In order to achieve the accordion-like affect of the sculptures that stock Tools of Study, the Chinese-born artist, Li Hongbo, crafts his own paper and applies glue (that he has made) uniformly to one sheet after the next. The result is a large block, thousands of pages thick, that the artist then carves how one might carve stone. At first, each work appears to be a plaster cast, but upon further inspection--and help from the gallery assistants at Klein Sun--Hongbo's works fan out for a surprising, but delicate, effect.
Li Hongbo's Tools of Study will show at the Klein Sun Gallery in Chelsea until March 2, 2014.
“I really have great respect and love for everyone,” cooed Yayoi Kusama at the press conference for her inaugural show at David Zwirner gallery, I Who Have Arrived In Heaven, which officially opens tonight in Chelsea. Dressed from head to toe in Louis Vuitton (for whom she designed a collection last year), the humble 84-year-old artist thanked the audience for its interest in her work and was quickly swarmed by a mob of fans.
Born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929, Kusama came to prominence in the 1960s as a pop artist in New York City, working among artists such as Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. Famed for her polka-dot “happenings” and critiques of the Vietnam War, Kusama returned to her native Japan in 1973 in a poor mental state. Four years later, she checked herself into a mental hospital where she has since continued to live and work.
Despite the artist’s experiences in the proverbial “outside world,” her torment is not immediately apparent in I Who Have Arrived In Heaven, which spans all three locations of the David Zwirner gallery on 19th street. The exhibition is a vast presentation of Kusama’s work that informs the viewer of her anxieties by masking them with her interest in cosmic realms and comfortable spaces. Although the themes of the artist's work can be interpreted as macabre, the show manages to highlight Kusama's penchant for vibrancy and ability to manipulate a plethora of mediums.
In the main rooms of the gallery, over thirty new paintings, roughly measuring six feet by six feet, detonate the stillness of the white walls. In Green Solitude (2013), representations of flatly colored flowers show faces expressing grief, happiness, and shock. Although Kusama’s energetic usage of color is immediately eye-catching, her patterning of abstract temporal forms drives the awe-inspiring effect of the piece, as it does in the other canvases included in the exhibition.
In addition to the tremendous collection of Kusama’s paintings, the gallery is also host to a video installation titled, Manhattan Suicide Addict, which Kusama began working on in 2010. In the video, the artist recites an original poem accompanied by original music, as lighted images flash behind her. The physical installation of the piece serves as the most crucial aspect in terms of its success. The video is projected onto a screen and flanked by two mirrored walls, thus producing a hall-of-mirrors effect.
Obessed with the beauty of infinity, Kusama has created several pieces which she refers to as “infinity rooms,” that also rely on this effect produced by two mirrors reflecting into one another.
The first of the two "infinity rooms,"Love is Calling (2013), invites viewers to walk inside of a mirrored cube that has been filled with polka-dotted, neon sculptures that faintly emit the scent of plastic. The forms, though static, appear to sway as the light resonating from within them changes colors every few seconds.
The overwhelming electricity of the exhibition culminates with the presentation of Kusama’s newest "infinity room" titled, Infinity Mirrored Room - The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away. One to three visitors at a time are admitted into the small, 62 square-foot, mirror-paneled room where they are immediately greeted by thousands of blinking LED lights that appear to extend into infinity. The sublime beauty of the work lies in the reflected patterns forged by the pulsations of the colored lights as they fade into darkness, only to appear seconds later.
The physical size of the room, and limited capacity, forces every visitor to consider the uniqueness of his or her own viewing experience. As the reflection of the lights questions our understanding of space, the infinite loop on which they run simultaneously questions our understanding of time.
While the room itself serves as the aesthetic climax of the show, it can also be considered the prime embodiment of Kusama’s occupation with endlessness and the cycle of life and death, which is central to the exhibition as a whole.
Yayoi Kusama’s I Who Have Arrived In Heaven will show at David Zwirner gallery from November 8 – December 21, 2013.
Yayoi Kusama at the press conference for the opening of her show I Who Have Arrived In Heaven at David Zwirner.
PHOTO: CHELSEA BEELER.
