Exhibiting from April 10 through October 31, “KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature” is finally on display at the 250-acre New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) in the Bronx after COVID-19-related postponement.
On-site reserved tickets are currently scarce as art and nature lovers scramble to get the required timed entry tickets. Within the botanical garden, spectators will be able to see the exhibits with different seasonal backdrops: spring, summer, and fall.
Old and new works are seen as one travels through the grounds and in the different museum locations. Yayoi Kusama is known for her out-of-place polka dot pumpkins and other variants. The polka dots deconstruct whatever they are placed on, making the final form of a tree or fruit reduced to its basic cell-like state, but visible to the human eye.
Outside of her maple-wrapped trees titled “Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees” (2002/ 2021), a plaque is seen with her quote:
Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment. I become part of the eternal and we obliterate ourselves with love.
A real-life fairy tale is the feeling of stepping through the paths of the garden as the blossoms rain down and shower the art installations. The viewer can feel the synergy between the art and grounds knowing that it was curated perfectly to be incorporated into the landscape.
Growing up around her family’s plant nursery in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama began the early sketches and stages of creating her nature-inspired art. The NYBG writes, “Throughout Kusama’s long and varied career, nature is the one persistent through line. She has long been fascinated by how living things grow and change through accumulation and expansion. Her lifelong project is one of awareness and attunement to the mysteries of the natural world.”
One of Kusama’s debuting works, “I Want to Fly to the Universe” (2020), is a deliriously whimsical 13-foot-high biomorph. Its startled and curious face seems to ask how it got to the Visitor Center in New York and out of the surrounding universe.
After a year in lockdown, the mostly outdoor exhibit offers a breath of fresh joyous air.
