Currently showing in London at Victorio Miro, Pumpkins from Yayoi Kusuma is an exhibition that features one of her most famous motifs. The celebration of the fruit in question was approached from different angles by Kusama, utilizing her various skill sets – paintings, large mosaic sculptures inside the gallery, and bronzes in the water garden. Despite the familiarity of the iconic subject matter for the Japanese artist, the bronzes do represent the first time she has worked in that medium on such a large scale and they alone are worthy of a visit.
Shedding more light on her source of inspiration – ” …’Pumpkin head’ was an epithet used to disparage ugly, ignorant men, and the phrase ‘Put eyes and a nose on a pumpkin’ evoked a pudgy and unattractive woman. It seems that pumpkins do not inspire much respect. But I was enchanted by their charming and winsome form. What appealed to me most was the pumpkin’s generous unpretentiousness. That and its solid spiritual base.”
Discuss Yayoi Kusama here.
