The world famous Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will present “Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild” as part of its annual visual art program.
The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, known for her distinctive sculptures and paintings that involve hand-worked repetition and bold patterning, will be exhibiting works from the exuberant new sculptural ensemble “Flowers That Bloom At Midnight” (2009), a group of her classic “Pumpkins,” as well as “Guidepost To The New Space,” a multi-part floating work specifically conceived for Fairchild’s Panandus Lake. This will be the first time anywhere in the world that all these sculptures have been shown together in an outdoor setting.
“Fairchild is absolutely thrilled to bring Yayoi Kusama’s enchanting art works to South Florida,” said Bruce Greer, Fairchild’s board of trustees’ president.
“Her surreal, botanically inspired monumental sculptures, brought together with Fairchild’s world-famous tropical garden landscape, are sure to provide a magical experience for visitors of all ages.”
“Flowers That Bloom At Midnight” consists of vividly painted, giant cast flowers measuring between five and sixteen feet in height. These sinuous baroque forms will provide a lively contrast with the monolithic “Pumpkins.” The multi-part floating work “Guidepost To The New Space,” a series of rounded ‘humps’ in fire-engine red with white polka dots, will protrude enigmatically from the water in a pond on the 83-acre garden. Thus Kusama’s artificial garden will unfold in all its psychedelic glory, against the exotic backdrop of Fairchild’s gardens with their equally rare and wondrous tropical vegetation.
All sculptures in the exhibition are on loan from Gagosian Gallery.
Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s leading artists and a living legend of the international art avant-garde. Flamboyant yet profound, her oeuvre encompasses unique masterpieces in painting, sculpture, and installation, as well as mass production and popular culture. Kusama also produces playful sculpture on a monumental scale. Her first large-scale sculpture appeared in 1994, a huge, vivid yellow pumpkin covered with an optical spot pattern, which was installed at the end of a jetty on the island of Naoshima in the Seto Sea, Japan. She has since completed several major sculptural commissions—ensembles of huge, brightly hued, triffid-like plants and flowers—for public institutions in Japan and abroad including “The Visionary Flowers” (2002), Matsumoto City Museum of Art, Nagano, Japan; “Tulipes de Shangri-La” (2003), Eurolille, Lille, France; “Tsumari In Bloom” (2003) Matsudai-machi Higashikubiki-gun, Niigata, Japan; and “The Hymn of Life: Tulips” (2007), Beverly Hills City Council, Los Angeles.
“Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild” is part of an annual exhibition series in support of the Garden’s conservation work, educational outreach programs and commitment to cultural enhancement in South Florida. Fairchild houses internationally important collections of rare tropical fruit and cycads as well as the largest palm collection in the U.S. The Garden maintains an international conservation program, which works with more than 20 countries to preserve some of the worlds’ rarest species and tropical habitats. Fairchild’s major art exhibitions have included world-renowned artists such as Mark di Suvero, Roy Lichtenstein, and Dale Chihuly.
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