Obliteration Christmas: A tale of friendship, tradition, and the art of the Christmas Stocking

Sometimes, the most endearing holiday ideas are those that are also the most frivolous and ridiculous. For example, every year that I've known Felix Flores I've made him a Christmas stocking. The early year weren't great.  In fact, they were horrible. Maybe even embarrassing. But overtime, the silliness of the exercise took on the status of Holiday Tradition. Felix and I amused ourselves with the surprise, handmade stockings filled with unexpected, funny, and sentimental gifts that usually didn't mean anything to anyone but us. He often told me it was his favorite part of Christmas. (Previous stocking posts are here, here, here, and here.)

With each passing year my production skills improved and I became more adept at manipulating felt, glitter, beads, and rhinestones. The stockings also took on more meaning as insider info made reference to experiences we shared during the year. Like this year when Felix and I visited New York's Gagosian gallery to participate in Yayoi Kusama's Obliteration Room.

Here's how Yayoi Kusama obliterates a room.  She builds a traditional, completely white living space inside a museum or gallery.  Then she invites a bunch of people to "obliterate' the room by placing brightly colored dots of varying sizes all over the colorless surfaces.

The result is this:

I like the tension of Obliteration Room.  The idea of obliteration, destruction, even loss of all that minimalist white space juxtaposed against the pure joy of the whole affair. So even before Felix entered the hospital earlier this year, I started a stocking. I decided to finish it after his death. Here is Obliteration Christmas, the official stocking of 2015

I wanted the stocking to maintain the interactive nature of Kusama's original idea.  So on the front are hand-sewn metal snaps.  The accompanying satchels contain felt dots that the viewer can apply in any configuration he or she desires.

I recognize the frivolity of 18 years of stocking construction. That's a ridiculous endeavor. I also recognize that with the death of Felix this will be the last year I'll get to enjoy this particular frivolity. I suppose that's a sad sentiment. But that's not the intention. Instead it's a reminder, mostly to myself that all those unnecessary, strange, curious things we do during the holidays are the things that help create the most important relationships of our lives. Relationships like the one I had with Felix.

So merry Christmas everyone. And merry Christmas to all those weird, wondrous, and magical traditions.

Book Ten: Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama.

I like the work of Yayoi Kusama.  Its weird, meticulous patterns and shapes create mesmerizing images that are not only iconic, they are also strangely emotional.  I've written or referenced Kusama's work numerous times here on the Art Lobster. Check out posts here, here, and here.  And she just recently came up in a post about the work of Motoi Yamamoto.  You can read that post here.

So in my quest to read books about art and artists, it's no surprise that I chose to read Kusama's autobiography, Infinity Net. (The book was translated by Ralph McCarthy.)  This book only makes me like Kusama more. Why? Because the book is proof that (and I'm now about to embrace a stereotype) the crazy artist is a real phenomenon.  And while I'd love to be a great artist, I don't think I'm crazy enough. OK, maybe Yayoi is too crazy. After all, she moved her studio to a location near a mental health facility so she could live there and still be close to her work. But that instability benefits us all.

My not-so-secret desire to be a world-famous artist obviously isn't strong enough to drive my actions.  Because when I read books like this, I realize that many artists have deep, obsessive needs to get their creative ideas out of their minds and into the real world.  Kusama is nothing if not relentless when it comes to the obsessiveness of her artistic ideas.  And I don't think I have that in my creative thought process.

After dealing with a strict mother and a supportive yet distant father while growing up in Japan, Kusama decides she will do what ever it takes to make her way to the United States of America.  She even goes so far as to write Georgia O'Keeffe a letter asking her advice.  And believe it or not, she got a response from O'Keeffe that helped Kusama land her first show in the US.

Infinity Net is a great way to experience the history of art from the 60s to the present. Because as Kusama navigates her way from Washington State (where she had her first US gallery show) to New York, she meets a who's who of artists from the 60s and beyond. One of the most interesting episodes of her life includes a lengthy period when she was involved with the reclusive and much older artist Joseph Cornell.

This book gives lots of insight into Yayoi Kusama's creative process.  It also offers an idea of the things that have inspired her to create the visual elements that are so iconic in her work.  The infinity net paintings and her endlessly repeated dots seem to be a way for her to deal with noisy voices and strange visions that inhabit her head. Here phallus-covered objects stem from her strange relationship with men, a relationship that left her terrified of sex.  That nervousness about sex also seemed to inspire her "happenings," many of which found groups of people naked and engaged in orgies. Kusama seldom participated in the nudity and sex.  The pumpkins in Kusama's works are remnants from an unhappy time from her youth spent at a school in Kyoto.  While there, she repeatedly painted pumpkins although in a more realistic style.

One last note about Yayoi Kusama's progressive nature.  The artist was well ahead of her time when it came to celebrating gay men and women's rights.  Kusama regularly asked gay men to participate in her happenings where they were invited to openly demonstrate "romantic love."  She even went so far as to establish a social club called KOK whose members were all gay men.  This well before drawing positive attention to gay life was much less accepted than it is today. And her independent voice helped her break into the largely male art world of the 60s and 70s.

Infinity Net is well written although sometimes a little strangely worded.  I think that may be more a function of translation than of the story telling.  Kusama's stories are engaging although sometimes they are a little on the intellectual side.  The writing can at times present an ego that only a successful artist can deliver, which actually gave the book snarky, fun voice.  This book has a wider appeal than it might first appear.  Sure, it occasionally drops into the weeds and there were plenty of references to words, ideas, and people that were above my intelligence.  (I'm glad I read this on my Kindle with its on-board dictionary.) But it was an intriguing read about a very rare breed of celebrated artist: a woman.

More eye-straining art at the Grand Palais.

As promised, this is my second post about my trip to Paris's Grand Palais to see Dynamo: A Century of Light and Motion 1913 - 2013. You can read the first "Vine video" post here.  In this post, I'm featuring  static pictures instead of videos. I'll try and write less and show more pictures. Once again, I've grouped works into categories.

The black and white of op art.
Many of the works in this show were limited to just two colors: black and while. Limiting color doesn't mean you can't achieve impact.  From one of the earliest pieces in the show by Henryk Berlewi to later works that more forcefully embraced op art as a way to play with perception, black and white can be a powerful color scheme.

Henryk Berlewi, Kontrasty Mechanofaktur, 1924, Gouache on paper.

Victor Vasarely, Metagalazie, 1959-1961, paint on canvas.Victor

Victor Vasarely, Vega-Bas, 1967, paint on panel.

The power of color.
Dynamo showcased color in several amazing ways.  One of my favorite works was Chromosaturation by Carlos Cruz-Diez. The walls of these maze-like rooms were so precisely lit, that the rooms themselves became big blocks of color, more emotionally powerful than you might expect.  It also did strange things to perception of color.

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Chromosaturation, Paris, 1965, Fluorescent Tubes, Lee filters, aluminum, acrylic paint medium.

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Chromosaturation, Paris, 1965, Fluorescent Tubes, Lee filters, aluminum, acrylic paint medium.

Julio Le Parc, Surface Couleur - Serie 14-2E, 1971, acrylic on canvas.

When lines collide.
I can't believe what you can accomplish with just a simple line.  These works are stunning for their simplicity.  But also for their ability to really screw with your vision.

Francois Morellet, 4 Doubles Trames, 1958, oil on canvas.

R.H. Quaytman, Distracting Distance, Chapter 16 (RGB), 2010, silkscreen and gesso on wood

Evariste Richer, Slow Snow (Day Snow/Night Snow), 2007, acrylic on canvas.

Michael Scott, Sans Titre, 1989, email on aluminum

Philippe Decrauzat, Shut and Open at the Same Time, 2008, paint on wood. Installation view with Mirrors, 2013, stickers.

The art of reflection
In my previous post about Dynamo, I mentioned that seeing one's self in art is powerful.  These works prove that to be true. While I may appear to be up-side-down in some of these photos, It's actually because the art works and their strange lens-like qualities distort reality; or do they simply reveal reality.

Le Prisme by Nicolas Schoffer was a dizzying window that opened onto an endless kaleidoscope, making the viewer feel like the walls of the Grand Palais were hollow and filled with magical light.

Nicolas Schoffer, Le Prisme, 1965,

I'll take a work by Anish Kapoor any day.  His intense use of color and reflection captivate the viewer and force moments of self reflection. The fact that they frequently create instant, constantly changing abstract works of art  just makes them all the more intriguing.

Anish Kapoor, Untitled, 2008 Aluminum Lacquer.

Anish Kapoor, Untitled, 2008, Aluminum Lacquer.

Anish Kapoor, Islamic Mirror, 2008, Stainless Steel

Yayoi Kusama is famous for her spots, usually rendered in bright colors and painted on everythig from pumpkins to spindly tenticles.  Here they covered the walls of a precisely constructed museum-gallery maze. Reflective domes covered with more reflective domes created a world where every museum visitor was repeated endlessly.  It was like a strange art-world quantum physics universe.

Yayoi Kusama, Invisible Life, 200-2011, Acrylic mirrors and recessed spotlights.

Basking in the glow
Some of the masters of light were on view in Paris. Dan Flavin's minimalist and structured fluorescent tubes were brilliant for their ability to transform a gallery and everyone in it. Neon also made a big showing.

Dan Flavin, Untitled (to you, Heiner with Admiration and Affection), 1973, Fluorescent Tubes.

Francois Morellet, Triple X Neonly, 2012, Blue Neon Tube and 2 Transformers.

Francois Morellet, Triple X Neonly, 2012, Blue Neon Tube and 2 Transformers.

Robert Smithson, The Eliminator, 1964, Replicated in 2013, Steel, glass, and neon.

Perception is certainly not reality.
I'll close with one of my favorite works in the show. Felice Varini's Vingt-trois disques evides plus douze moities et quatre quarts (2013, orange acrylic paint on adhesive foil) was mind-blowing.  I first experienced it entering the main hall of the Grand Palais. We were there for a completely different event.  I didn't know it was part of the Dynamo exhibition and assumed it was an abstract, rather perplexing series of random splashes of paint splattered across the front of the building; probably done by some street artist who's made it big in the fine art world.  It made little sense to me but hey, we're talking contemporary art here, so I processed it and moved on.

It wasn't until the following day, after having purchased my ticket to Dynamo that I was wandering through the galleries and the reality of these orange splashes locked into view.  As you stepped through a door onto a patio, all those random shapes created a perfect pattern. I love that the view almost didn't seem real.  It's almost as if someone used Adobe Illustrator to add the pattern afterwards.  And it didn't feel like that just in the flat photo you see here.  The effect was even more disorienting when you were standing in front of the image. It was pure art-world magic.  But maybe like many things in the contemporary world, it was enabled by technology, which would be appropriate considering the technological feeling than many of the works in Dynamo embraced.

Felice Varini's Vingt-trois disques evides plus douze moities et quatre quarts, 2013, orange acrylic paint on adhesive foil

Felice Varini's Vingt-trois disques evides plus douze moities et quatre quarts, 2013, orange acrylic paint on adhesive foil

Felice Varini's Vingt-trois disques evides plus douze moities et quatre quarts, 2013, orange acrylic paint on adhesive foil

A tale of two timed tickets.

This post is about three months late.  But both of these art world events are worth remembering.

Art museums are on a quest to surprise and delight visitors with blockbuster shows by some of the art world’s best stars.  But they’re also delivering on this quest with art that is experiential.  In particular, sculpture is often given over to interactions with viewers.  It makes for extra fun and inspiring trips to museums, but it also creates some problems.  Busy museums like the crowd appeal of interactive sculptures and installations. But with the massive crowds, it can be difficult for museums to give attendees a safe and meaningful experience  That’s where the timed ticket comes in.  These tickets are usually free with museum admission, but they limit the number of people who can participate in the artwork, making the experience more inspiring.

On my last trip to New York, I experienced two timed-ticket events: The first was Tomas Saraceno’s Cloud City on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the second was Yayoi Kusama’s Fireflies on the Water at the Whitney Museum of Art.  Normally I’d write a separate post for art events this big.  But even though these two projects are wildly different, I felt they explored similar themes and ideas.  I thought it might be interesting to look at the two works in a single post.

Let’s start with Saraceno’s Cloud City.  For several years now I’ve seen photos of Saraceno’s amazing works with their giant clear bubbles that people climb onto and into and I dreamed of experiencing one of his installations.  So when I learned that Saraceno was chosen as the artist to appear on the roof of the Met this summer I was very excited.  Part of my enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that this is the Argentinian artist’s first major commission in the United States.

Cloud City is the largest and most ambitious structure in a series of works called Cloud Cities/Airport City. The work on the roof of the Met is a "constellation of sixteen interconnected multipolygonal modules linked in a nonlinear configuration.”  That’s a description that probably suits an artist who was originally trained as an architect.  It certainly doesn't accurately represent the art.  Cloud City is a three dimensional, human-sized bee hive of Plexiglas and mirror-finished steel. From the outside it forces you to see your environment even as it asks you to focus solely on the work of art. Each time you try to focus on the sculpture, you’re given reflected views and vistas of the world that surrounds you.  From the inside it’s a world of fun-house mirrors that force you to confront images of yourself, almost to infinity; a surprisingly contemplative work.  The curators at the Met suggest this work is an “investigation of how to expand the ways in which we inhabit and experience our environment.”  I loved it.  Here are a few photos. (By the way, no cameras are allowed inside the structure.  It helps to have a friend on the ground taking picture while you're inside.)

At the Whitney, Yayoi Kusama's Fireflies on the Water was a much different experience.  For this work, you wait patiently in a white gallery for 10 to 15 minutes.  When your turn arrives, a gallery attendant opens a door in the wall of the gallery, let's you into the sculpture, and starts a stopwatch, giving you 60 seconds inside.   During that minute, you're enclosed in a dark, mirrored room.  You walk out on a small gangplank to stand on a tiny platform in the middle of the room.  You're surrounded by still water.  Tiny LED lights are suspended from the ceiling.  The mirrored walls of the room (including the ceiling) create an infinite space that expands the perception of not just space, but also time.  It's a call to contemplation; a moment to ponder not just our place in the present, but our place in the universe.  

No photos were allowed inside Fireflies on the Water.  So instead, I offer a portrait of Kusama inside the work of art. And just for fun, I'm also posting a photo I took of a Louis Vuitton window display in Tokyo.  Louis Vuitton created a line of products designed by Kusama at about the same time her show debuted at the Whitney.  I saw several window displays for the products, but only at this Tokyo store did the strange visage of Kusama that is seen in the portrait make another appearance.

Year of Japan: UMFA edition.

This fall, I'm planning a trip to Japan.  I've already booked my plane tickets for September.  To prepare, I plan to familiarize myself with Japanese culture.  I've got several Japanese themed novels waiting to be read.  And I've bought my Japanese immersion software.  So imagine how excited I was to discover a small exhibit currently on view at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) with work by a Japanese artist. 

The show is called Decades and features the art of Yayoi Kusama.  I'd never heard of Kusama.  And considering her background, I feel that someone who spends as much time in museums as I do should be familiar with her work.  But maybe I'm just another white male who refuses to acknowledge the contributions of women to contemporary art; I hope not.

Here's what I learned. Yayoi is one of Japan's most important contemporary artists who's been working since the 1950s.  During the '50s she lived in New York City where she was friends with the likes of Donald Judd and Joseph Cornell.  In my defense, when she returned to Japan in the 1970s, Kusama was largely forgotten in the U.S., but since the 1990s she's received significant renewed attention.

All that background information is boring if you don't see her artwork.  Her art is a trippy, dazzling expression fueled by painstaking execution, with patterns that can make your eyes hurt, but in a good way.  I can't tell if this is Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, or some strange version of Op Art.  But however you categorize it, it's fun to see. 

The first painting I liked is Dots (2000, Acrylic on canvas), whose card notes that Kusama has struggled with mental illness since childhood.  And get this: She currently lives voluntarily in an institution for the mentally ill.  She still produces plenty of work at her studio where she employs several assistants.  Here is Dots:

Here's a detail from Kusama's mind-bending, large work entitled The Night (1985, Acrylic on canvas; triptych).  This just might cause hallucinations in those of us who aren't troubled by mental illness.

In the '60s, Kusama took pattern to a new medium.  She began to produce sculpture which consisted of household objects covered with bunches of small, stuffed fabric phallic forms.  The card for this work suggests that while these sculptures are playful, they also carry undertones of anger.  Maybe she's pissed that white, male art fans like me don't know enough about women, foreign artists.  I don't blame her.  Here is a detail from Compulsion Furniture (1962-63/1993, Sewn stuffed fabric, household objects, wood, paint):

And finally, here's an installation view from the exhibit featuring The Night and Compulsion Furniture.