The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive program and a publication. The entire project is a journey into Kusama’s deep fascination for nature, its shapes, colors and extravagance, a characteristic of her career. A passion rooted in the summers she spent growing up in the greenhouses and fields of her family’s kindergarten in Matsumoto, Japan.
The works are exhibited in and around the Enid A. Main Conservatory and in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library building. The library also has a sketchbook by Kusama (1945) devoted to the peonies’ flowering cycle. The new installations include “Flower Obsession” (2017/2021), which invites visitors to cover a room with flowers, “Dancing Pumpkin” (2020), a monumental sculpture installed on the conservatory lawn, “I Want to Fly to the Universe ”(2020), an impressive 13-foot tall biomorphic shape, and“ Infinity Mirrored Room-Illusion Inside the Heart ”(2020), which require a separate ticket and advance booking.
A 250-acre landscape animated by installations, flower displays and seasonal crops brings to life an exhibition that will change over time. Inspired by Kusama’s painting “Alone, buried in a flower garden” (2014), the gardeners of the Botanical Garden have designed a living work of art with plants and flowers, a homage to nature and its cyclical vitality: spring tulips and irises become soft dahlias and sunflowers in summer until the pumpkins ripen in autumn.
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