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Lot Essay
In early 1960s, Kusama’s sculptures are the unique and early example of soft sculptures. She refers these works as Sex Obsession series.
Equally recognisable as a signature work by Kusama, Pollen (Lot 102) is very revolutionary in form and challenging in content. As the title suggests, pollen is a fine powdery substance which are the male microgametophytes of seed plants. Pollen is a chair covered in white and pink nets, completed with white phallic protrusions made of fabric and stuffed with cotton, with pink polka dots on top. It is seen to represent her neurotic anxiety of male sex organ and her philosophy of ‘Self-obliteration’, she recalls, “I use my complexes and fears as subject. I am terrified by just the thought of something long and ugly like a phallus entering me, and that is why I make so many of them.” It is manifestation and metaphor of the artist’s own attempt to surrender herself to her art, in which an internal obsession is protected into the physical realm.
With the sexualised and whimsical transformation of domestic objects, symbol of feminine domesticity as a dinner chair, is joyfully overrun by Kusama’s erect phalluses and nets. It is an explicit expression of feminist anger at male domination, which, permeated with her personal frustration as a female Asian artist in a chauvinistic white male dominated art world. Pollen represents a striking prescient example of Kusama’s pioneering practice, and contemporary art that wrestles with gender issues.
Equally recognisable as a signature work by Kusama, Pollen (Lot 102) is very revolutionary in form and challenging in content. As the title suggests, pollen is a fine powdery substance which are the male microgametophytes of seed plants. Pollen is a chair covered in white and pink nets, completed with white phallic protrusions made of fabric and stuffed with cotton, with pink polka dots on top. It is seen to represent her neurotic anxiety of male sex organ and her philosophy of ‘Self-obliteration’, she recalls, “I use my complexes and fears as subject. I am terrified by just the thought of something long and ugly like a phallus entering me, and that is why I make so many of them.” It is manifestation and metaphor of the artist’s own attempt to surrender herself to her art, in which an internal obsession is protected into the physical realm.
With the sexualised and whimsical transformation of domestic objects, symbol of feminine domesticity as a dinner chair, is joyfully overrun by Kusama’s erect phalluses and nets. It is an explicit expression of feminist anger at male domination, which, permeated with her personal frustration as a female Asian artist in a chauvinistic white male dominated art world. Pollen represents a striking prescient example of Kusama’s pioneering practice, and contemporary art that wrestles with gender issues.