Skip to navigation Skip to content
Obsession with kusama
Yayoi Kusama, Flower Obsession, 1994. Performance at Noko Island, Fukuoka, Japan. Courtesy of © YAYOI KUSAMA

The Obsession with Yayoi Kusama

  • Event
  • Webinar
  • Contemporary Art

On Zoom

Thursday, November 10, 2022
6 PM to 7:30 PM (EST)

Free
Registration required

A talk with Jenni Sorkin and Alexander Dumbadze

At 93 years of age, artist Yayoi Kusama is a living legend whose work continues to engage and captivate people all over the world. Join us for this talk with art historians Jenni Sorkin and Alexander Dumbadze, who will discuss key aspects of Kusama’s body of work, as well as her massive impact on art history and contemporary culture.

Jenni Sorkin
Queer Kusama
In this presentation, Sorkin presents an overview of Kusama’s New York-based engagements with the gay liberation movement in 1960s New York.

Alexander Dumbadze
Radiantly Unclassifiable
This talk looks at how the idea of Yayoi Kusama that has developed over the years, but especially of late, has often obliterated the profound and moving ways in which her philosophical grounded practice refused any stable kind of classification in the 1960s New York art world.

Hosted by Cheryl Sim, Managing Director and Curator, PHI Foundation

This event will be presented in English. ASL interpretation will be offered as well as French translation.

Video

To read the event’s transcript, click here.

Biographies

Jenni Sorkin Photo courtesy Sabine Schlosser
Photo: Sabine Schlosser

Jenni Sorkin
Jenni Sorkin is a Professor of History of Art & Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She writes on the intersections between gender, material culture, and contemporary art, working primarily on women artists and underrepresented media. Her books include: Live Form: Women, Ceramics and Community (University of Chicago, 2016), Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women Artists, 1947-2016 (Skira, 2016) and Art in California (Thames & Hudson, 2021), as well as numerous essays in journals and exhibition catalogues. She received her PhD in the History of Art from Yale University and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Modern Craft. From 2021-22, she was Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

Dumbadze Author Photo 2022
Photo: Alexander Dumbadze

Alexander Dumbadze
Alexander Dumbadze is the author of Bas Jan Ader: Death Is Elsewhere (University of Chicago Press, 2013; paperback 2015), as well as co-editor and co-author of Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013; Korean translation 2015). He is completing Jack Goldstein: All Day Night Sky (forthcoming University of Chicago Press). His critical writing has appeared in a variety of national and international publications, including Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden/Prestel, 2017). He is an Associate Professor of Art History at George Washington University, where he has taught since 2005. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Related Exhibition

More Events

IEX Space Explorers INFINI COVER

Off-Site Location

Space Explorers: THE INFINITE

May 3 October 29

The immersive experience Space Explorers: THE INFINITE, presented in the Old Port, is back in Montreal featuring new captivating content captured in space

Experience Immersion
PHI Event Centre Sexe Desirs Data COVE Rv2

Centre

Sex, Desire and Data

August 1 October 31

An immersive exhibition that explores the connections between sexuality and technology

Exhibition Immersion
PHI Event Centre Myriade Chromatique Credit sylvain dumais COVER

Free

Centre

Chromatic Myriad

August 15 July 31

The PHI Centre showcases a light installation with evolving content, adapting to the seasons and exhibitions

Installation Technology
PHI Event Centre Habitat Sonore SE Ov3

Centre

Habitat Sonore: Listening room

August 23 October 22

Tune out the everyday noise and lose yourself in Montréal’s new immersive listening room

Experience Music
PHI Event PDA Pioneer Numerique COVER

Free

Off-Site Location

New Media Pioneers

September 21 December 30

Presented at Place des Arts, New Media Pioneers celebrates the work of Michel Lemieux of 4D ART and Édouard Lock

Exhibition Immersion
PHI Event Centre Spectacle Ying Singh COVER

Centre

Yung Singh

September 23

The rapidly rising DJ presents an exhilarating performance that fuses styles in his own unique way

Performance Music
Revolutionnaires fictifs thumb

Foundation

Fictional Revolutionary Leaders – Film POP

September 28

In collaboration with Film POP, the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art presents Fictional Revolutionary Leaders, a double bill including Gloria Camiruaga’s Popsicles (1984) and Beatriz Santiago Muñoz’s Oriana (2022)

Event Contemporary Art