We’d never call ourselves art-lovers, but we very much know what we like when we see it and enjoy a trip around a gallery, or a sculpture park. We often comment on how art makes us feel, and also how we can see it have an impact on other people visiting an exhibition.
Yayoi Kusama’s You, Me and the Balloons is perfect for this. We couldn’t help but have an instant reaction to this immersive installation at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, and very much enjoyed watching other people have a similar reaction to the works on display.
Kusama is a 94-year-old Japanese contemporary artist who’s been making art since the 1950s. Early on in her career she started to add polka dots to her works and later moved on to creating large inflatable exhibits. This latest showcase combines the two; presenting vast inflatable artworks covered in polka dots.
The first room, catchily titled “The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe”, is an absolute assault on the eyes. An entire room covered from floor to ceiling in black with yellow spots. Huge tentacle-like creations rise from the floor creating a maze-like structure that draws you in and instantly made us smile. Even the fire-exit signs were covered in yellow dots.
Making your way through the forest of yellow, a set of stairs leads up to a viewing platform where you can take in the extent of the rest of the exhibition. Among the enormous doll- and dog-like creations is a giant pumpkin, and the hypnotic “A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe” – a forest of illuminated pink tentacles covered in black polka dots. Heading down a set of steps you get a true sense of the scale of some of these exhibits.
You also get a chance to sit on the “Clouds” – a specially created artwork designed for this exhibition – which invites you to remove your shoes and put your feet up on a set of amorphous white inflatable blobs. It was a very joyful experience just to lie as a family and pull stupid faces for the camera, all the while gazing up at the bizarre creations.
Another style of art for which Kusama is famous is infinity rooms – mirrored structures housing spheres and dots – which give the viewer the impression that the artwork goes on forever. There are two of these rooms on display, both of which we had to queue a short while for. Even though you know exactly how the effect works, there’s something magical about standing in a room which seemingly never ends.
We spent a couple of hours at the exhibition, and we understand that since the summer holidays started there is more to do in the shape of workshops and activities. One thing we’d offer as a tip is that the organisers are very keen on your arrival time, so there’s no point trying to get in early.
The exhibit is on until 28th August 2023
Further details and tickets can be found on the festival website
