HIGHLIGHTS OF SUMMER 2021 NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN YAYOI KUSAMA, COSMIC NATURE on till October 31 a display of art is interspersed within the natural enviroment. Polka dots appear everywhere, a cheelful message both inside and outside the buildings. It is a joyous journey as you travel on the guided bus to the various locations. She grew up in Japan where her parents grew seeds in a hothouse. Her love of nature grew from the visual impact of colors and patterns from the plants that surrounded her. For Kusama, cosmic nature is a life force that integrates the terrestrial and celestial orders of the universe from both the micro- and macrocosmic perspectives she investigates in her practice,” said guest curator Mika Yoshitake. Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who is sometimes called ‘the princess of polka dots'. Although she makes lots of different types of art – paintings, sculptures, performances and installations – they have one thing in common, DOTS! https://i0.wp.com/www.dandelionchandelier.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dancing-Pumpkin.jpg?resize=840%2C560&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1 From a very young age, Kusama experienced hallucinations in which a single pattern would engulf everything in her field of vision. As Kusama explains, "one day I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body, and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness." These themes of self-obliteration and representation of the infinite would become an obsession for Kusama as she attempted to represent what she believed to be her alternate reality. Her use of dots became the manifestation of this effort and has become the defining motif in her work. Like ARTIST DALE CHIHULY before her, she floats her sculptures in the pool, with dots and colors reflecting upon the swimming fish. Yayoi Kusama dazzles audiences worldwide with her immersive “Infinity Mirror Rooms” and an aesthetic that embraces light, polka dots, and pumpkins. The avant-garde artist first rose to prominence in 1960s New York, where she staged provocative Happenings and exhibited hallucinatory paintings of loops and dots that she called “Infinity Nets.” Kusama also influenced Andy Warhol and augured the rise of feminist and Pop art. She has been the subject of major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. In 1993, Kusama represented Japan at the Venice Biennale. Today, her work regularly sells for seven figures on the secondary market. Throughout her disparate practice, Kusama has continued to explore her own obsessive-compulsive disorder, sexuality, freedom, and perception. In 1977, Kusama voluntarily checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo, where she continues to live today. ************************************************ CRISIS IN QUEENS, READING BY JOY BEHAR The reading held at Guild Hall, is very funny. what goes on between a family in a funeral parlor shows contemporary understading and wit so often portrayed on the TV show THE VIEW. Also in East Hampton, at the Chase art gallery, on view is RICHARD HAMBELTON, and his shadow paintings. From his long career in the East Village,