Yayoi Kusama: Cosmic Nature

ISBN 10: 0847868397 / ISBN 13: 9780847868391

Published by Rizzoli Electa June 2020, 2020

About this Item

This first book explore uber-popular artist Yayoi Kusama's profound career-long engagement with nature as a bedrock of her hugely influential work. Yayoi Kusama's groundbreaking work has mesmerized audiences since her first exhibitions in New York in the 1960s. Known for working in a broad range of media--including painting, performance, sculpture, and installation--in recent decades she has risen to worldwide fame through the explosive popularity of her mesmerizing infinity mirror rooms and vibrant sculptural installations. Yet the critical importance of botanical imagery and the artist's interest in nature in Kusama's art has been under-represented in American exhibitions to date. Through examination of works from Kusama's adolescence to the present, this landmark exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden, and the accompanying catalogue, will trace the artist's recurring engagement with natural forms and her surrealist exploration of biomorphism, patterns of accumulation inspired by organic growth, and visions of the boundlessness of the living universe. Integrating horticulture and art ranging from the artist's early sketches to monumental, immersive works making their debut at NYBG, this exhibition will explore the profound impact of the natural world through new, critical perspectives on Kusama's philosophy of life. BEAUTIFUL COPY!!!

Seller Inventory # 334360

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Yayoi Kusama: Cosmic Nature
• Publisher: Rizzoli Electa June 2020
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0847868397
• ISBN 13: 9780847868391
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Art - Artists, A-Z

About this title

Synopsis

Experience the brilliant artist's lifelong obsession with nature and immersion in gardens, a bedrock of her hugely influential work.
 

Yayoi Kusama’s work is the product of an infinite curiosity and obsessive drive to create. Throughout the artist’s long and varied career, there is one persistent yet little-studied through line—her deep engagement with nature. From early sketches depicting flowers at her family’s plant nursery in Japan, to her most recent monumental sculptures of botanical forms poised to take flight, Kusama consistently calls our attention to the patterns, connections, and cycles of living things that are not always visible.
KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature is the accompanying catalogue to the first comprehensive exploration of the artist’s enduring fascination with the natural world, exhibited across the 250-acre landscape of The New York Botanical Garden. The exhibition examines her lifelong awareness and attunement to nature, which serves not merely as a source of inspiration, but is an integral source of power for her artistic language. This profound life force pervades all of Kusama’s work, from studies of the molecular to contemplations of the universal, resulting in a transcendent, cosmic nature.
Exhibition guest curator Mika Yoshitake, an independent scholar specializing in postwar Japanese art, and Joanna L. Groarke, NYBG exhibitions curator, catalogue co-editors, bring together essays by art historians, curators, and a scientist, who each present unique interpretations of Kusama’s engagement with the natural world. Featuring more than 120 drawings, paintings, sculptures, and archival photographs, including stunning views of the works displayed in NYBG’s gardens and galleries, KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature offers a new perspective on one of the world’s most celebrated contemporary artists.

About the Author

Mika Yoshitake is an independent curator, and most recently Curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Alexandra Munroe is Senior Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Jenni Sorkin is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Karen Daubmann is Associate Vice President for Exhibitions and Public Engagement at NYBG. Joanna L. Groarke is Director of Public Engagement and Library Exhibitions Curator, NYBG.