Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray for Love

Victoria Miro (London), Sep – Nov/24

Renowned for her immersive installations, large-scale sculptures, infinity rooms, and her use of polka dots and bright colours, Yayoi Kusama is one of the most well-known contemporary artists. Her current exhibition at Victoria Miro features new works produced this year, further exploring her signature themes of repetition, perception, and the infinite. Unsurprisingly, even on a rainy Tuesday morning, well before the gallery doors were opened, a long queue had formed outside. All tickets were sold out in advance.

The most popular work was the infinity room – ‘Beauty Described by a Spherical Heart’ – a hexagonal mirrored room with pulsating lights whose colour shifted every few seconds, creating the impression of endlessness and spatial disorientation. The work explores two key themes in Kusama’s practice: obsession and the infinitive environment. Standing in the space, the viewer experiences what appears to be a continuous and expanding tunnel of light, provoking a sense of vertigo and disembodiment – effects that Kusama consistently aims to evoke in her work.

Since the 1960s, Kusama has used infinity rooms as a way of exploring human perception and the limitless aspects of the universe. The outdoor sculpture ‘Ladder to Heaven’ continues this quest in a new form. Comprised of a 4-metre ladder with circular mirrors at each end, the stainless-steel structure reflects its surroundings, making the ladder nearly invisible. Set against the sky, it creates the illusion of a gateway to another dimension.

Kusama has spoken openly about how her work is influenced by her mental health, particularly her struggles to cope with obsessive thoughts, depression, and hallucinations. The repetition of shapes, especially the polka dots, and her use of infinity mirrors and large-scale installations in the form of pumpkins, derive from her attempt to communicate visually the overwhelming nature and character of her inner world.

In the upstairs gallery, the polka dot is the protagonist. Appearing in both fabric installations resembling organic tree-like forms and in paintings, the dots are used to create a variety of effects. On the fabric installations, they contribute to a sense of movement and depth, generating the illusion of chaotic spatial growth, just like a forest where the branches and roots have grown interwoven and inseparable. Her paintings, despite their flat texture, exert a different kind of visual force. When seen collectively, they dominate the room, creating a persistent after-image of dots in the viewer’s field of vision. The repetition of bright patterns triggers an optical response, once again playing with her ideas of endlessness.

Kusama is a trickster who seduces the viewer into sensory experiences that feel tangible and unending. Through these optical illusions, she subverts the quotidian reality of the viewer by echoing the compulsive repetition she experiences in her own mind. Her importance extends back to when she arrived in New York in 1958, influencing artists such as Warhol and Oldenburg, but with just five years until her centennial, Kusama remains prolific and continues to produce work that attracts contemporary audiences.

Ana Teles for London Art Walk
October 2024