From my own perspective, several points of interest come together in Yayoi Kusama's self-obliteration work:
- at one level there is the Buddhist 無我’(no-self / no-ego) and '空’(emptiness / nothing), which, as IW points out in the first of today's postings, is very much part of Japanese collective consciousness and manifests in the repetitive - the painting on of her polka dots and her Infinity Nets - and which reaches out a hand to the 作為(intention) and 無作為(un-intention) or 'unself-conscious' in traditional Japanese pottery as well as, in my view, to Lee Ufan's 'Relatum' (see February posts).
I want to expand on this aspect further in a subsequent post because it ties in with some of what I said on 21 November 2010 in relation to Piero della Francesca;
- at another level Kusama transcends her Japanese cultural origins, the 'self-obliteration' taking on a Western tone as she
a) unveils the workings of her mind and takes us into her world of hallucinations and visions;
and
b) reflects/comments on the environment (place and time) in which she lives. This 'self-obliteration' is a product of the 60's Western culture; she lived in the United States from 1957 to 1973.
Her film 'Self-Obliteration' is a good illustration of this; Part I reflecting my first and second points in particular, and Part II progressively moving to my third, culminating in Part III:
Part I of her film 'Self-Obliteration' (1968)
Part II
Part III
