The artist’s lifelong fascination with the natural world inspires monumental floral sculptures in the New York Botanical Garden.
One thing the pandemic has deprived us of — for a little while longer at least — is the heady experience of being lost in a crowd. For some people it’s thrilling, for others unnerving. It’s always a change of perspective. It’s also the feeling I associate with the work of the 92-year-old pop and conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama, best known for her infinity mirrors, her paintings and sculptures crowded with polka dots — and for the hordes of fans she typically draws. Luckily, starting this weekend you can dive into the vertiginous delights of dots and infinite reflection at “Kusama: Cosmic Nature,” an expansive show of outdoor sculptures, along with special gallery exhibits and installations, set among the flowering cherries of the New York Botanical Garden. With timed entry tickets and 250 acres to wander through, the venue also offers a rare chance to contemplate Kusama with a little elbow room.
Three years in the making, the show includes several ambitious pieces, along with a couple of ingenious revivals of Kusama standards and a solid little retrospective of early paintings and performances. (There’s a small free-standing Infinity Room, too — a mirrored little shed in the Home Gardening Center — but the garden won’t be opening its interior till the summer.) Not every new work is equally strong: “Dancing Pumpkin,” a deliriously speckled 16-foot yellow octopus, and “I Want to Fly to the Universe,” an aluminum sun with writhing red tentacles, are perfect; “Flower Obsession,” an installation that asks visitors to add stickers to a greenhouse, too gimmicky.