YAYOI KUSAMA: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow
I never really knew who Yayoi Kusama is until miyabi_kkg strongly recommended her art on one of her LJ entries. That was when I realised that the National Gallery is actually holding a Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow art exhibition for the month of August until today.
In fact, the exhibition was so popular the entry were timed and the slots were separated into 2-hourly slots starting from 10am to late night. I had wanted to get the slots for last Sunday morning but they were fully booked by the time I tried to book on Saturday night. So I ended up opting for yesterday's 10am slot to get into the exhibiton earlier.
Walking from City Hall MRT station to National Gallery. The first entry starts at 10am and there are already loads of people heading to the Gallery, an indication of just how popular this exhibition was. The walkway to the National Gallery is decorated with red polka dots!
Entrace of National Gallery, where huge balloons of Yayoi Kusama's signature yellow polka dots hang. This was my second time at the National Gallery and I still love it.
Dedeemed my tickets at the priority queue smoothly after arrival. I reached just slight before 10am and there were at least 50 people queueing at the regular queue with more people joining the queue. It was just crazy.
Thankfully, MX had previously mentioned that the on-site ticket queue was crazy and advised me to book the tickets online, so I was able to avoid the nasty long queue and go straight to the priority queue for on-line ticket holders.
The exhibition was divided into 4 galleries:
A - Her early works focusing on her Infinty Nets and her obsession with dots and pumpkin
B - Mirrors and more colorful works in a later period
C - Her more recent Love Forever series and Eternal Soul series
J - Narcissus Garden
Gallery J: Narcissus Garden
Being the sotong I am, I stumbled upon the last gallery J first: Yayoi Kusama's Narcissus Garden, which was basically a room filled with metal balls. But it was also a lucky perk for me that I was the only one in the gallery since others were queueing for gallery A. So I had a pretty good time for myself in the room.
Endless rows of reflective metal balls. I wonder how many balls are there in all in this gallery. I would have loved to lie down in the middle of the gallery surrounded by the balls but it's not allowed.
I didn't know it at that time but the shiny metal balls in Narcissus Garden were meant for viewers to gaze in them and see their own reflections, thus confronting one's own vanity and ego. Here I am, taking a photo of the reflections of myself in the metal balls. XD
Gallery A: Her early works focusing on her Infinty Nets and her obsession with dots and pumpkin
To be honest I had no concept of Yayoi Kusama's works at all until I visited this exhibition. The exhibition was really good in that it gave very good introductions on Yayoi Kusama and her works and you could really see her works grow and evolve over time.
One of Yayoi Kusama's early works after she arrived in US -- A white Infinity net that seems to go on and on forever.
A closer look at the Infinity Net. It's bascially endless squiggles that form a huge that net, painted in white over a darker canvas. Her works in the early days were usually 2-toned and had a more monotone color.
As time passed, she added in more colors.
Blue and green net over a pink canvas so that the pink seems to pop out.
And getting even more colorful and complicated.
A closer look. I loved this actually. Blue squiggly zig-zag lines and yellow dots over a black canvas.
Part of Yayoi Kusama's Imagery of Human-Being.
Yes, basically Yayoi Kusama feels that human beings are sperm cells swimming around in a blank space of purple. The entire artwork consists of 3 panels sperm cells swimming around. For afar it looks really pretty.
Part of Yayoi Kusama's The Galaxy.
"With just one polka dot, nothing can be achieved. In the universe, there is the sun, the moon, the earth, and hundreds of millions of stars. All of us live in the infinitude of the universe." ----Yayoi Kusama
This is actually one of my favourites... if you imagine all the bubbles/dots are planets and stars, and that Earth is just one of the tiny little ones in there, it's like infinity far and beyond. I wonder whether Yayoi Kusama has allocated one of the dots/bubbles as Earth when she was painting this.
Yayoi Kusama's Death of the Nerve
Yes, absolutely how I feel sometimes in the middle of a crazy work day when I just want to take off and hide in the mountains somewhere.
And of course, Yayoi Kusama's signature Pumpkins!!
I took a pretty long time looking at the picture and it's pretty amazing. This was black colors drawn on a yellow canvas. It's hard to imagine the tedious and detailed work this must have taken... and using the size of the polka dots to indicate the perspective/distance of pumpkin surface...
The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens
I didn't enter as the queue was really long. But well... if I had the chance I would like to go in again.
Starry Pumpkin (2016)
And a final Kabocha before entering Gallery B.
B - Mirrors and more colorful works in a later period
Invisible Life (2017)
Gallery 2 was very much about mirrors and her later works. Here you can see lots of mirrors installed all over the walls.
The mirrors are convex reflective spheres that make me look fatter (though I admit I'm fat TwT) from some angles.
Invisible Life (2017)
The mirrors are not only on the walls but on the ceiling as well.
Invisible Life (2017)
Mirror mirror every where, who is the fairest of them all?
Invisible Life (2017)
Seeing an infinite number of yourself in the reflections of the mirrors.
Yayoi Kusama's Marilyn Monroe (1970), which is generally a silouette of Marilyn Monroe in yellow over a black canvas, with a layer of barb wire net over the painting. I find it an abstract yet very fitting and beautiful image of Marilyn Monroe.
Infinity Mirrored Room - Gleaming Lights Of The Souls
This was another room that had a really long queue so I gave up going in. But it's supposed to be this really pretty room of lights.
Yayoi Kusama's Sex Obsession
Was pretty fascinated by this as it's a little unlike her previous works but yet similar to the pumpkin style. And love the contrast between the black and yellow colors.
C - Her more recent Love Forever series and Eternal Soul series
Gallery C were mainly paintings with some sculptures. They had brought in 25 out of 50 pieces of the entire Love Forever series. I actually ended up spending a lot of time looking and staring at each canvas, comparing each one and trying to imagine how Yayoi set out to draw on the canvas.
Yayoi Kusama's Love Forever series basically consists of black marker drawings on white canvas. It's amazing how she has to fill in every part of the canvas so that there are no voids or blank spaces. It's also amazing how she actually draws on the canvas without needing to sketch or plan the entire piece on paper, as if everything is just visualized already in her mind before she even draws anything.
The lines, polka dots, eyes and faces form the main motifs of her art. I think you could keep staring at all these artworks and still find something new to discover every time.
I Want to Love on the Festival Night
Surrounded by the Love Forever series, there's an enclosed Infinity Mirror box with windows at the side for viewers to gaze in. The inside is like a kaleidoscope that keeps changing colors whenever the lights change.
With All My Love for the Tulips, I Pray Forever
This installation is probably one of the most famous ones from the entire exhibition as I've seen many photos of visitors taken here.
And so I took a selfie too. XD
But I didn't stay long as it was getting crowded with people...
And the final room -- My Eternal Soul series
Compared to Love Forever series, this series of art were really colorful and even more abstract.
Here also lies the artpiece Life is the Heart of a Rainbow, but I didn't take the photo of it and it's blocked in this photo.
And that was the end of the Yayoi Kusama art exhibition. I was heading out of the gallery and saw this really beautiful sight. There's water running on the glass-top roof of this building and thus the watery shadows on the floor.
You can also see the long queue of visitors waiting to enter Gallery A. I'm glad I visited in the morning and managed to avoid the queue and crowd.
But still, it was a little sad that I missed seeing the The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens and Infinity Mirrored Room - Gleaming Lights Of The Souls. But I really didn't want to queue 20-30minutes just to see them for 20 seconds.
I wish I had gone to see the exhibition in the early days of its launch here when it was probably less crowded.
I also ended up missing the Obliteration Room in the Children's Biennale gallery as I didn't know that it was there. Oh well... there's always future chances maybe when I visit Japan.
I was starving by then, having spent a total of 2 hours at the National Gallery... and so I ended up at Raffles City's Osaka Ohsho and ate their Kimchi Pork with Gyoza rice set. Still one of my favourite places to have lunch at Raffles City because it's less crowded and the food is good.
Lastly, check out this short video of YAYOI KUSAMA: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow at the National Gallery Singapore. It's a really short yet good summary of the entire exhibition.
In fact, the exhibition was so popular the entry were timed and the slots were separated into 2-hourly slots starting from 10am to late night. I had wanted to get the slots for last Sunday morning but they were fully booked by the time I tried to book on Saturday night. So I ended up opting for yesterday's 10am slot to get into the exhibiton earlier.
Walking from City Hall MRT station to National Gallery. The first entry starts at 10am and there are already loads of people heading to the Gallery, an indication of just how popular this exhibition was. The walkway to the National Gallery is decorated with red polka dots!
Entrace of National Gallery, where huge balloons of Yayoi Kusama's signature yellow polka dots hang. This was my second time at the National Gallery and I still love it.
Dedeemed my tickets at the priority queue smoothly after arrival. I reached just slight before 10am and there were at least 50 people queueing at the regular queue with more people joining the queue. It was just crazy.
Thankfully, MX had previously mentioned that the on-site ticket queue was crazy and advised me to book the tickets online, so I was able to avoid the nasty long queue and go straight to the priority queue for on-line ticket holders.
The exhibition was divided into 4 galleries:
A - Her early works focusing on her Infinty Nets and her obsession with dots and pumpkin
B - Mirrors and more colorful works in a later period
C - Her more recent Love Forever series and Eternal Soul series
J - Narcissus Garden
Gallery J: Narcissus Garden
Being the sotong I am, I stumbled upon the last gallery J first: Yayoi Kusama's Narcissus Garden, which was basically a room filled with metal balls. But it was also a lucky perk for me that I was the only one in the gallery since others were queueing for gallery A. So I had a pretty good time for myself in the room.
Endless rows of reflective metal balls. I wonder how many balls are there in all in this gallery. I would have loved to lie down in the middle of the gallery surrounded by the balls but it's not allowed.
I didn't know it at that time but the shiny metal balls in Narcissus Garden were meant for viewers to gaze in them and see their own reflections, thus confronting one's own vanity and ego. Here I am, taking a photo of the reflections of myself in the metal balls. XD
Gallery A: Her early works focusing on her Infinty Nets and her obsession with dots and pumpkin
To be honest I had no concept of Yayoi Kusama's works at all until I visited this exhibition. The exhibition was really good in that it gave very good introductions on Yayoi Kusama and her works and you could really see her works grow and evolve over time.
One of Yayoi Kusama's early works after she arrived in US -- A white Infinity net that seems to go on and on forever.
A closer look at the Infinity Net. It's bascially endless squiggles that form a huge that net, painted in white over a darker canvas. Her works in the early days were usually 2-toned and had a more monotone color.
As time passed, she added in more colors.
Blue and green net over a pink canvas so that the pink seems to pop out.
And getting even more colorful and complicated.
A closer look. I loved this actually. Blue squiggly zig-zag lines and yellow dots over a black canvas.
Part of Yayoi Kusama's Imagery of Human-Being.
Yes, basically Yayoi Kusama feels that human beings are sperm cells swimming around in a blank space of purple. The entire artwork consists of 3 panels sperm cells swimming around. For afar it looks really pretty.
Part of Yayoi Kusama's The Galaxy.
"With just one polka dot, nothing can be achieved. In the universe, there is the sun, the moon, the earth, and hundreds of millions of stars. All of us live in the infinitude of the universe." ----Yayoi Kusama
This is actually one of my favourites... if you imagine all the bubbles/dots are planets and stars, and that Earth is just one of the tiny little ones in there, it's like infinity far and beyond. I wonder whether Yayoi Kusama has allocated one of the dots/bubbles as Earth when she was painting this.
Yayoi Kusama's Death of the Nerve
Yes, absolutely how I feel sometimes in the middle of a crazy work day when I just want to take off and hide in the mountains somewhere.
And of course, Yayoi Kusama's signature Pumpkins!!
I took a pretty long time looking at the picture and it's pretty amazing. This was black colors drawn on a yellow canvas. It's hard to imagine the tedious and detailed work this must have taken... and using the size of the polka dots to indicate the perspective/distance of pumpkin surface...
The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens
I didn't enter as the queue was really long. But well... if I had the chance I would like to go in again.
Starry Pumpkin (2016)
And a final Kabocha before entering Gallery B.
B - Mirrors and more colorful works in a later period
Invisible Life (2017)
Gallery 2 was very much about mirrors and her later works. Here you can see lots of mirrors installed all over the walls.
The mirrors are convex reflective spheres that make me look fatter (though I admit I'm fat TwT) from some angles.
Invisible Life (2017)
The mirrors are not only on the walls but on the ceiling as well.
Invisible Life (2017)
Mirror mirror every where, who is the fairest of them all?
Invisible Life (2017)
Seeing an infinite number of yourself in the reflections of the mirrors.
Yayoi Kusama's Marilyn Monroe (1970), which is generally a silouette of Marilyn Monroe in yellow over a black canvas, with a layer of barb wire net over the painting. I find it an abstract yet very fitting and beautiful image of Marilyn Monroe.
Infinity Mirrored Room - Gleaming Lights Of The Souls
This was another room that had a really long queue so I gave up going in. But it's supposed to be this really pretty room of lights.
Yayoi Kusama's Sex Obsession
Was pretty fascinated by this as it's a little unlike her previous works but yet similar to the pumpkin style. And love the contrast between the black and yellow colors.
C - Her more recent Love Forever series and Eternal Soul series
Gallery C were mainly paintings with some sculptures. They had brought in 25 out of 50 pieces of the entire Love Forever series. I actually ended up spending a lot of time looking and staring at each canvas, comparing each one and trying to imagine how Yayoi set out to draw on the canvas.
Yayoi Kusama's Love Forever series basically consists of black marker drawings on white canvas. It's amazing how she has to fill in every part of the canvas so that there are no voids or blank spaces. It's also amazing how she actually draws on the canvas without needing to sketch or plan the entire piece on paper, as if everything is just visualized already in her mind before she even draws anything.
The lines, polka dots, eyes and faces form the main motifs of her art. I think you could keep staring at all these artworks and still find something new to discover every time.
I Want to Love on the Festival Night
Surrounded by the Love Forever series, there's an enclosed Infinity Mirror box with windows at the side for viewers to gaze in. The inside is like a kaleidoscope that keeps changing colors whenever the lights change.
With All My Love for the Tulips, I Pray Forever
This installation is probably one of the most famous ones from the entire exhibition as I've seen many photos of visitors taken here.
And so I took a selfie too. XD
But I didn't stay long as it was getting crowded with people...
And the final room -- My Eternal Soul series
Compared to Love Forever series, this series of art were really colorful and even more abstract.
Here also lies the artpiece Life is the Heart of a Rainbow, but I didn't take the photo of it and it's blocked in this photo.
And that was the end of the Yayoi Kusama art exhibition. I was heading out of the gallery and saw this really beautiful sight. There's water running on the glass-top roof of this building and thus the watery shadows on the floor.
You can also see the long queue of visitors waiting to enter Gallery A. I'm glad I visited in the morning and managed to avoid the queue and crowd.
But still, it was a little sad that I missed seeing the The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens and Infinity Mirrored Room - Gleaming Lights Of The Souls. But I really didn't want to queue 20-30minutes just to see them for 20 seconds.
I wish I had gone to see the exhibition in the early days of its launch here when it was probably less crowded.
I also ended up missing the Obliteration Room in the Children's Biennale gallery as I didn't know that it was there. Oh well... there's always future chances maybe when I visit Japan.
I was starving by then, having spent a total of 2 hours at the National Gallery... and so I ended up at Raffles City's Osaka Ohsho and ate their Kimchi Pork with Gyoza rice set. Still one of my favourite places to have lunch at Raffles City because it's less crowded and the food is good.
Lastly, check out this short video of YAYOI KUSAMA: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow at the National Gallery Singapore. It's a really short yet good summary of the entire exhibition.
Click to view