“My art was made to change people’s minds. I hope that it can make the world more peaceful.”
— Yayoi Kusama
Created in 1999, the year after Yayoi Kusama’s major landmark retrospective Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1969 i, Heart is an exemplary box sculpture piece coming from her varied oeuvre. Drawing links to the artist’s long-time friend Joseph Cornell’s famous box artworks — the latter’s having been described as ‘reliquaries that contain sacred objects’ ii —the present work is Kusama’s own rendition, which houses candy-cane-coloured phallic protrusions.
The pillowy priapic forms recall Kusama’s hand-sewn Accumulations initiated in 1962: ‘I began making penises in order to heal my feelings of disgust toward sex. Reproducing the objects, again and again, was my way of conquering the fear. It was a kind of self-therapy, to which I gave the name “Psychosomatic Art”.’ iii Tightly encased, such organic forms bulge out of variated configurations including flowerpots, incubators or cradles, each tendril resembling embryos, stamens, or sprouting vines.
“Accumulation is the result of my obsession and that philosophy is the main theme of my art.”
— Yayoi Kusama
Potent allusions for flourishing life and new beginnings, the soft sculptures can be taken singularly or collectively, each jostling for survival within their constricting box frames. Heart—with its evocation of the most vital human organ, all the more powerfully executed in a bright red hue—quite literally pulsates with vitality, its stripey tentacles beckoning the viewer into a hypnotically meditative experience that stimulates introspection and transcendence.
Works from Kusama’s box series can be found in the collections of museums including the Niigata City Art Museum and the Matsumoto City Museum of Art, amongst others. The artist’s largest retrospective in Asia, Yayoi Kusma: 1945 to Now, is currently on view at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong until 14 May 2023.