Greenwich Library, in partnership with the Flinn Gallery, is pleased to host art historian Page Knox for an art lecture on “The Life and Work of Yayoi Kusama,” presented at Greenwich Library’s Berkley Theater on Tuesday, June 7, at 7 pm.
Greenwich resident Page Knox is an adjunct professor and core art history lecturer at New York’s Columbia University, the same school where she earned her doctorate in 2012. She works in a variety of capacities at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, giving public gallery talks and lectures in special exhibitions as well as the permanent collection, teaching classes at the museum (and over Zoom during the pandemic), and leading groups for Travel with the Met. She is also a former docent at Greenwich’s Bruce Museum.
Contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama is best known for her sculptures and large-scale installations, but her body of work also includes paintings, video art, performance, poetry, and fashion. Born in Japan in 1929, she moved to New York in 1958 and soon became a staple of the avant-garde and pop-art scenes. Her signature “infinity nets” of polka dots are a recurring theme in her work, one that she has said first came to her in childhood hallucinations.
“A polka dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless, and unknowing. Polka dots can’t stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka dots become a movement. Polka dots are a way to infinity … Like human beings, a single particle among billions. I am just another dot in the world.” – Yayoi Kusama
The life and work of Yayoi Kusama is a unique testament to the healing power of art as well as the study of human resilience. Plagued by a troubled childhood and mental illness, the young artist persevered by using her hallucinations and personal obsessions as inspiration in various disciplines, overcoming traditional, female-effacing Japanese culture and also coming of age in the male-dominated New York art scene. Kusama’s immersive “Cosmic Nature” installation, which The New York Times called “inspired” and “charming,” was recently on display at the New York Botanical Garden, and her exhibition “One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection” is currently on view at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.
Join Page Knox for an in-depth discussion of paintings, sculpture, infinity rooms, and more, by this most unique and beloved artist of our time.
Before or after the lecture, attendees are invited to the Flinn Gallery on the second floor of the Library to experience Akinori Matsumoto Sound Garden, featuring another Japanese installation artist. Similar to the way Kusama uses color and repetition of dots in her work, Matsumoto uses handmade kinetic objects to compose random shadows and sound patterns, creating an immersive and transportive environment. Like Kusama, his work evokes the beauty of nature and bears a distinctive Japanese sensibility, playfully engaging the senses through an enchanting combination of light, shadow, shape, and sound.
Register for this in-person event using the Library’s online calendar. All attendees will be required to show proof of full vaccination (in the form of their CDC Vaccination Card or a photo or photocopy of the Card) or a negative PCR Test taken within 72 hours of the event. No one will be admitted without this documentation. Protocols may be modified as and when laws, science, and/or institutional requirements change. Please note that all attendees will be required to wear face masks at all times, regardless of vaccination status, per the Greenwich Library Board of Trustees.
With 1,800 programs and events per year, Greenwich Library seeks to serve as a cultural and intellectual pillar of the community. Take advantage of in-person and online training and enrichment opportunities at the Libraries, including bestselling and local authors, conversations with thought leaders, world-class musicians, dancers, and performers, and timely and age-appropriate technology, science, genealogy, writing, and health workshops. Find an event on the Library’s online calendar.
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Questions? Contact:
Greenwich Library
(203) 622-7900
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