Hello Empathy Guest House fans! Today
we are excited to introduce to you Daegu Art Museum’s exhibition: Kusama Yayoi,
A Dream I Dreamed.
The Daegu Art Museum, located in the
Suseong area of Daegu, is a municipal art museum that was inaugurated in May
2011 supported by the Daegu Municipal Government. The museum’s state of the art
facilities support and exhibit social and artistic facilities of the times and
leads trends in the global art scene through domestic and overseas exchanges.
July to October of this year, the
Daegu Art Museum has the honor of being the first museum in Asia to exhibit the
works of Kusama Yayoi, a world reknown artist who started her global career in
1957. Yayoi has worked in a variety of media, including painting, collage,
sculpture, performance art and environmental installations, most of which
exhibit her thematic interest in psychedelic colors, repetition and pattern.
She is known to have influenced contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and Claes
Oldenburg. Kusama Yayoi is now acknowledged as one of the most important living
artists to come out Japan, and an important voice of the avant-garde.
Kusama Yayoi’s
exhibition, A Dream I Dreamed, is currently travelling through various cities
across Asia such as Seoul, Taiwan, Shanghai and more. Daegu Museum was the
first stop for the exhibition to open its doors and it was quite a popular site to visit
for those traveling in and out of Daegu!
Why wasn’t Seoul chosen to be the
city of the exhibition’s opening you ask? We’re just as baffled, but it was
most exciting to have this world class exhibition in the Gyeongsang region!
Pictured above is the entrance to
the Daegu Art Museum during the exhibition. We can see an army of dots
decorated on the entrance doors before walking in. This is only a very small
cross-section of what Kusama Yayoi has in store for us inside.
P.S. The pouring rain this day made
the trip quite difficult. We recommend that everyone come visit the museum on a non-rainy day!
As soon as we walk into the museum
we were greeted by big red polka dotted structures, and we quickly
began learn that the very core of Kusama’s work revolves around
dots, dots, and more dots!
This piece pictured above left quite
an impression. Although we just mentioned that all of Kusama’s works include
dots, this one is an exception – Ladder to Heaven. This sculpture made of
mirror, metal, lamp and fiber cable is made into a makeshift ladder that looks
like it reaches up into the sky with no end. Those who do not believe in a
heaven might just be convinced there is after taking a look at this piece.
Pictured above you can see the image
of an eccentric elderly lady with bright red hair. That lady is the very Kusama
Yayoi!
Kusama Yayoi was born in 1929,
Matsumoto, Japan, and is currently 84 years old in Korean age. Despite her age,
she is still very active in various activities.
The piece in the second photograph that looks similar to what you would see in a kaleidoscope is a piece made of mirrors, water drops, and repeating patterns that she started to work on in 1973.
The piece in the second photograph that looks similar to what you would see in a kaleidoscope is a piece made of mirrors, water drops, and repeating patterns that she started to work on in 1973.
We’re pretty sure you can see how
much Kusama loves dots without us having to explain.
You will be able to feel it if you
go see the
exhibition in person.
Although Yayoi is in her eighties,
her artistic abilities have not stagnated. She still vigorously strives to
create new work. She pursues to extend her artistic scope: seeking the boundary
between reality and fiction, life and death, the finite and infinite. Her wish
is that whoever you are, wherever you come from, whichever religion you turn
to, her work will allow us to transcend these cultural and regional boundaries.
We hope you enjoyed the exhibit as
much as we did! And even if you do not get the chance to go before the
exhibition ended, you
might be able to catch the exhibition in Seoul or its other future
destinations. Even though Yayoi’s exhibition has left the
Daegu Art Museum, there are always new and exciting
exhibitions to see here!
Daegu Art Museum Website: http://www.daeguartmuseum.org/eng/main/
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