Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1534560
T his month, join the crowds of art seekers queuing up at the Dallas Museum of Art for the return of an installation both sublime and Instagrammable: Yayoi Kusama's All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016), a DMA- owned, globally renowned masterwork that's the only Infinity Mirror Room of its kind in North America. Here's why you should secure your timed ticket to bliss. Since Kusama's first collaboration with fashion powerhouse Louis Vuitton in 2012, she's been among the figures whose fame extends far beyond the art world. The nonagenarian artist's iconography and installations — especially Infinity Room works — continue to captivate the public. Then add the enchantment of endless rows upon rows of black-on- yellow polka-dotted gourds. The pumpkin, her preferred vegetable, is another calling card of the Tokyo-based talent, who willingly has lived in a psychiatric asylum since 1977 because of her obsessive- compulsive disorder and hallucinations that began in childhood, both of which fuel her art practice. The vibrantly colored kabocha squash has appeared in her art since 1946. Her prosperous family grew this signature gourd in their plant nursery and seed-farm business; they lived in the mountainous Matsumoto area in central Japan, surrounded by fields of pumpkins. In a quote that appears on gallerist David Zwirner's website, Kusama has said of her emblematic gourd, "Pumpkins have been a great comfort to me since my childhood; they speak to me of the joy of living. They are humble and amusing at the same time, and I have and always will celebrate them in my art." While Kusama's gorgeous gourds made an appear- ance in Mirror Room (Pumpkin) at her iconic 1993 Venice Biennale project for the Japanese Pavilion, it was a 1994 larger-than-life sculpture commission dramatically sited at the end of a pier on the Benesse Art Site, Naoshima Island, Japan that promulgated Kusama's pumpkin into the popular consciousness. As for her Infinity Mirror Rooms, she debuted her first in 1965, Phalli's Field, during her New York chapter (1958-1975). It was amidst the heady explosion of Manhattan's post- war avant-garde, where Kusama attracted the attention of artist/ art critic Donald Judd, who praised her painting; Factory superstar Andy Warhol, whom she accused of ripping off her wallpaper idea; and Joseph Cornell, with whom she shared a decade-long romantic, yet platonic relationship. At the DMA, experience Kusama's alchemical transformation of wood, mirror, plastic, acrylic, and LED lights into a mysterious chapel-like space celebrating the organic and surreal, individual and community, and leaning into a utopian, sci-fi future. May 7, 2025 – January 18, 2026; for timed-entry ticket, dma.org. Catherine D. Anspon Gorgeous Gourds Yayoi Kusama at DMA "Pumpkins have been a great comfort to me since my childhood; they speak to me of the joy of living." COLLECTION DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART, © YAYOI KUSAMA. COURTESY OTA FINE ARTS, VICTORIA MIRO, AND DAVID ZWIRNER. 68 Yayoi Kusama's All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016, at Dallas Museum of Art — Yayoi Kusama