EVENT

Obsession with kusama — Yayoi Kusama, *Flower Obsession*, 1994. Performance at Noko Island, Fukuoka, Japan. Courtesy of © YAYOI KUSAMA

November 10, 2022 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.