Rare and dizzying original poster of Kusama's iconic polka-dotted phallic soft sculptures advertising the opening of the 1965 installation at the Castellane Gallery of her first ever mirror room — hand-addressed by Kusama in 1965 to the Museum of Modern Art.
Near fine.
Price: $10,000.00
"I make the objects because they horrify me." — Kusama
Kusama's exhibition, titled in full "Infinity Mirror Room —Phalli's Field (Floor Show)," was documented in a series of photographs of the artist reclining on her own "phallus meadow" in a red leotard — the most famous and striking images of her work from that era. In her autobiography, Kusama describes the installation that marked the beginning of arguably her best-known and most popular series of works: "The walls of the room were mirrors, and sprouting from the floor were thousands of white canvas phallic forms covered with red polka dots. The mirrors reflected them infinitely, summoning up a sublime, miraculous field of phalluses. People could walk barefoot through the phallus meadow, becoming one with the work and experiencing their own figures and movement as part of the sculpture. Wandering into this infinite wonderland, where a grandiose aggregation of human sexual symbols had been transformed into a humorous, polka-dotted field, viewers found themselves spellbound by the imagination as it exorcised sexual sickness in the naked light of day." THE NEW YORK TIMES described Kusama's mid-'60s work as the "awful vision of a self-perpetuating infinity," but they meant they liked it.
The verso of the poster is addressed by Kusama to MoMA, which now holds numerous works by the artist in their permanent collection and mounted her site-specific installation "Narcissus Garden" at PS1 in 2018. An important association of this scarce document for an early and landmark show from this major artist — distinctly rare addressed by Kusama.
Read more: Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama; The New York Times, "She Pursues Boredom at the Castellane," 1964.
First edition. (New York): (Castellane Gallery), (1965). 21.5'' x 16.76'' (unfolded). Original poster. Single sheet with original folds (eighths). Hand-addressed by the artist to the Museum of Modern Art on verso, with 1965 Grand Central Station postmark. Transparent tape fragments to verso. Minor edgewear, faint toning. Else remarkably clean and sharp.
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