A ‘quietly terrific’ doco
Kusama: Infinity (E, 85 mins) Directed by Heather Lenz Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★
Yayoi Kusama has one of the most unlikely and admirable career trajectories of any artist alive. Born in a provincial city in inland Japan in 1929, Kusama had her childhood shaped by the twin deprivations of a World War and a seriously dysfunctional family dynamic.
She learned to paint fast, she says, because her mother would destroy any painting she caught her working on.
Kusama persisted. In 1955, she wrote to Georgia O’Keeffe, who she idolised, and included two water colours. O’Keeffe replied, encouraging Kusama to follow her dream to New York City.
Somehow overcoming every obstacle the post-war officialdom of two countries could put in her way, Kusama made it to Manhattan’s Lower East Side 1958, and promptly set in motion her plan to conquer the New York art scene.
What happened over the next 60 years is the subject of this quietly terrific documentary.
Film-maker Heather Lenz has spent 17 years trying to get Kusama: Infinity made. In that time, Kusama has become something of a superstar. Although, she is still routinely referred to as ‘‘the dot lady’’, which is about as misguided and patronising as calling Mark Rothko ‘‘the stripes guy’’.
Kusama’s practice has evolved, of course, but her work is still founded on a desire to capture or illuminate the emotional freight within objects, people and the natural world.
Her famous ‘‘net paintings’’ were a response to the ocean as seen from the plane that took her to NYC. The motif still occurs in her work today.
Kusama: Infinity is a generous, well-illustrated and refreshingly straight-forward introduction to a much-misunderstood and joyously idiosyncratic artist.
Kusama never made much concession to being ‘‘likeable’’, no matter how much the white, male art scene might have demanded that of a young Asian woman alone in New York.
But Kusama: Infinity finds a warmth and introspection in its subject that maybe some of her early clients and dealers would be astonished to see exists.
Even if you’re not a fan (yet) of Kusama’s work, if you like artistbiopics in general, there is a lot to admire and respect here.