In Gallery 1, SKMU is pleased this summer to present one of Kusama’s ‘total installations’: Dots Obsession – Love Transformed into Dots. The work is from 2006 and is part of a larger series of room installations called Dots Obsession, which Kusama began making in the 1990s. Here her trademark, the polka dot, is spread across large ballons that hang from the ceiling, lye on the floor and are suspended throughout the room. Kusama has stated that the dots are a means for exploring her own position in the world; she is but one dot amongst an infinite number, a microscopic part of a great universe.

The polka dots and ‘infinity nets’ spreading across the surfaces of Kusama’s works are often thought to be related to the hallucinations she suffered as a child. She saw her environment as completely covered with repeating patterns. That she assimilates these into her art can be seen as a visualisation of hallucinations. It can also be understood as therapy, a means for coping with or facing up to the experiences. Her room installations almost make us feel as though we ourselves are hallucinating – we experience the polka dots as if they are emanating from our own brain and visual apparatus, rather than as surface motifs in our visual field.

Courtesy of SKMU