We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Yayoi Kusama / Japan b.1929 / Soul under the moon 2002 / Mirrors, ultra violet lights, water, plastic, nylon thread, timber, synthetic polymer paint / 340 x 712.1 x 600cm (installed) / The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2002 with funds from Michael Sidney Myer and The Myer Foundation, a project of the Sidney Myer Centenary Celebration 1899–1999, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation and The Yayoi Kusama Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Appeal / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Yayoi Kusama, Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc.
Yayoi KusamaSoul under the moon 2002
Not Currently on Display
Soul under the moon 2002 was specifically conceived for ‘APT 2002: Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’, and continues Yayoi Kusama’s series of ‘Mirror/Infinity’ rooms, produced since 1963.
In this complex installation, a purpose-built room lined with mirrored glass contains scores of neon coloured balls, hanging at various heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a small platform, light is infinitely refracted off the mirrored surfaces to create the illusion of a never-ending space.
Yayoi Kusama is one of the most significant artists to emerge from Asia in the postwar period. Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Nagano prefecture, Japan in 1929 and was the youngest of four children. By 1941, as a twelve-year-old child, she had begun to notate and paint hallucinations, which she experienced as veils of dots.
During the early 1950s, Kusama recognised that the visual and aural hallucinations she had experienced for a decade were symptomatic of a condition known as ‘rijin’sho’ (depersonalisation syndrome). Kusama continues to experience these hallucinations to this day.
As an adult Kusama developed a vibrant visual iconography composed of dots, often transposed as nets or auras, that has become the familiar visual vocabulary dominating her artistic practice. Kusama moved to New York in 1955, where she lived and worked until 1972, before returning to Japan. Kusama’s practice embraces drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, performance, fashion, tabloid publishing, filmmaking, installation, novels, poetry and music.
Discussion Questions
1. What did you first think when you saw Soul under the moon? Did it remind of something that you have seen before?
2. Consider how this artwork engages the audience by defying the senses and our perceptions of space.
Classroom Activities
1. Explore videos of colour kaleidoscopes on YouTube. Select a single frame of a kaleidoscopic pattern and try to reproduce this image as a drawing or painting. Consider your approach to ensure that the pattern is symmetrical.
2. As a class, create a collaborative installation using coloured dots to decorate an area of your school. Extend the invitation to other students to contribute to the space. Reflect on how your installation expressed the idea of infinity.