Phi Foundation | Yayoi Kusama will exhibit at Phi from July 6

Yayoi Kusama is the hottest female artist on the planet. At 93, she still triumphs in the greatest museums. As part of its 15^and anniversary, the Phi Foundation has managed to mount an exhibition of various works by the Japanese artist, a resounding and free event that will be presented in Montreal from July 6 to January 15. Phi expects record crowds.

Eric Clement
The Press

Yayoi Kusama has been a visual arts phenomenon for… 70 years. She organized her first exhibition in 1952, in her native Japan. She was 23 years old. Leaving for the United States in 1957, she subsequently frequented the New York avant-garde, including Andy Warhol, and then achieved international fame. She is still active today, and her works are shown around the world. At the moment, at the Hirshhorn in Washington, after New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, London or even the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), in Toronto, in 2018.

Last year, Yayoi Kusama was the highest performing female artist in the auction market, ranking 10^and and ahead of Joan Mitchell and Frida Kahlo, according to Zonebourse.com. The French financial site explained at the beginning of the month that since her works have been auctioned, she has sold for 1.1 billion, far ahead of Joan Mitchell (840 million) and Louise Bourgeois (402 million).

The arrival of a selection of his creations in Montreal is therefore an event. And it will be “robust,” promises Phoebe Greenberg, founder of the Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art. The works will come from Japan, Amsterdam, London and Yayoi Kusama’s New York gallery owner, David Zwirner.

The Infinity Mirrored Rooms are Kusama’s signature. She began in the 1960s to present these luminous and immersive installations made up of mirrors placed in small rooms. To stun, disorient. Today, the effects of these infinite space illusions are more soothing. In Phi, we will live the experience in two rooms. With two Infinity Mirrored Rooms which were not at the AGO in 2018.

“On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Phi Center and the 15th anniversary of the Phi Foundation, we wanted to have two works by Yayoi Kusama consistent with our reflection on immersion, as shown in the exhibition Infinity, in collaboration with Felix & Paul Studios last year,” says Phoebe Greenberg.

“Yayoi Kusama is concerned with the loss or separation of her being from her physical body, an existentialist and spiritual concern,” says curator Cheryl Sim, executive director and curator at the Phi Foundation. She is interested in our relative importance as individuals, in our insignificant place on the scale of the cosmos. It leads us to reflect on death, on our place in the Universe. »

The exhibition route will include sculptures from his series of bronze pumpkins (pumpkins). An echo of her youth – her parents were nurserymen – and a symbol, because Yayoi Kusama (whose first name means “born in spring”) identifies with her pumpkins, which she has sometimes created in large format.

Like Yellow Pumpkin, installed in the island of Naoshima, Japan, and swept away by a typhoon last year. Commissioner Sylvie Lacerte had allowed, in 2017, that one of these pumpkins integrates the linear exhibition The walk for peaceorganized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as part of the 375^and anniversary of the metropolis.

We can discover eight paintings from his series My Eternal Soul. The exhibition, with historic photos, will also trace the career of Kusama whose career has been, from the start, intimately linked to his personal life. Her hallucinations, at a young age, led her to the Infinity Mirrored Rooms. Nature has also always interested her, because of the profession of her parents. Hence an abundance of flowers, dots, leaves, cellular shapes, colors that make his works immediately recognizable.

Yayoi Kusama is still active, despite her advanced age. “She has a studio not far from the hospice where she lives,” says Cheryl Sim. She goes there every day to paint. Painting keeps her alive. She responded quickly to our questions when we contacted her. She makes clear decisions. “Yes, I want that, no, I don’t want that!” But she will not come to Montreal. She will give us a short note that we will show, perhaps on video, during the opening. »

Along with the expo, Phi will have additional activities. The screening of a documentary on Yayoi Kusama and performances. But not as daring as the happenings that Yayoi Kusama presented in the past! Cheryl Sim got in touch with the Montreal collective Doux Soft Club to lead workshops and carry out interventions. There will also be activities for young people, because Kusama can be as intellectual as it is playful.

Given the always large crowds at Yayoi Kusama’s exhibitions, Phi is preparing to channel visits from amateurs to 451 and 465, rue Saint-Jean, in Old Montreal. “We will make sure that the course is fluid, that people can experience a moment of reflection, says Phoebe Greenberg. Kusama had his moments of confrontation with his sanity. And we have been facing a difficult situation for our mental health for more than two years. This exhibition will therefore bring us a little poetry and relief. We are honored and delighted to present it. »

Visitors will be able to reserve their free tickets, from mid-June, on the Foundation’s website. In total, the visit will take about three hours if the amateur wants to discover all the aspects of this promising exhibition.