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Mika Yoshitake:
Determined to make herself known, Kusama was keen to explore different means of expression. She even started her own fashion brand. Here, you’ll find costumes she made for her body painting performances. You can also watch documentation of some of these performances playing on monitors on the other side of this room.
In addition to creating paintings and sculptures, Kusama began staging radical performances in the late 1960s, when she lived in New York City. The locations ranged from the Museum of Modern Art to other more unusual locations like Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge. It was around the time that the anti-Vietnam war and hippie movement swept over the United States. The themes of human connection and universal love evident in Kusama’s work resonated with the calls for peace and equality echoing from the counterculture.
In an open letter protesting the American war in Vietnam addressed to US president Richard Nixon, Kusama writes, ‘Our earth is like one little polka dot, among millions of other celestial bodies, one orb full of hatred and strife amid the peaceful, silent spheres. Let’s you and I change all that and make this world a new Garden of Eden . . . You can’t eradicate violence by using more violence.’
Kusama’s performances attracted fervent young participants. Costumed in these provocative tunics, their bodies appeared liberated from gender conventions and other social norms. Buoyed by the media attention and public hype her performances received, Kusama soon ventured into fashion merchandising. At one time she revealed that her designs were sold in four hundred stores, including Bloomingdale’s, one of the best-known department stores in the US.
Narrator:
These four works are performance costumes designed by Yayoi Kusama around 1968. They exemplify Kusama’s iconic mesh pattern and fleshy protrusions.
Untitled (Dress) is 73 centimetres high and 90 centimetres wide with a deep V-neckline and puffed sleeves. The fabric is dyed pink with patches of grey. Knobs of around eighty grey protrusions are sewn on the chest, abdomen, left shoulder, sleeves, and hem in clumps. The protrusions are short and fleshy, resembling outgrowth.
Untitled (Tunic) is a black blouse about 81 centimetres high and 135 centimetres wide with a round collar and large, exaggerated kimono sleeves. Hundreds of small circles are painted in shades of pink and red on the chest and sleeves to form three distinct clusters of net patterns. Underneath the pattern on the front of the blouse is the artist’s signature, ‘KUSAMA’.
Another work, also named Untitled (Tunic), is a white blouse about 81 centimetres high and 118 centimetres wide with a round collar and short ruffled sleeves. Black mesh patterns are painted on the front of the blouse and along the frontal edges of the sleeves, with pink and red paint filling in the gaps between the lines. The pattern on the front of the blouse transitions from light pink on the left to dark red on the right, while the sleeves show a consistent shade of red. Underneath the pattern on the front is the artist's signature, 'KUSAMA', also inscribed in red.
Untitled (Painted Tunic) is a brown top about 80 centimetres high and 160 centimetres wide with a shallow V-neck and wide ruffled sleeves. Violet mesh patterns are painted on the front of the tunic and on the sleeves, with some areas portrayed in lighter purple. The pattern on the front is painted along the collar in a bib-like formation. On the sleeves, the pattern follows a frontal slit that reaches the upper arm.