For the artist, who had a difficult childhood in Japan during World War II, repetition became a kind of escape. Implicit in her work is a quiet tedium, a thankless process, an accumulation of "meaninglessness” that Kusama has said brings her closer to the profound. In the Hirshhorn show, you can see it in the meticulous, hand-stitched plush sculptures of “Phalli’s Field” or in the dots that line “The Hill,” one of 5,000 works on paper Kusama made in the 1950s. Much like social media, where we think we are receiving a service but really we’re being sold, we, the narcissists, might just be Kusama’s product - with every photo we post a brushstroke on her ever-expanding canvas.īeneath the surface of Kusama’s eye-popping art, you’ll find a methodical, meditative practice. In a clever sleight of hand, she has conscripted us in an ongoing, collaborative performance piece, tricked us into supporting a career-long commentary on narcissism. For one of Kusama’s early performance pieces - a critique of commodification in art - she stood outside the Italian Pavilion at the 1966 Venice Biennale and sold 1,500 plastic mirror balls for $2, in front of a sign that read, “ Your Narcissism for Sale.” Today, we’re still buying what she’s selling. She burned American flags to protest the Vietnam War and hosted parties at which naked people covered each other in polka dots. Success has sanitized her, but before Kusama became a household name, she was a performance artist. When you enter the “Infinity Mirror” rooms “ Phalli’s Field” or “ My Heart Is Dancing Into the Universe” and take out your phone, you’re tapping into ideas long active in Kusama’s work.
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