Kusama polka dots and flowers bring pandemic New York to life

By Roselle Chen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Buildings, trees and water were embellished by polka dots with the work of avant-garde Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who brought her signature motif to the New York Botanical Garden.

Spectacular steel floral installations painted in vibrant shades of yellow and pink, green and blue, covered in polka dots, envelop visitors to the botanical garden. Giant pumpkins, flowers, an abstract octopus, and whimsical shapes bear names like “I want to fly into the universe.”

“I don’t think anyone can look at a mole and not feel joy,” said Karen Daubmann, vice president of exhibits and public engagement at the Bronx Botanical Garden.

“Kusama has many people who follow her and love her art and want to immerse themselves in it,” he added.

Rain was unable to keep visitors away at Wednesday’s opening of the “KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature” exhibit after a year-long delay due to the pandemic.

“We have seen people come here … not only celebrating the botanical garden and celebrating the art and the artist, but celebrating being together with their friends again and experiencing something inspiring, something bigger, something joyful,” Daubmann said.

In the summer, visitors can enter Kusama’s “Infinity Mirrored Room-Illusion Inside the Heart” inside the botanical.

Kusama, 92, left Japan at age 27 and moved to New York, where he made a name for himself by painting hallucinations-inspired motifs of flashing lights, dots and flowers that he has seen since childhood.

The artist has said that New York caused her neurosis. Around 1977, a few years after returning to Japan, he voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital where he still lives. Every day they take her to a nearby studio.

“KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature” runs until October 31.

(Reporting by Roselle Chen; edited in Spanish by Lucila Sigal)

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