Posts Tagged 'Yayoi Kusama'

Haute CAT-ure: National Dress Your Pet up Day

Published January 8, 2018 Collections , Staff Closed
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It’s the most PAWsome time of the year for DMA pets: National Dress Your Pet Up Day is on January 14. Every year our favorite pups and kitties look to the galleries for inspiration and bring to life works of art for this dog-gone fun day.


DMA Staffer: Stacey Lizotte, Head of Adult Programming and Multimedia Services
DMA Pet: Parker, English Springer Spaniel, age 4 (he belongs to my parents but I borrowed him when I was home for Christmas)
Portrait Inspiration: This year I picked Old Pilgrim because Parker is really good at giving you all-knowing and wise expressions. I borrowed my dad’s duster and hat and my mom’s purse and used talcum powder on Parker’s ears to make him look older and more distinguished. I believe Parker is very comfortable posing for this yearly event, as he loves all the attention, hugs, and treats.


DMA Staffer: Jessica Thompson, Manager of Teen Programs, and Gregory Castillo, Multimedia Producer
DMA Pet: Bastion, Cocker Spaniel, age 11 months
Portrait Inspiration: Although the DMA has wonderful portraits of spaniels in the collection, we looked for a work of art that shares one of Bastion’s best traits: his floppy ears! We made a saddle that tied onto his harness so he could carry one of his favorite toys around; however, we don’t think Bastion was very pleased with this development.


DMA Staffer: Jessie Carrillo, Manager of Adult Programming
DMA Pet: Jenny, Basset Hound, age 7
Portrait Inspiration: Whenever I see this work of art, I’m reminded of Jenny with her long nose, knobby head, and signature expression that is some combination of skepticism, poutiness, and irritation.


DMA Staffer: Dr. Anne R. Bromberg, The Cecil and Ida Green Curator of Ancient and Asian Art
DMA Pet: Miss Suzl, Maine Coon, and Miss Bounce Bounce, Abyssinian
Portrait Inspiration: Suzl is ready to pose for anything and resembles the lively cats in this painting. Bounce loves food and would be happy to raid a larder.


DMA Staffer: Tamara Wootton Forsyth, Associate Director of Collections, Exhibitions, and Facilities Management
DMA Pet: Hamish McTavish, Shelter dog, but definitely some Schnauzer and maybe some Scottie, age 1 1/2
Portrait Inspiration: My step-daughter Katrina Forsyth chose the pumpkins for our work of art, mainly because she loves the experience of the pumpkin infinity room. But also because we love our dog. The work is aptly titled All the Eternal Love I Have for the Hamish McTavish!


DMA Staffer: Lindsay O’Conner, Manager of Docent and Teacher Programs
DMA Pet: Hattie, Terrier Mix, age 3
Portrait Inspiration: Hattie is known for her lively personality and long, wiggly little body, making her the perfect fit to channel Fernand Léger’s playful, seemingly weightless swimmers. Always happy to be the center of attention and no fan of baths, Hattie needed no encouragement to dive into the felt water-free re-creation of The Divers (Red and Black).

[images: Pietro Bellotti, Old Pilgrim, c. 1660s–1670s, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Karl and Esther Hoblitzelle Collection, gift of the Hoblitzelle Foundation 1987.4; Chess piece, India, Punjab Hills, late 18th-early 19th century, gilt and polychrome ivory, intended gift of David T. Owsley, 64.1996.2; Hakuin Ekaku, Daruma, date unknown, ink on paper, Dallas Museum of Art, General Acquisitions Fund, 1972.1; Frans Snyders, Cats Fighting in a Larder, with Loaves of Bread, a Dressed Lamb, Artichokes and Grapes, by 1620, oil and panel, lent by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas C. Campbell; Yayoi Kusama, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016, wood, mirror, plastic, acrylic, LED, Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London, pending joint acquisition of The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, © Yayoi Kusama; Fernand Léger, The Divers (Red and Black), 1942, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the James H. and Lillian Clark Foundation, 1982.29.FA, © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris]

Kimberly Daniell is the Senior Manager of Communications, Public Affairs, and Social Media Strategy at the DMA.

Spooky Sightings

Published October 30, 2017 Collections Closed
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The debut of Yayoi Kusama’s All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016) conveniently coincides with seasonal celebrations of bounty. Inside this reflective chamber, visitors encounter an infinite field of illuminated gourds—Kusama’s immersive expression of universal, continuous connectivity. Her imaginative use of pumpkins and Halloween’s emphasis on otherworldly beings inspired us to search the galleries for metaphysical motifs.

Olivia Feal, the McDermott Intern for Interpretation, assembled a short tour highlighting five works that relate to events after life. From an example of European needlework to a portrait completed nearly two decades after the sitter’s death, these objects offer glimpses of artists who, like Kusama, tackled the creative challenge of visualizing immense, intangible ideas.

Please enjoy this Spooky Sightings tour on your next visit to the DMA!

Emily Schiller is a Digital Collections Content Coordinator at the DMA.

 

Making a List and Checking It Twice—A Day in the Life of a Registrar

Published September 20, 2017 Behind-the-Scenes , Collections , Contemporary Art , Exhibitions Closed
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UPDATE: Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins has been extended and will now close on April 29, 2018!

The DMA recently installed Yayoi Kusama’s All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016), one of the artist’s immersive Infinity Mirror Rooms. As its name suggests, the room features pumpkin lanterns that are reflected in mirrored panels, creating the illusion that they continue into infinity. The effect is both intimate (a maximum of two guests may enter at a time) and mesmerizing.

Yayoi Kusama, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016, wood, mirror, plastic, acrylic, LED, Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London, © Yayoi Kusama

A lot of planning takes place behind the scenes before works of art go on view to the public. That is where registrars (like me) come into play! Registrars (also sometimes called Collections Managers) are responsible for both the logistics and physical care of art as well as collection-related documentation.

For most exhibitions or rotations of works of art in the galleries, we’re working with multiple pieces that come together as a group; however, with installation art like Kusama’s, we need to keep track of all the details and components that make up the piece as a whole. For this project, it meant coordinating the safe transportation of the many room components and the 62 pumpkins that go into the space once constructed.

First, we double-checked that everything traveled according to the packing list and carefully examined every single pumpkin to ensure they were ready for installation. These condition reports are like an artwork’s health chart. It’s an important ongoing part of our job because a condition report records the object information (also known as tombstone data), a general description or photo of the artwork (or pumpkin in this case!), and, most importantly, a detailed summary of the overall appearance and condition at a specific point in time.

In the months leading up to install, registrars collaborate with team members in other departments to finalize the gallery layout, installation schedules, wall text (or didactics), and any special opening events. Once the installation begins, the registrar serves as air-traffic control to help make sure the team stays, to the best of our ability, on track according to the installation schedule.

Registrars also take step-by-step notes and pictures to document the process, especially for an installation like Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, which requires very specific construction. Installations can be a little tiring but the end result is so rewarding! You get to see a project come together literally from the ground up and then share it with the community.

The pumpkin-themed mirror room will be on display from October 1, 2017, through February 25, 2018 [UPDATE: the exhibition will now close on April 29, 2018], with DMA Members getting a sneak peek up until the opening (DMA Member tickets are available here). Visit our website for details and to purchase tickets: DMA.org/Kusama.

 

Alicia Chavez is the Collections Assistant at the DMA.

Sculpted by Women

Published March 23, 2016 Behind-the-Scenes , Collections Closed
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Over the past two weeks, the DMA’s Hoffman Galleries have been populated with sculptures that appear—for lack of a better word—unfinished. Amorphous mounds of pastel-washed, unfired clay occupy the sunlit central gallery. Wall-mounted vitrines house bits of Polystyrene and bark, which mingle with squiggles of neon and fragments of clay. In the back room, configurations of Cor-ten steel sheets lie in delicate balance, punctuated unexpectedly by soft, fluffy pompoms. To the naked eye, these works could be mistaken for preliminary models or sculptural prototypes rather than polished final products—and that is exactly what Rebecca Warren, the British artist responsible for these enigmatic sculptures, wants.

Rebecca Warren: The Main Feeling installation images, March 2016

Rebecca Warren: The Main Feeling installation, March 2016

On March 13, Rebecca Warren: The Main Feeling opened to the public at the DMA. The artist’s first comprehensive museum show in the US, the exhibition surveys over ten years of her sculpture practice, which intentionally confounds categorization and challenges existing histories of art. In other words, Warren takes all that we expect of sculpture, and flips it on its head.

Rebecca Warren: The Main Feeling continues the DMA’s commitment to supporting the work of innovative female sculptors, many of whom continue to be under-recognized within the history of art. Below are a few highlights of sculptures made by female artists from our contemporary art collection, all of which are currently on view.

Barbara Hepworth, Figure for Landscape, 1960, Bronze, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Meadows Foundation, Inc., 1983.154 © Alan Bowness, Estate of Barbara Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth, Figure for Landscape, 1960, bronze, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Meadows Foundation, Inc., 1983.154, © Alan Bowness, Estate of Barbara Hepworth

In our Sculpture Garden, British artist Barbara Hepworth’s Figure for Landscape stands stoically along the west wall. An early pioneer of abstract sculpture, Hepworth modeled this biomorphic form and then cast it in bronze, leaving gaping openings in the work that distinguish positive and negative space within the body of the structure. While sculpture making had traditionally been conceived as the production of an object in space, Hepworth illuminated the possibility of sculpture making as a process of carving out space within an object.

(left to right) Yayoi Kusama, Accumulation, 1962-1964, Sewn stuffed fabric with paint on wooden chair frame, The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, 2008.41 © Yayoi Kusama E-mail: contact@yayoi-kusama.jp; Yayoi Kusama, Untitled, 1976, Shoes, paint, and foam, Dallas Museum of Art, bequest of Dorace M. Fichtenbaum, 2015.48.22.A-B

(left to right) Yayoi Kusama, Accumulation, 1962-64, sewn stuffed fabric with paint on wooden chair frame, The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, 2008.41, © Yayoi Kusama; Yayoi Kusama, Untitled, 1976, shoes, paint, and foam, Dallas Museum of Art, bequest of Dorace M. Fichtenbaum, 2015.48.22.a-b

Two works by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama are on view in the new installation Passages in Modern Art: 1946-1996. Kusama is known for her uncanny ability to imbue everyday objects such as chairs, shoes, and vegetables with the psychological intensity of dreams and fantasy. To make Accumulation, Kusama coated a wooden chair frame with phallus-like fabric forms and subsequently painted every component of the work in a neutral beige color. Untitled comes from the same series, and similarly features shoes that have been covered in phallic foam cutouts.

Anne Truitt, Come Unto These Yellow Sands II, 1979, Acrylic on wood, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Shonny and Hal Joseph (St. Louis, Missouri) in honor of Cindy and Armond Schwartz, 2002.55 © Estate of Anne Truitt

Anne Truitt, Come Unto These Yellow Sands II, 1979, acrylic on wood, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Shonny and Hal Joseph (St. Louis, Missouri) in honor of Cindy and Armond Schwartz, 2002.55, © Estate of Anne Truitt

A major figure in American art since the 1960s, Anne Truitt is best known for her streamlined vocabulary of basic forms and colors, which typically coalesced into tall, thin wooden sculptures meticulously coated in several smooth layers of paint, such as Come Unto These Yellow Sands II, currently on display in the Barrel Vault. A nearly eight-foot pillar of deep, vivid blue, Truitt’s sculpture projects a three-dimensional block of color into the space of the viewer, merging the optical experience of her work with sensuous immediacy.

Nancy Grossman, Untitled (Head), 1968, Leather, wood, metal, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase, 1969.8.A-B

Nancy Grossman, Untitled (Head), 1968, leather, wood, and metal, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase, 1969.8.a-b

Installed adjacent to Truitt’s column of pure blue is Nancy Grossman’s Untitled (Head), a sculpted head carved from wood and overlaid with leather. Rendered blind and mute, this unsettling figure alludes to the role of the silent witness amid cruelty and disorder within contemporary society. In fact, Grossman began making these head sculptures in the 1960s partially in response to the violence and social upheaval caused by the Vietnam War.

Sculpture takes center stage this season at the DMA, so the next time you find yourself at the Museum, be sure to take a closer look at these works in Rebecca Warren: The Main Feeling and Passages in Modern Art: 1946-1996.

Nolan Jimbo is the McDermott Intern for Contemporary Art at the DMA.

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