Pumpkin

About this work

Yayoi Kusama has painted pumpkins since childhood. Her family ran a seed nursery in Matsumoto, Japan, and she first met the shape in its storehouses. She described "its humorous form, warm feeling, human-like quality" — and above all its solid spiritual balance.

Of all the sources in this exhibition, Kusama is the only one already working like a mosaic. A dot is a unit, and an endless net of dots is exactly what mosaic does by nature. The difference is that Kusama’s dot is painted, while Rami Alon’s is an object set by hand.