Flowers That Bloom Tomorrow (M)

With its riotous psychedelic colors, vivid patterns, and polka dot motifs, this large-scale floral sculpture is instantly identifiable as a signature work of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. At almost ten feet tall, the exuberant shapes and patterns together with its monumental scale, evoke a Surreal-Pop vision. Cast in fiberglass-reinforced plastic and hand-painted in urethane, the choice of materials projects an almost hypnotic shine, the colors exude a vivid luminosity, mirroring the extraordinary inner visions Kusama has sought to share with audiences in all her art works throughout her career.

Large-scale sculptures such as the present work have long been an important part of Kusama’s total artistic output and she has completed several major outdoor commissions of fantastically colored and patterned plant and floral themes for both public and private institutions in Japan, France and California. 2017 has seen two major exhibitions of the artist’s work, one at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. and one in Tokyo at the National Art Center, with her work drawing both critical and popular acclaim. With her career dating back to the late 1950s, when she participated in (and indeed helped to define) avant-garde art, she introduced both innovative new forms and materials that extended the medium of sculpture, efforts so strikingly on view in the present work.