The Infinity world of "Yayoi Kusama" - Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands

Hello everyone, it's been a while. Today I am going to write something that I have never shared before during my Hive journey. Since this will be my first time sharing something out of my comfort zone, I will try to be as casual as possible. I love Art and appreciate artists' work, but I am not someone who actually likes to go to art exhibitions and appreciate the beauty of an artist's work. I genuinely think that I am unable to admire an artist's work since, most of the time, I never understand the meaning of an artist's work. So, going to an art exhibition is something out of my comfort zone.

I went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam because I was familiar with his artwork, and in academic life, I designed a project inspired by his artwork "The Starry Night". After that, I have never been to any art exhibition. As I mentioned before, I am interested in learning about Japanese culture, heritage, and architecture. So, someone from my gaming community recently mentioned Yayoi Kusama's exhibition in Amsterdam to me. I recently became part of a gaming community where I have made some friends and connected with people with a similar mindset. I am anonymous there, and it's very nice to talk to other fellow gamers openly without sharing personal information or identity. Since she knew my fascination about Japanese culture, she suggested me to go to the exhibition. I was familiar with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's work. She collaborated with LV (Louis Vuitton), and that's how I became familiar with her artwork. So, obviously, I decided to go.

Yayoi Kusama (1929-2026)

The exhibition is currently happening at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the exhibition will continue until January 2027. For more details, you can obviously ask Google or ChatGPT. I had to book ticket 1 month earlier since it is a very popular event and weekend tickets are always sold out.

It's very easy to reach the museum in Amsterdam, and the best option for me was by Tram. Anyway, I was very excited for this exhibition, and I had high hopes. I did some research on Kusama's work and tried to understand her life and inspiration so that when I was at the exhibition, I wouldn't feel lost and overwhelmed (that's what was on my mind). Knowing the style of her lifetime artwork helped me to understand the philosophy and what to expect from the exhibition.

So after entering the museum, Yayoi Kusama's beautiful sculpture "Flowers That Speak All about My Heart Given to the Sky" (2018) welcomed me. It was so beautiful just to look at.

I do not have enough words to explain this sculpture. So, I am not gonna write the meaning of this sculpture. I am gonna share my feelings. To me, flowers are a symbol of love and purity, and colors always bring joy in life. So, why polka dots, right!! When I was an architecture student, I was told that every creation comes from a single Dot. So, each of the dots in this sculpture represents life, a form of connection that is related to the universe.

Her early works were from her sketchbook; they were pretty old and inspired by nature, her village, Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan, where she spent her childhood. The one that caught my eye was the women wearing colorful kimonos, a house, a huge mountain, and full of dots. Was she having hallucinations back then, maybe? But you can see how she connected the dots to create flowers. The leaf art was inspired by her family-owned plant nursery.

I felt nostalgic when I saw the portrait photo of young Kusama holding Dahlia flowers. I have a similar childhood photo with the same bob-cut hair holding roses...Is that an Asian thing!! I don't know. The other 2 paintings are her early work when she was in Matsumoto, Japan. The first artwork is called "Phosphoresce in the Daytime" (ink and pastel), and the second one doesn't have a name. Many of her works didn't have a name; she just continued drawing and creating while she was dealing with mental health problems. Her way of using colors, patterns, and connections among the elements was just mind-blowing.

Yayoi Kusama went through a lot in life, even though she was from a wealthy family. Her childhood trauma always stayed with her and caused hallucinations all the time. Her artwork expressed different phases of her life and showed her struggle with psychological trauma. People say her work was conceptual- maybe it was, but I saw her struggle, rage, sadness, and emotions in her work. She expressed deep emotions and her struggle through her work. But once I saw her "Infinity work"- I was speechless. She was flying over the Pacific Ocean, and she made an infinity art of the ocean shore. It was a sea of dots that somehow, from far away, represented the OCEAN WAVES. I felt dizzy, hypnotized, yet I was admiring the infinity work. I know how hard it can be to work on Infinity dots. I have to work with Dot projects on my first year in architecture life and I must tell you it was not pleasant.

Kusama's lifelong fear and dislike of physical intimacy caused a struggle with Sex. Her difficult childhood trauma was the main reason for this issue. Her father used to cheat on her mother, and instead of protecting her, her mother forced her to spy on her father when he was with other women. This situation and her mother's rage caused terrifying emotions in her mind, where she created the thought that sex is dirty, prohibited, and shameful. So, when she was in Newyork, to overcome her fear, she sewed thousands of phallic-shaped forms since she was afraid of the shape. She called this phase "self-obliteration" - where she created enormous phallic forms with funny patterns until she overcame the fear.

Kusama had a deep connection with pumpkins. She considered pumpkin as her self-portrait. When she was a child, she found a deep connection with pumpkins when her household was full of abuse and trauma. That funny-shaped object/vegetable somehow became her lifelong friend, and later she incorporated her friend into her infinity world. I saw her pumpkin work on the LV bag for the first time, to be honest.

Most of her installations, sculptures and artworks are abstract but they are connected with her emotions, her connections, traumas and later she incorporated them with infinity world to connect them with the universe.

The most unique installation was the Infinity Mirror Room. I entered there, took a video, and it was amazing. I was given only 2 minutes to stay inside the mirror room since the queue was long.

Her latest artworks were different and mostly represented abstract forms of life, heart, and death. Dots became bigger; patterns were bigger yet different and colorful.

The last and biggest installation of this exhibition was "Yellow Trees"- I will leave the imagination to you. Enjoy the photographs.

To be honest, this was like another world, another dimension where I felt dizzy, dreamy, yet emotionally involved. Not everyone is capable of understanding the work of Infinity, the meaning of Dots, or the connection with dots. When you see a fetus for the first time, it looks like a dot. The universe is often said to be created from dots. Even though these dots were the result of Kusama's lifelong struggle, traumas, and hallucinations, I somehow felt connected with everything. I kinda indulged myself in the world of Infinity.

Until next time...

Love

Priyan...

^{I am @priyanarc.... An architect, a dreamer, and a passionate writer who loves to write about life. I try to present my own perspective and experiences. Please leave your feedback and criticism because it's the only way I can know and reach your mind and thoughts easily...}

Find me on:

• YouTube
• Twitter/X
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Gigi's YouTube Channel

The author captures all images used...