Pumpkins

In the 1993 Venice Biennale, Yayoi Kusama exhibited an installation work that could best demonstrate her creative concept. The piece was entitled Mirror Room (Pumpkin). Black polka dots filled every corner of the room, and the mirror room in the middle of the space reflected every polka surrounding it. The vision of the viewers were lost between what is real and what is virtual - a state of complete obliteration of personal existence and the environment was achieved. Inside the mirror room, the interior space was eternally extended through the use of parallel mirrors, and the pumpkin that was placed in the room was also infinitely reproduced. The space became an expanse of virtual world. Kusama later developed this installation format into a sculpture. The pumpkin in the work Pumpkin (Lot 193) occupies the space in the box which has the same patterns and colours on the inside. It echoes the proposition put forward in Mirror Room (Pumpkin) in which the intangible relationship between objects and space is being questioned. In addition, this work is a continuation of a unique period in her career in the 1980s when she used boxes as frameworks for her sculptures.