Retrospective
Tel Aviv Museum of Art - Yayoi Kusama Retrospective
- So welcome and good evening everybody from a beautiful, warm, gorgeous South Africa, I have to say. I’m very thrilled to be back here. And tonight we have our very special guest, great friend of mine, Suzanne Landau. Who is the former director and chief curator of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the chief curator of fine arts at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. While establishing the contemporary art department in Jerusalem. Suzanne acquired works, as you heard earlier, by young artists at the beginning of their career, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, and Maurizio Cattelan, amongst others. You saw that beautiful exhibition at the Guggenheim, didn’t you Suzanne? It was incredible. The Cattelan, yes. And in 2021, Suzanne Landau created the Retrospective of Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. And I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to offer you the opportunity to listen to Suzanne, Kindly was willing to spend the hour with us and to give you an in depth you of this exhibition. So very, very warm welcome Suzanne. A big hug from South Africa and I’m going now hand over to you. Thank you so much, a privilege and an honour.
[Host] Tanya actually sent over a video to introduce Suzanne as well, so I’m going to play that.
Dear friends, I’m delighted to welcome you virtually to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, is the first art museum founded before the foundation of the State of Israel in 1932. As the result of the dream and the vision of the first mayor of Tel Aviv, Meir Dizengoff. You can see Meir Dizengoff here on the horse. It is a leading and influential institution, dedicated to the preservation and display of modern and contemporary art from Israel and abroad. The connection with the city of Tel Aviv is crucial to understand our museum, which is an active part of the vibrant metropolis and is a critical agent for the arts and culture in Israel, offering its visitor a multidisciplinary experience. In fact, beside the usual activity of the museum, which is the host of a permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, Israeli and international. And mounting more than 20 exhibition a year, we have classical music programmes, theatre for children, dance and cinema. The museum has been a cultural epicentre of the city for 90 years and we continue to strive, to present engaging the thought provoking art for our audience. Since it’s founding, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Collection has grown and evolved on two power tracks. Domestic, you can see here, the last exhibition, permanent exhibition of Israeli art. And international. It comprises extensive collection of modern and contemporary art from the mid 19th century to the present, including items of the finest art. Before Covid crisis, the museum reached the number of 1 300 000 visitor in year, positioning ourself in the place of 49 among the 100 most visited art museum in the world according to the Art Newspaper. During the last two challenging years, during the Covid crisis, we strive to maintain our position reaching the remarkable position of 48, thanks to our exhibition programme.
You can see here people standing on line after the first lockdown in 2020, standing on line to see our Jeff Koons Exhibition. It is an honour for me today to introduce Suzanne Landau, who was my predecessor at the helm of the Tel Aviv Museum as director and chief curator. Suzanne is the initiator and the curator of the monumental show of the Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama. Presenting now at TAMA. This landmark survey spanning more than eight decades of artistic production and featuring new installation, created especially for the exhibition is a result of a collaboration between the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The decision, the brave decision to take on this ambitious project was taken during Covid lockdown, somewhere in mid 2020. The exhibition is a success and even during the last and current omicron wave, the museum is full of visitor of all ages, from children to seniors, going on to visit Kusama’s magical rooms and the great sense of satisfaction and pride is upon us. More than 300,000 people have already visited the show and we anticipated that more than half million visitors will see it until the end of the show. This incredible retrospective of the most influential woman artist of our century, marks the beginning of Tel Aviv Museum of Arts 90th anniversary, which will be held throughout 2022. It is a fascinating and exceptional moment that allow us to look back on the museum architecture and legacy through the prism of Kusama’s artistic trajectory and development. We are deeply honoured to have the privilege of offering this journey of discovery to you today. Thank you for being with us. And Suzanne, the virtual platform is yours now. Thank you.
- Thank you very much. Thank you Wendy. Thank you Tanya. It’s also my great privilege to do it for you tonight. And, let’s start. One second. Here we are. So, I have to go back to those two images and two buildings of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. So you will understand the concept of the Retrospective of Yayoi Kusama, which actually is spanning through almost 80 years. Career of 80 years. It’s unusual range of paintings, capture, works on paper, installations, films, performances, fashion design, and so and so, even poetry and literature pros. So as I said, the concept is a journey. And I have to show you first the floor print of the museum. You have seen the two buildings. So, on the right you have, this is the main building and this is the connection and this is the new building. And we created the journey, which is journey not only through Kusama’s work and her art, but through her amazing life. We will go through five station, five galleries. When each of them is a very different one and it’s different character. And we will start in the main building. And I have to say that also in the main and the older historical building is the historical part of the exhibition and the early work of Kusama. And then the new work is in starting position in the new building. So this is our beginning here. We will start in this gallery. You just can see again another long, long line. This were the very first days of the exhibition when people were standing in order to get in this gallery. And here we are. So this is the first room, which very early works of Kusama, who was born in an rural small city called Matsumoto in 1929. Meaning that this year she is 93 years old.
And she’s still active, working, going to her studio every day. So in this first section, which I said the very early one, we started with amazing drawing when she was five years old, 1934. And what is interesting, of course we can see the mountain which is in the background of the city of Matsumoto. But what is very important to pay attention to it is those dots. Dots which, which she in other drawing, I explain immediately. And this is a drawing, this is probably a portrait of her mother. And you can see also the family here with her parents and with her siblings. And another one, this is her photograph with flowers. But what I wanted to say that since very early age, she had hallucinations. And is those hallucination, how she explains and how she describes it. She’s seen flowers and dots everywhere. On the walls, on the floor, everywhere. So this is very important to remember because though dots will later become, we will get defend meanings in her art. But just remember that it comes really from her childhood and from very early age. I also have to mention that the family she was born into was a patriarchal conservative family, of owners of a nursery. And for them, the child, the girl especially. The ideal was, or this was part of how the family should be. She has to be married and to have children and definitely not to be an artist. This was not what was part or this was not fitting into how they, understood their position and being as wellbeing family. But she, from the very early age, she started to paint and draw despite of her mother. She was very much against it and she was rebel from the beginning. And so, she decided and still managed to go and study art in Kyoto. And was a style they studied there, was Nihonga. Nihonga is a kind of revival style, Japanese style from end of the 19th century. Which is also influenced by European impressionist and post impressionist art. And mainly the subject was flowers or animals. And we have very few examples from that period. This is one of them. And this is all in the first room. And another one is from the sketchbook. You can see the animal, that’s the monkey.
But what is really amazing to see how beautifully she was able to draw and how her hand was so sure to do those drawings, those studies. But very quickly, she decided that actually this is not really what she was interested in. And she started to look after her own style. And she came back to Matsumoto and started to work feverishly on paper, on old sacks from seeds and so on. And until she managed to get an exhibition in Matsumoto. And this was her very, very first exhibition. You can see photograph. And pay attention that what she did, this was her installation. And what she did, she covered the walls with brown fabric and on it she hung the works. So the idea of the brown fabric, you remember the first image I showed you from the room. So the room was painted brown in order to get this kind of atmosphere of this very early period of hers. And on this photograph, we see Kusama amongst, in the midst of her works. You see she’s all surrounded by hundreds and hundreds works. While also what she’s wearing, this beautiful blouse, she designed it. But from this very early period, from very early time, you see she was very much aware to take pictures of herself in the middle or with her work. And this will going on later. And later we will see it also until the very end. That she wanted to be always photographed and to became like a part. She is part of her work, her work and she is one. Just few examples from this very early period. This is quite amazing work called, Accumulation of Corpses. And even the title already gives us a hint that this is something like, situation after the war and the scotch landscape. Desolated landscape, when what was maybe survival a little bit here it’s kind of hope in a little plant over here. And another one, which again, you can see the dots. But still it’s not what will become later of those dots. But still pay attention to the frame. The frame which we will see in her very late paintings.
And here are two more examples just before she will get to really breakthrough and her, I mean really, I would say pioneering, new shift in her work. Just pay attention to this kind of they are dots and they maybe are not. It’s sort of like a net. And she caused this work, Flower and it’s from 1954. What happened at even so she was working so hard and all the time and so intensive, she understood that actually if she will stay in Matsumoto, she will be able to develop and to do something with her art. And somehow the idea came that she felt that she has to go to New York. And she started the correspondent with Georgia O'Keeffe. She saw that Georgia O'Keeffe is for her kind of symbol of a woman artist who achieved really fame and she was so appreciated and so on. And Georgia O'Keeffe even, I mean, encouraged Kusama that she should come to New York. And so she decided. And before she left Matsumoto, she burned down almost all her works. She took with her just few hundreds and that’s it. And therefore, this first room, this is quite unique because there are very few works from this period. She’s arriving to New York in 1958. And now just imagine what was going on in the time in New York. This was, kind of, I would say golden age of art. It’s very homogeneous, white masculine American art scene. When the spirit of Jackson Pollock was still in the air, he died as you see in 1956. So just two years after his death, Kusama arrived. But there were other artists which were famous and known and appreciated, like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Rauschenberg, Warhol, Oldenberg and many others. And she came as a foreigner, not only just foreign but it’s a Japanese woman. And Japanese were not extremely in favour, its still in that time. She didn’t speak English and she didn’t know anybody.
And she was poor, she had a little money with her. But very soon just, she left without nothing. And with all this struggle, unbelievable struggle, she didn’t have even, I mean money to buy paint and she didn’t have money to paint the canvas. She was hungry, she was sleeping on wooden door in cold studio. And despite of all this, just imagine this situation, how courageous, brave, ambitious, focused, and highly determined she was. Because just in one year, and this is the second room we are going to, she just make such an unbelievable shift and astonishing achievement. Because she developed a new style. It’s very hard to see because, those works are very, I mean, minimal and abstract. And if I show you one piece, it’s really hard to see. You cannot see those little, I mean, brush strokes. But I have one detail here, so maybe this will help little bit to understand what it is about. She called those paintings, infinity nets. And what she did, the technique was that she painted canvases first with black paint and on the black paint with the white oil paint, she was doing kind of almost monotone, meditative and obsessive strokes, like in circle, almost like circle. And this was going on and on and on and on. And then she describes this process that she could continue, she finished the canvas and she could continue on the walls and on the floor and on the table and on her body. And this was to express the infinity. To become part of a universe. And this was all the time the universe was something which was for her, kind of almost obsessive idea to become part of it. She asked the globe is part of course it is, but she wanted to express it. And so, those paintings, those infinity nets, as she said she would like to continue on the wall.
So she make them bigger and bigger and bigger. And there is one which was long, 10 metres and even couldn’t get into the gallery. They had to cut the painting because it was so big. We can actually, we see her here in front of the, but we don’t see the whole length of the painting. And, what I have to say one more thing about this period and, what she says influence her very much or she came to this idea of those meditative works were when she flew from Japan to New York above the Pacific Ocean. She saw this vastness of the ocean, the waves and the vastness. And this gave her the idea that she maybe can do it on the canvas, she can paint it, she can express it. So it helped her somehow also to come to this fantastic, astonishing and radical moment when she started to paint those infinity nets. I think this is very important moment in her career. And you will see how she always, I mean, invented herself again and again, again. But to come from this provincial, small city. Small, really very conservative country and city and family to New York and the whole, I mean, environment of New York, what was going on. And she came to this moment and she did this fantastic work. She had also one person exhibition after one year being in New York. And after it was, I mean, received its wonderful reviews and also invitation to participate in an exhibition in Europe, in Germany, which was also, I mean, very, very important to her. And this exhibition which included artists Yves Klein, Manzoni and Zero Group, they had many things in common. So, and she was really sort of, I would say embraced in Europe. Especially in Italy, but mostly in Germany and Holland. And, I think that she had more than 20 exhibitions in Europe that time. But, so we were talking about 1958 when she started to paint. And 1959 first exhibition in New York. And then in 1962, she surprised the art world with completely new work. It seems like it’s completely new and it is still related. What she started to do with infinity nets. And she calls those works, that are three dimensional mostly, she called them accumulation sculptures.
And I hope I have an image here so you can see it better. They are sort of like ready made objects she found thrown on the street. She collected them like sofas and chairs and ironing board and so and so and so. And she covered them with those shapes which are made from textile and stuffed textiles. And as a matter of fact, those shapes, these forms are phalluses. There are few explanation how she got this kind of idea or how she started to do this kind of work. First of all, it’s also like the infinity net, they are sort of like repetition. And even though shapes are kind of like, not like the nets and not like dots, but still the repetition and the shapes coming again and again repeating itself. And there were two explanation for this kind of work. One, that was a reaction to the phallus orientated art work. She was, I mean, that time and also again sort of like, I would say trauma from childhood. Many things came back from childhood. Not only the dots and the hallucination, but also, trauma because her mother, forced her to go after, I mean, follow her father who was cheating her. And so she was witnessing many betrayals and situation which she shouldn’t as a child. And so as she says that during those, creating those phalluses with each one, she somehow, she’s overcoming her fears. And fears from sex, freeing herself from the phalluses. This is a already period when some other artist maybe, and she insists that this is what happened, took ideas from Kusama. And a few of us, we have seen those accumulation works which had soft sculpture, actually. We have an example of Claes Oldenburg, who probably have seen Kusama’s work and then she insist that he took ideas from her. But he was not the only one.
And we will see soon that there were other artists too. And we come to, this is an installation and maybe I would say. This work is called, Aggregation: One Thousand Boat show. And this is a piece which unfortunately is not in the exhibition. And I’m very sorry because it’s so fragile that it couldn’t travel from Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to Israel. But I am showing it because it’s a very important piece from few reasons. And actually the one, that this is maybe the first installation she created, and she was again, revolutionary from this point of view. You have to imagine that on the floor and on the walls, there are posters, photographs of the same boat, which was like those arm armchairs and sofas covered with phalluses. And so she created this environment, this was something new. And we can see that just three years after her creation. Andy Warhol also did those, wallpapers, let’s say. With the cows. So he was another artist who probably took some inspirational ideas from Kusama. By the way, this is a photograph when she took a picture of herself the first time naked. And, in New York already used professional photographers who took photographs according to her direction. So this was not like she directed, she decided how to take his picture and so on. And it’s going on and on all the time from this period until today actually. So the climax of this period, which she also caused like sex obsession. She created a whole room with those phalluses. When the phalluses are covering the whole floor and around the phalluses are mirrors. So this is the very first Infinity Mirror Room, the very first one. And she calls it Phalli’s Field. At the very beginning when it was first installed. So people were allowed to walk on it, but today people are not. So there is just a small passageway and you can enter it. And of course, since there are those mirrors all around, the reflection is again kind of infinitive. And you have multiplied and multiplied and this is what people love. And what can I say? This room is one of those where selfies are taken endlessly. After the sex obsession, she started to also, she continued to create those rooms but she started to do another series which she called , food obsession.
And I don’t know how much you can realise, but the floor here is covered by macaroni. And this is a later creation of those rooms from that period, which is we are now talking about 1966. And visitors could walk on those macaroni. And of course the part of the installation was also the sound. Just imagine that you would walk on macaroni what kind of sound it will make. And then she also started to use those mannequins. They are all covered with dots and table and chairs and had everything covered. And in the background, of course is the big infinity net painting. We have a detail here, Kusama and one of her mannequins been covered by macaroni. And a bag also covered by macaroni. One year after the Phalli’s Field installation, she created another one and she called it Pip Show Love forever. But this one you couldn’t enter, you just could like pip show, you just could look in through two small windows. And what you could see is those amazing patterns which were created with many, many smaller lights. And they are all the time changing and it’s just like, sort of like kaleidoscope. This was a very intensive time for Kusama. So imagine one year after the other, she created those new, absolutely new and inventive works of art. The same year as the Pip Show, she was not officially invited to Venice Biennale, which is now 1966. But she got permission to create an installation of work outdoors in Jordan. And what she did was the work consisting from 1500 mirrored balls. And she called them the Garden of Narcissus. And it is a metaphor, you know, Narcissus from the Greek mythology who saw his image in the pool and became in love with his image. So this is also about kind of criticism of the art world because what she did at the very beginning at the Biennale, that she started to sell each ball for $2 until the management of Biennale came and said, this is not possible here at the Venice Biennale, you are not allowed to sell artworks.
So this was about the situation in the art world, also the narcism of the art world. And we have few more images of this installation in other constellation later on in the pool. And this is in our exhibition, but we will come back to it later and talk about it again, just that you see the context. So she was in Europe, in Venice and also continue to do those installation room also in Holland. This is one of those in Hague and she called it the Love Room. And in 1967, she’s coming back to New York and she’s starting to do something completely new and different. And these are Happenings, performances which are really very, very, I would say courageous again and experimentations in a time when it was just like the summer of love, hippy subculture, of course Vietnam War. And very provocative, you can see the situation here. I think it’s a Brooklyn Bridge. This is in Central Park. Maybe we have one more, and this is at the Sculpture Garden at MoMA, which she called Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at MoMA. She called Museum of Modern Art mausoleum because at that time there were not so many living artists. And so this was quite, kind of scandal. And of course each of those performances at the end was that the police came and they were a lot of, I mean, more than it was written about it in Art Magazines. It was more written in a kind of tabloids and not so much appreciated by the art world. She was, I mean, she even started to organise orgies in her studio. And published a magazine which she called Orgy. She was provocative and she was, again, very courageous. But this was something which, she didn’t work so much on not the painting, not the sculpture. And more and more in those Happenings. Or again, obsessively. And all those orgies which she organised in her studio. Became almost to the end of her period in New York and Europe. And, this was 1973 when she decided that she’s going back to Japan.
So this was the first gallery which had different rooms and from Matsumoto until the end of the time in New York. And now we are going to another gallery. And this is the beginning, when she came back to this other period when she came back to Japan. She was in very bad health situation. And in 1977, she decided to check herself psychiatric institute in Tokyo where she lives until today. In the very, I mean, first year she didn’t do any art. And, mostly she started to write. She was writing books. And she wrote almost like, about 20 books in the time. And started to be appreciated as a writer and not so much as an artist, visual artist. And it took almost 20 years until one of the Japanese curators suggested that Kusama will represent Japan in the Venice Biennale in 1993. And this was a big breakthrough because imagine when she came back to Japan, not only did , she didn’t work. I mean, she didn’t create any work, she was forgotten. The New York art scene forgot her. The European art scene forgot her. And so all of the sudden she appeared in Venice and what she created there was Infinity Room Pumpkin. And we have this room here, another variation of this idea she presented in Venice Biennale. But also in this room we can see other creation because since then, since Venice Biennale Pumpkin became sort of like her alter ego. Sort of like a symbol of Kusama. And if people don’t even know much about her and about her work, definitely people know and recognise the Pumpkin. And she was able to create those pumpkin, like endless variation, different sizes, different material, different shapes. Of course with the dots. Dots, dots, dots. This is another pumpkin here. And so I call this room like, the first room was, very first was brown, this room is yellow. We have on the background also a beautiful large yellow painting.
Here in the back, in this room we have a documentary. It’s a new documentary of Kusama, about Kusama. So people, if they have time, they can watch the documentary. And in the whole exhibition there are many, many short documentaries which add information about work and about what she’s doing, I have to mention that, her health started to deteriorate when also her very long time friend, Joseph Cornell, died in 1972. So it also prompted her to come back to Japan. And here we can see both of them, Kusama and Cornell. And from this period, still she did some work. And this is very unusual one, this is a self-portrait, which I think if you look closely, if you can see it, it’s a collage. And it really reminds, I think in the style of Joseph Cornell. This is another example of those collages she started to do but very, very slowly. And they also remind us of those early works which we have seen, or they are in the very first room of Matsumoto. You can see a bit, but it’s very hard to really feel what you can see in the room of pumpkin when you again, just can pip in and see thousand and thousand and thousand pumpkins reflected in the mirror. So we have in the exhibition four infinity rooms. We have seen the Phalli’s Field, we have seen the Pip Show. Now this is the third one with the Pumpkin. Maybe it gives you a little bit the idea what it is. It’s really fascinated and people are just amazed. And again, selfies and selfies and selfies in those rooms. Just other examples like variation. If I said she can do endlessly. I mean, variation of this pumpkin theme and form. This is in Naoshima in Japan on an island. And this was just recently in New York, in Bronx, in the botanical garden. When she made it like a, it’s like, flower, pumpkin, whatever.
This is in Paris, I think. One of the FIAC Art Fairs in one of the plazas. Huge, huge pumpkin made from balloon. And now we are going, we finished the historical building and more historical part of the journey and of Kusama’s work. And we are entering the new building. When people just imagine are going down, descending on escalator and approaching this fantastic, site-specific installation, which is enormous. It’s huge. It’s called, A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe. And this is a new work specifically done for Gropius Bau in Berlin, and also for, of course for Tel Aviv. But each space was very different. So this has to be created and planned because this is very an irregular space, which different sizes and so on. The highest one is 11 metres high. And what more, I hope you have another image here. So this is when you are coming down and you can walk in this space and in the installation. And just imagine this is made from very special kind of material, which looks like a balloon, but it’s not, it’s very strong. And all those dots, everything was sawn. Sewing, like sewing machine, each dot, each dot. Everything, this was all sawn. And, we had to build a whole platform here because in order that those shape will be like this. So you had to bring the air into it. And so below this platform there are pipes bringing up to each one, there are 11. Each one, the air in order to keep it like this. In a way, it’s maybe development of remembered accumulation sculptures with the phalluses. But there is also in one early work, this is another image. This was in a very early work, which was in the very first room. And she painted this painting, which was also kind of like probably painting landscape after the war. And, those shapes somehow reminds me that she developed them into this, those installations. Some other variation of this subject.
Another one, but these are not in the exhibition, I am just showing you to see that she was in this kind of direction also before. And this is in the Berlin Gropius Bau. So this was much more easier because they had a just simple rectangular space, not like in Tel Aviv. And so here we have our large gallery where her, new work, new paintings. There are two series of paintings. And you remember I mentioned that we will come back to the Narcissus Garden. Because this Narcissus Garden here, it’s like a lake and also was important to me that in the lake and in those stainless steel balls, the beautiful, colourful painting will be reflected. So it’s like the Narcissus. We have another image. And this is another series which is called Love Forever. She did this series black and white in the year 2004, 2007. The other one, My Eternal Soul, the the colourful ones. It’s an ongoing series which she started in 2009 and, until today. She even made some new paintings last year for the exhibition. You have some details of those black and white Love Forever. Each painting has its title and it’s again like a poem. She’s such a amazing, fantastic poet. So each one title, each one like little poem, like haiku. So this is a large gallery with those colourful, new paintings. They are very different from those we have seen at the very beginning. You remember those infinity nets? These are quite different, but still there’s biomorphic motives from her childhood and from the early work maybe there is kind of resonance in those. And see some details of two large paintings. And we are coming to the last room, which is the last Infinity Mirror Room. Which is also a new edition, new work for the exhibition in Berlin and in Tel Aviv. So, and people enter it and they are surrounded by those balls and colours and lights and those that are changing all the time, very slowly.
But if you are just few second inside, you can follow and you can see and you are amazed and you are just immersed in the space because this is what she wanted. She wanted to be like one with her work and she wanted also us as a visitors, as a viewers to become part of the one bit of work. And almost at the end, I just wanted to show you the many faces, the many images of Kusama and her work. Each time she was very careful how to dress, how to pose. And they are all according what she was, I mean, asking the photographers how to do it. She was a choreographer. And this was also for her kind of like a mural. Another mural that she wanted to see herself in the photograph. And I think it’s just the moment to, we have a very short video and I would ask you if you can put the video, it’s just a few seconds. Video on.
So this is it. Thank you for your patience.
Thanks Suzanne.
Okay. I mean, it’s very hard to give a tour of an exhibition which you see only two dimensional and not two really, because the idea was to have the experience, experiential journey. So this was kind of flat journey, but I hope it works somehow.
No, it is wonderful. Thank you very much. You’re right, it’s very, very difficult to actually visualise the sculptures which are so vibrant and luminous and full of energy and has the depth. And you know, we could really just, this is really a taster for everybody. And congratulations, masato for the most incredible exhibition.
[Suzanne] Thank you.
She’s definitely one of my favourite artists. And just, I’ll tell you what a story with me. One night I was, I watched the news when I was in New York and I was watching the news and a hurricane was coming to London. Anyway, I fell asleep, in the middle of the night I realised, I woke up and I thought, oh my God, the pumpkin. ‘Cause I have Kusama pumpkin in my garden. And I said, oh my God, it’s made out of, you know, fibreglass. That pumpkin is going to be picked up and smashed against the trees and it’s going to end up in a thousand pieces. This was many years ago. I woke up in an and I just thought that pumpkin at 2:30 in the morning. And you know, we were five hours behind London and I actually found my gym inst… Les, who I’ve been doing gym with for years. He’s my gym instructor. And I said to him, Les, please do me a favour. Go to my house with his son-in-laws, with your two son-in-laws and take my pumpkin and just pick it up, forget gloves, just get there before the storm and pop it in my dining room. So, the pumpkin was saved. There were many trees that came down, but the pumpkin certainly was saved. So that’s my Kusama story. But you know, she is a phenomenal artist. She’s unique.
She is, she is. She is.
She’s absolutely, you know, she’s a legend. She’s a legend, she’s a phenomena, and actually’s become a commercial icon as well. I think it was Louis Vuitton, right? That used her.
Right, right, right. Yes. But many others, I mean, she was also all the time in fashion and she tried even to create her own design, but it was, I think less successful. But still she was all the time aware of fashion and therefore always how she dressed and how she made the wig. And then, you know, it’s was always,-
Yeah.
always very important element also for her.
Very cool. Are you willing to take like… sorry.
No, no, I mean her appearance, it was very important to her. How she appeared each time. And, in Venice Biennale, I mean, she wore yellow… I mean, golden kimono and she had a black hat, like a little witch. You know, this kind of hat. So, personality. Amazing , amazing personality.
Yeah, a true performance artist.
Woman artist. And we are just now really finally, I mean, vacating to it. And she achieved what she achieved despite of all difficulties. And this is what I am so much, I mean, amazed and appreciate. And, I think this is the strong part of her also, what she did and how also show creative. Because she was able really to invent herself all the time. She started those nets and then accumulation and then those performances. And I didn’t mention because somehow I didn’t have the image, but also what she did with the dots. She did those festivals of naked bodies when she painted with polka dots. You know, body of people, naked people. And like, this was like self elimination. But this was another idea of dots like again, that you will become part of the universe in this way. That you will go where you will disappear under those dots. She will paint on you, on herself, on you and then everybody. So like to cover everything with the dots. And then and again, until, you know, this really moment in Venice Biennale again. And, when she was like discovered again. And from that moment on, she got invitation from all around the world, major museums, you just name it, everywhere. She was everywhere.
Yeah and she was brilliant. The way that, you know, she spun this whole image of herself and, you know, landing in an asylum, setting up her studio there. You know, that’s a whole story. It was created .
Yes it is.
Are you willing to take a couple of questions? Please, Suzanne. Lauren, are there some questions?
Question?
Lauren?
Q&A and Comments:
Q- Yeah, we have quite a few from the audience. A lot of people are asking, how long the exhibit is up for?
A- The exhibition will be up until mid of May.
[Host] Thank you so much. Another.
I’d imagine it’s already sold out.
It’s worth taking a trip and I’m quite sure of all of you who are logged on university. I’m not promising, but if you reach out to us, I will see if I can get you tickets. So I’m quite sure that we’ll be able to do that. Right, right.
You’ll will be welcome. Really , and if there will be no tickets, we will make sure that you’ll get, I mean, you’ll see the exhibition.
Q- It’s worth seeing. Worth a trip. Yeah, hundred percent worth a trip. How old is she? She’s over a 100, isn’t she?
A- She’s 93.
She’s the age of 93. Okay, well.
, so she’s now 93. And I must say also that this is the largest retrospective, ever. So I mean this is something really unique, so it’s worth to come and see. To travel. Come to Tel Aviv and see the exhibition.
Q- [Host] Another couple questions. Someone wants to know if she sawed all the dots herself or if she has people helping her.
A- She’s still, I mean, if she’s still working, she’s active. She has a small studio actually, how much it is surprising. But she’s still working. And what is interesting also, I must say, that she’s really kind of freak control. She and her studio wanted to know about everything, what we are thinking about, how we are organising the exhibition. And when I had my concept, and so I had to send it for the approval. I mean, they wanted to know and they wanted to see, and they were involved. And she was involved with everything. Also the catalogue. But then at the end they were very happy with the show and with the catalogue. But there was a really close, close, close corporation with the studio and with her.
Q- [Host] Thank you. Another question on the exhibit. How did it get to Israel? Did Gropius Bau initiate the project or was this your doing? How did this come to be.
A- You know, to organise an exhibition of Kusama, it takes years. And it took me a few years until we find the right, configuration, I would say. And because you need a partner and so Gropius Bau, they needed a partner. So they were trying to do an exhibition and we were trying to do an exhibition. So it somehow, it was good for both sides to do it together because it is very… From the financial and logistic side, I mean, very helpful and meaningful and important to organise this kind of exhibition. So, what is interesting is that the concept in Berlin was a bit different. Not bit, quite different. Even so the most of the works are the same and still not the same. In Berlin, the focus was more on, to give more didactic. Meaning, there were many big texts and many documentary kind of documentary photographs, which were a little bit for me competing with the artwork. And for me, I saw also, you know, it’s a different audience. So I think that Berlin and German visitors, expect to have more educational exhibition. I mean, to read more in the exhibition and so on. In Israel, I felt that this exhibition should be experiential. Experience, to experience the work. And I think that this was the thing which make it also successful. Because people very easily connected. Not only the work, which is so communicative but also because it gave them experience. And, so this was kind of a different approach in Berlin and in Tel Aviv.
Q- [Host] Thank you. Another question. Why has she chosen to stay in the hospital for all these years?
A- Because, she had, as I mentioned, when she was already a child, she has those hallucination. And she was mentally not really stable and she was very much aware of it. She also knew about her mental situation and she knew how to use it. This was also successful source of her, I mean, kind of inspiration for her art. But, and she saw that she will be much safer and, if she will be in a mental hospital. And this was her… She did it voluntarily. And probably, it’s good for her that she is somehow still under control. Even so every day, you know, so studio is just opposite on across the street. And every morning, until today she goes to the studio and in the evening she comes back to the hospital. But because her awareness of her situation, this also helped her. And she wanted to be free of it, not to be all the time, you know, worried that maybe her situation will be not so good, the health and so on.
Q- [Host] Do you know what her books are about?
A- Her books? Oh, those books she wrote, 20 or more books. I tell you, I read her autobiography. Which is very interesting because, it’s very easy to read. But her fiction, it’s more difficult. I tried and it was quite difficult to read. But I have to say that, she was very much appreciated as a writer. And she writes poems. As I said, also each painting has a title like a little haiku. She writes poems too. So, she’s so gifted. She’s doing so many things. Films, performances. I mean, endless.
Q- [Host] All right, and I know it’s late where you are, so I’ll just ask another couple of questions. Have you ever met her? And if so, what was that like?
A- Unfortunately, no. I supposed to meet her when I started to work on the exhibition but because of Covid it was not possible. But I still hope to meet her. Maybe now when it’ll be easier to travel, I plan to go to Japan and I hope she’ll be still with us and I will be able to meet her.
Q- [Host] Great. A lot of people are wondering if there’s a way they can buy the catalogue. If they cannot get to Israel by May.
A- It’s very easy. You can order it through online, I think. I hope. Actually, it’s already the second edition. The very first, I mean, 1000 was sold out, now this is the second. So, try to do it online, through the museum site.
[Host] All right, well I think that’ll do it. Thank you so much, Suzanne. And I’ll hand back over to Wendy.
Thank you for your patience. I know, thank you. I just wish that you will really… Because it’s so experiential that you will have the experience. But I am aware of it that on screen, it’s not really experiential so much. But anyway, I try, I try, I try to convey this kind of like, the journey through the museum, the journey through her life, the journey through her art.
Well, thank you very, very much for a brilliant presentation. Thanks Suzanne. And you certainly gave many of our viewers, you know, and participants an insight into Kusama. And I’m sure many people didn’t even know about her. So now, you know, I’ve had a taste which is great. And I’d like to just urge you all to go to Israel, to go to the Tel Aviv Museum and to experience this exhibition for yourself. It’s a huge treat. It’s a very, very special experience. Take your children, take your grandchildren, take your friends, take your family. They will all love it. It’s a very, very safe art experience to have, contemporary art experience to have. So, and you’ve got another wonderful exhibition of Annette Messager coming up, right?
Right.
Lots of exciting cultural events in Israel, and I’m going to be working more closely with the Tel Aviv Museum and the Israel Museum. So we have lots more to look forward to. Suzanne, a huge hug. And a big thank you as always.
Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you Wendy. Thank you.
Thanks a lot. Thank you Lauren. Take care.
Thank you.
Thanks , bye.
Bye, bye.