CORAL GABLES, FL.- This December, the world famous
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will present Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild as part
of its annual visual art program. The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, known for
her distinctive sculptures and paintings that involve hand-worked repetition and
bold patterning, will be exhibiting works from the exuberant new sculptural
ensemble Flowers that Bloom at Midnight (2009), a group of her classic
Pumpkins, as well as Guidepost to the New Space, a multi-part floating work
specifically conceived for Fairchild’s Panandus Lake.
This will be the first time anywhere in the world that all these sculptures
have been shown together in an outdoor setting. “Yayoi Kusama at
Fairchild” will open on December 5, 2009, to coincide with Art Basel Miami
Beach, and will be on view through May 30, 2010.
“Fairchild is
absolutely thrilled to bring Yayoi Kusama’s enchanting art works to South
Florida,” said Bruce Greer, Fairchild’s board of trustees’ President. “Her
surreal, botanically inspired monumental sculptures, brought together with
Fairchild’s world-famous tropical garden landscape, are sure to provide a
magical experience for visitors of all ages.”

Flowers that Bloom at
Midnight consists of vividly painted, giant cast flowers measuring between five
and sixteen feet in height. These sinuous baroque forms will provide a lively
contrast with the monolithic Pumpkins. The multi-part floating work Guidepost to
the New Space, a series of rounded “humps” in fire-engine red with white polka
dots, will protrude enigmatically from the water in a pond on the 83-acre
garden. Thus Kusama’s artificial garden will unfold in all its psychedelic
glory, against the exotic backdrop of Fairchild’s gardens with their equally
rare and wondrous tropical vegetation. All sculptures in the exhibition are on
loan from Gagosian Gallery.
Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s leading
artists and a living legend of the international art avant-garde. Flamboyant yet
profound, her oeuvre encompasses unique masterpieces in painting, sculpture, and
installation, as well as mass production and popular culture. Kusama also
produces playful sculpture on a monumental scale. Her first large-scale
sculpture appeared in 1994, a huge, vivid yellow pumpkin covered with an optical
spot pattern, which was installed at the end of a jetty on the island of
Naoshima in the Seto Sea, Japan.
She has since completed several major sculptural commissions—ensembles of
huge, brightly hued, triffid-like plants and flowers—for public institutions in
Japan and abroad including The Visionary Flowers (2002), Matsumoto City Museum
of Art, Nagano, Japan; Tulipes de Shangri-La (2003), Eurolille, Lille, France;
Tsumari in Bloom (2003) Matsudai-machi Higashikubiki-gun, Niigata, Japan; and
The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007), Beverly Hills City Council, Los Angeles.

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto City, Japan in 1929. Her work is in
the collections of leading museums throughout the world including the Museum of
Modern Art, New York; LACMA, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate
Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and, the
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Major exhibitions of her work include
Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Fukuoka, Japan (1987); Center for
International Contemporary Arts, New York (1989); “Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,
1958-1969,” LACMA, 1998 (traveling to Museum of Modern Art, New York, Walker Art
Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), 1998–99; Le
Consortium, Dijon, 2000 (traveling to selected venues in Europe and Korea),
2001–2003; “KUSAMATRIX”, Mori Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2004 (traveling to Art Park
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo Art Park, Hokkaido); “Eternity – Modernity”,
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (touring Japan), 2004–2005; and “The
Mirrored Years,” Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2008,which traveled to the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and will open at the City Gallery,
Wellington, New Zealand later in 2009.

“Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild” is
part of an annual exhibition series in support of the Garden’s conservation
work, educational outreach programs and commitment to cultural enhancement in
South Florida. Fairchild houses internationally important collections of rare
tropical fruit and cycads as well as the largest palm collection in the U.S. The
Garden maintains an international conservation program, which works with more
than 20 countries to preserve some of the worlds’ rarest species and tropical
habitats. Fairchild’s major art exhibitions have included world-renowned artists
such as Mark di Suvero, Roy Lichtenstein, and Dale Chihuly. Visit
: http://www.fairchildgarden.org/