Yayoi Kusama: Life Is The Heart Of A Rainbow

Revered Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, has more than 70 of her works displayed in Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow at the Gallery of Modern Art, November 4 – February 11.

This career-spanning survey of work by the art icon in her late 80s is a stunning collection, with QAGOMA Director Chris Saines saying that it’s “a wild and wonderful journey through key moments in Kusama’s vast artistic career over seven decades”.

Brisbane gallery goers might recognise two of Kusama’s artworks commissioned for the 2002 Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art – Narcissus garden 1966/2002, which returns to the QAG Watermall, and the popular interactive installation, The obliteration room 2002 – ongoing, which will be at GOMA’s Children’s Art Centre.

Life is the Heart of a Rainbow explores key motifs in Kusama’s work since the early 1950s, her engagement with the body, and her expansive conception of space. There will be soft-sculpture and assemblage, a multi-decade presentation of the celebrated ‘net’ paintings, early painterly experiments, performance documents, those iconic ‘infinity rooms’ and large-scale installations from later in her career.

It all culminates in an immersive presentation of the artist’s most recent paintings from the visually arresting ‘My Eternal Soul’ series (2009 – ongoing), with 24 of the newest of the 500+ paintings from the series featured in the exhibition.

It’s all been co-curated by Reuben Keehan (Curator of Contemporary Asian Art, QAGOMA), with Russell Storer, Deputy Director (Curatorial and Collections) National Gallery Singapore and Adele Tan, Curator, National Gallery Singapore.

By Vicki Englund