Yayoi Kusama

Went up to the Whitney Museum today (thankfully the terrible heat wave broke) to see the Yayoi Kusama show which was pretty much marvelous. I especially liked seeing her early work, the paintings and drawings. Her Phallic sculptures or accumulations as she calls them were not my favorites, even though they have a tacky look and feel to them. She is certainly a unique presence and I applaud the Whitney for mounting this show. I could do without the Sharon Hayes exhibit highlighting her sense of political correctness and concern. Good for her, but look I'm just not into the idea of looking at lots of colorful political flyers on a wall or hundreds of political and cultural spoken word record albums also lining walls, And the centerpiece of lots of political signs and placards all in a group is strictly graduate school stuff. The smell of all the plywood used in this "show" was nice though. I also liked (what's not to like as my mother use to say) The Signs and Symbols show that is a beautifully installed exhibit of lots of beautiful paintings from their collection, its not the kind of show that is going to send you home thinking, but it did make me swoon a bit and made my knees a little weak.

http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/YayoiKusama

Whitney Museum of American Art: Yayoi Kusama

whitney.org