Yayoi Kusama's 'I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers' at David Zwirner

The exhibition is named after three monumental flower sculptures, each titled I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, which occupy 519 West 19th Street. Since the 1950s, Kusama has repeatedly engaged flowers and plants as motifs in her work, inspired by her fascination with the natural world. Experienced in the round, the immense blooms invite the audience to partake in a wholly immersive experience that suggests the atmosphere of a lush garden. At the opposite end of the exhibition, at 533 West 19th Street, three massive undulating pumpkin sculptures transfigure the organic forms reimaginedby Kusama over several long decades. These wall-like structures situate viewers in a space that envelops them in her characteristic polka dots. Thirty-six paintings, most of which are part of her recent series EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE (2021–present), will be on view alongside a new Infinity Mirror Room at 525 West 19th Street. In these boldly colored compositions, the use of minute details and repetition of both shapes as well as brushwork reflects the history of obsession within Kusama's oeuvre. Vibrant, animated, and densely worked, the paintings are singular explorations of line and form, blending the boundaries between abstraction and figuration. These works continue to derive from her desire to produce art that is together autobiographical and seemingly created outside of the confines of the self. Dreaming of Earth’sSphericity, I Would Offer My Love (2023) is a large Infinity Mirror Room that features round-colored windows. These openings let in a dance of natural and artificial light alongside the interplay of bodies that activate the immersive space.

Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now, the most extensive Kusama retrospective to be staged in Asia—outside of the artist’s native Japan—is currently on view at M+ Museum, Hong Kong, through May 14, 2023, and will subsequently travel to Guggenheim Bilbao in late June. Recently, Yayoi Kusama: My Soul Blooms Forever, the largest outdoor exhibition of its kind in the Gulf region, concluded its run at the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, in March 2023, and Kusama’s monumental mosaic artwork A Message of Love, Directly from My Heart unto the Universe, commissioned for Grand Central Madison by the MTA Arts & Design, was unveiled at Madison Concourse of Long Island Rail Road's new eastside terminus in New York City in February 2023.

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