By Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey, to Museum Spotlight Europe (July 2023)
“Our world is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are our way to infinity,” says Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. And stepping into the first room of the current You, Me and the Balloons exhibition, open until 28 August 2023 at the Factory International, her point is driven home immediately.
Gigantic black tentacles covered in yellow dots of varying sizes reach from the yellow-and-black dotted floor, past the yellow-and-black dotted walls and up to the ceiling. The impact is instantaneous, magical, and jaw-dropping. I started smiling broadly, eyes alight, mouth open, and neck craning, grinning happily at other visitors experiencing the exact same effect as I wandered through the room, utterly spellbound.
The Kusama exhibition presented by Factory International for the Manchester International Festival is one of a kind. Especially created for Factory International, it constitutes Kusama’s largest-ever immersive environment, conceived with the vast spaces of the venue in mind, and brings together a variety of previous works, mostly inflatable artworks, but also a few additional surprises, with Kusama’s signature polka dots at the forefront.
Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, in the Nagano Prefecture in Japan, in 1929. There are some sources which say that as a child she was plagued by hallucinations, which, even at a young age, she channelled into art, drawing, and sketching continuously. Others claim the hallucinations did not manifest themselves until she was prescribed medication for work-induced stress as an already working artist. Fact is, she started very early on to use the polka dots in her art, with a crude childhood drawing of hers showing a woman covered in dots. Kusama uses the dots as a way of self-obliteration, allowing her and her subjects to disappear within her art, while still incorporating them in the universe. She described her visual and auditory hallucinations as both a terrifying experience of unreality, as well as a transcendent one, feeling at one with the universe.
Spread over two rooms, the first installation The Hope of the Polka Dots buried in Infinity will eternally cover the Universe (2019), the yellow and black tentacles room, acts as an introduction to the exhibits to come. The biomorphic forms hark back to Kusama growing up on a plant nursery, sketching organic shapes such as stems or roots, as well as reportedly representing the neural pathways of the brain. Here you are surrounded by shapes and patterns, all in close proximity, being quite literally inside the installation, yet it is no infinity room, with every angle offering different views, shapes, and impressions.
Moving up a staircase, offering an aerial view of the installation, visitors reach a platform looking out over a second enormous industrial space filled with installations, all covered in polka dots. There are odd shapes hanging from the ceiling, gigantic dolls of Kusama and her iconic dog, a yellow and black spotted pumpkin, a sea of pink tentacles at the back, and all those being inflatable installations, i.e., balloons. There is also a video installation featuring Kusama herself, and an area where visitors can take their shoes off and recline on white cloud-like cushions, relaxing and taking in the art works from another viewpoint.
Heading down in the exhibition space, I decided to take the artworks one by one, because the overall impression was close to being overwhelming, probably exactly the effect Kusama had in mind when deciding on how to fill the venue.
Coming face to face with a young-looking red-and-white dotted Yayoi inflatable doll, Yayoi-chan (2013) next to her blue-and-pink spotted Toko-Ton (2013) dog at the bottom of the stairs, is only the start. Close by is an even larger, roughly 10m high red and white Yayoi-chan (2012-23) wearing a tentacles skirt and a larger dog, Ring-Ring (2012-23). High above them hang odd, gourd-shaped objects which are part of Dots Obsession (1996-2023), a selection of artworks placed throughout the room.
In front of a floor-to-ceiling mirrored wall lies Clouds (2023), large white cushion-like inflatables, where visitors are allowed to lie down and view the exhibits all around them, and through the mirror. Clouds is an artwork especially created for this exhibition, adding another dimension to the varied installations, by drawing the visitor into the art while also being surrounded by it, and at the same time standing out because of the non-dotted whiteness of the pieces.
Next to Clouds stands an iconic yellow and black pumpkin titled Life of the Pumpkin Recites, All About the Biggest Love for the People (2019), taking centre stage. Kusama has a particular love for the humble pumpkin she first encountered when she went with her grandfather to a harvesting ground as a child. She says: “Pumpkins do not inspire much respect, but I was enchanted by their charming and winsome form. What appealed to me most was the pumpkin’s generous unpretentiousness. And its solid spiritual balance.” She has since produced countless pumpkins, ranging from dancing pumpkins, metal pumpkins, steel pumpkins, and of course inflatable ones. Arguably the most famous one stands on the pier of Naoshima Island in Japan, by the Seto Inland Sea.
At the other end of the room, on a small platform, visitors find a veritable garden, A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe (2021) made up of the same biometric, tentacle-like shapes as in the first room, but held all in neon-pink and black. Again, you can get swallowed up in between the shapes, each step offering a different perspective, allowing you to be part of that dotty universe Kusama creates so vividly.
Above the otherworldly pink bouquet, a large screen shows Song of a Manhattan Suicide Addict (2007), a video installation of Kusama singing a song about her experience dealing with depression, in Japanese. The words are translated in the guide each visitor receives at the entrance and contains topics including: hallucinations, taking antidepressants and turning to stone. These heavy topics stand in stark contrast with her outwardly cheery and colourful artworks.
Currently, Kusama lives in a psychiatric hospital in Japan, and has voluntarily checked herself in everyday since the 1970s. She spends her days in her atelier just across the road from the hospital, working on her art, which offers her not only an escape from her world of mental problems, but also a place of healing. She is quoted as saying: “I feel I’m lucky, fortunate to have this sickness and all its ideas.”
Apart from her polka dots and her pumpkins, Kusama is probably best known for her infinity mirror rooms, where a completely mirrored space is transformed into a universe of infinity, while she places anything from twinkle lights to chandeliers or even her phallic, tentacle shapes inside to be reflected forever further.
Here, at the Factory International exhibition, I was not expecting an infinity room, considering the exhibition is all about her inflatable balloon installations, but there are a couple of small surprises waiting for the visitor, and you can easily spot them by the patient queues forming in front of them.
One small infinity room is filled with mirrors and white-and-red dotted spheres. Only three or four people are allowed in at a time, because of its size. However, despite its relatively small size, the countless, reflected spheres make a considerable impact.
In the other infinity room, you do not step inside, but merely peek with one eye into a hole in a round structure, and what opens in front of you is simply magical: a tiny yet endless infinity space filled with polka dots and red-and-white spotted spheres. This was so impressive that I was not the only one heading straight back to the end of the queue again for another look. Both infinity rooms are a part of Dots Obsession (2013).
So, what is it that makes this exhibition so unique? It is not only that Kusama brought together the individual artworks to complement and be complemented by the industrial space of the venue. Not solely that she specifically designed Clouds for visitors to relax and appreciate the world of Kusama’s art, nor the tiny and superb little infinity spaces. The You, Me and the Balloons exhibition truly allows you to step into the world of Yayoi Kusama, to experience the mental stimuli that drives her, to understand maybe a little about the hallucinations and challenges the artist faces, but also the sheer and unadulterated joy her art brings to herself as well as everybody who sees it.
In my opinion, and I have seen many Kusama exhibitions around the world, this exhibition is well worth travelling for, even if you had no plans of visiting Manchester before. It is unique and thoroughly enjoyable.
For tickets, click here.
Cover photo: A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe, 2021 Installation view from Manchester International Festival 2023 exhibition ‘Yayoi Kusama: You, Me and the Balloons’ at Aviva Studios. Images © David Levene
