![Yayoi Kusama at Museo Reina Sofia | Madrid, June 2011
[looking through my photos from Spain last year because yeah, I have some envy to placate]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m76sdpyX8P1r4ofpvo1_500.jpg)
Yayoi Kusama at Museo Reina Sofia | Madrid, June 2011
[looking through my photos from Spain last year because yeah, I have some envy to placate]
“There’s a haunting image of Kusama on her arrival in Seattle in 1957 with the gallerist Zoe Dusanne. Both are dressed ‘Japanese style’, in kimonos, in what appears to be Dusanne’s apartment, or a back room of her gallery. The walls are hung with Miro-esque paintings, which could possibly be Kusama’s own work. Kusama looks out like an unwilling accomplice, as her ghoulish patroness apes the Gaisha style of makeup, her waspish pearl necklace and earrings offsetting the masque. In the letters displayed in the exhibition, Dusanne’s offer to Kusama of her first show in the States is fleshed out into full mise-en-scene, almost a diplomatic mission of cultural exchange. Having patronisingly suggested that the show should be in spring because her very Japanese patio will be in bloom, she remarks, ‘I have many Japanese friends who would be very happy to wear costumes and serve Japanese tea at the opening.’ With friends like this, no wonder Kusama wanted to self-obliterate! This image registers the length of the journey Kusama had to undertake from such a servile entry into the American art world to her glorious, titillating provocations a decade later.”
Josephine Berry Slater | Orgy of the Non/Self | Mute
