I was lucky enough to visit The National Art Center Tokyo when I came to Japan. Yayoi Kusama’s My Eternal Soul collection was being held with many new painting and sculptures.
When I entered the first exhibition room, the wall was filled with her new paintings. The collection looked more like a patches cloths as all the paintings put next to each other. Like it was meant to be with each others. The center of the room has 2 big sculptures of a flower that were ready to eat you alive (not literally, ofcourse).
Her theme is pretty clear. It was about love of nature as always, but this time, the color are more vibrant, contrast and brave. For me, some of her new paintings were like inspired by viruses, the 80’s, and potentially reggae culture.
As we go further into the next room, we could see some of her past work. Including the famous infinity mirror room. The one I visited was the fireflies one. It was a room filled with hanging small LED lights reflected by mirror from the wall sides, water from the floor, and another mirror on the top. It was surreal and very fascinating. Too bad picture not allowed.
Outside, there was a pop up room, where visitors were given stickers and they can put circles anywhere they liked. When I came, it was full with stickers already. Made me wonder how was it fell like to be one of the first visitors. I must had more options.
For a 88 years old artist, she had done a lot during this past 3 years. I am surprised and did not expect that both her recent exhibition in Tokyo and Washington D.C. were filled with new work. Her work has been developing since forever. Never boring, always different and exciting. Hope she’s blessed with more ideas so that she could keep inspiring.
