Yayoi Kusama at the Gagosian

Infinity-Nets Zssatt, 2008

Gagosian is celebrating Kusama's 80 years of life in simultaneous exhibits of new work in L.A. and New York. On the walls in the Chelsea edition are new iterations of Kusama's characteristic "Infinity Net" paintings. For Kusama, the repetition in these nets becomes a device for qualifying the nature of an infinite continuity. Although the Gag's press release does raise an interesting note regarding the "inherent philosophical paradox" of this method, "that 'infinity' could be quantified within the arbitrary framework of a readymade canvas". But Kusama has already proven that she is not confined by the convenience of canvas works. I nearly cried for the opportunity to be enclosed in a new mirrored infinity room, entitled Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity. The room seems to offer up Kusama's vocabulary for dissection. To her, eternity only pertains to the material reality, which is vulnerable to time and age; whereas infinity is bestowed on the metaphysical reality, impervious to all. The dull glow of specially designed lights hang, projecting to infinity against a blanket of black nothing, like souls that remain after the vessels have ceased to be. In other words, the fabric may decay but the weave is indestructible.


Yayoi Kusama for Louis Vuiton

Also hoping to get in on Ms. Kusama's birthday celebrations are the makers of this artdoc, Princess of Polka Dots. [Website][Trailer]

Although I can't see why you would watch a cache of talking heads hawk a paraphrased press release. All that could be said could be even more illuminatingly surmised by watching Kusama's own thesis, "Self Obliteration," which was photographed and edited by Jud Yalkut. And is available on YouTube in three parts. [Part 1][2][3].


Alice in Wonderland Happening, Alice in Wonderland statue, Central Park, New York, 1968.

On a personal note, Kusama came into my spectrum while examining 60's happenings in NYC. I became enamored with her Alice in Wonderland Happening in Central Park. She came up again when a painting professor saw one of my notebooks (obsessively adorned with peeled price tags) and pointed me to YK's airmail stamp accumulations (one of which is also currently on view at MoMA's Drawing Show). It was these simple works that solidified her as kindred in my aspect.

Chelsea Redeemed

Allen Ruppersberg, Honey, I rearranged the collection as an excuse to stay away from CHELSEA. It scares me., 2001

Scary no more! Chelsea was abrim with respectable exhibitables on my last visit. I'll be posting my picks individually over the next few days. Then on to what is happening at the Modern.


John Salvest, Not Myself Lately. From "Not Myself Lately" at Morgan Lehman Gallery until May 30, 2009.

Baker Overstreet at Fredericks & Freiser

From the Overstreet exhibit, Follies, which appeared at Fredericks & Freiser over the fall:


Alibaster Plaster Caster, 2008


Sequined Cyclone Sequence, 2008


Sizzle '76, 2008


Tubular Bells, 2008


Gossipo Perpetuo, 2008


The New World Symphony (For the Elite Ark), 2008


Technicolor Chromolume, 2008


The Continental Bathosphere, 2008


Ball in the Jack, 2008

Hans Richter's Filmstudie (1926)

still from Filmstudie, 1926


still from Filmstudie, 1926

This exquisite Hans Richter film is screening at the MOMA's "Geometry of Motion" exibit. Visit if you can, if not:

Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac On the Road at the NY Public Library

The exhibition's clever (though garish) layout likens the glass-encased first 60 (of 120) feet of the original typewritten scroll of On The Road to the continuity of a line down the center of a street. The manuscript is displayed in various stages of edits, but I hear the novel itself has finally been published uncut.



The real treasures of the show are in letters and photographs: "papers" (as Kerouac would have called them) and personal artifacts. Ginsberg boasting popularity and the overwhelming reception of his poetry in a letter to Burroughs; charts outlining the code names Kerouac implemented in his novels to protect the guilty; scrapbooks that K compiles and then perversely suggests belonged to his mother; elaborate fantasy baseball constructions; laboured faux newspaper spreads; pulp bookbindings from early editions of major beat works; journals opened to pages that pour over the multiple lives of Jack's most beloved cat...and the flashing green neon KEROUAC sign that leads you into the exhibition, delightfully out of place in the ornate oldschool architecture of the public library. Info on the exhibition here.


The Slouch Hat by Jack Kerouac