Accumulation II

Inscriptions

Not signed.

Label

For Accumulation II, Yayoi Kusama covered a couch with stuffed-fabric phallic projections that she painted with plaster and sewed to the surface of the furniture. According to Kusama, adorning the work with shapes resembling phalluses was an exercise in psychic damage control, an attempt to confront subconscious sexual fears by giving them physical shape. There is also an element of hilarity to this piece, as the bizarre alteration of everyday materials combined with overtly sexual symbolism creates a sense of discomfort verging on embarrassment.

An early performance that involved Accumulation II offers a glimpse into the work’s original context. As documented in the photograph below, Kusama posed nude in imitation of a pin-up girl and covered herself in polka dots. This layering of patterns exaggerated the tactility of Accumulation II and its disconcerting sexual overtones while suggesting the artist’s thoughts regarding polka dots.

Kusama’s art is in part an expression of her personal psychological challenges, which she has shared publicly. She chooses to live in a Tokyo psychiatric institution where she has a full studio and access to constant medical care. Though slowing down now due to age, she continues to create art, working with diverse media: drawing, painting, sculpture, installation art, and performance.

From the 2019 exhibition The Expanding Universe of Postwar Art, curated by John R. Stomberg Ph.D, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director

Exhibition History

Acquisitions 1974-1978, Jaffe-Friede, Strauss & Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 8, 1978-January 21, 1979.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 6, 2004

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 8, 2006-May 2007.

Contemporary Art from the College Collection, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 24-March 2, 1975.

Group Exhibition, The Green Gallery, New York, New York, June 5 (or 12)-July 21, 1962.

Improbable Furniture, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, March 10-April 10, 1977; Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California, May 20-July 10, 1977; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, July 23-September 4, 1977.

Kusama: Driving Image Show, Richard Castellane Gallery, New York, New York, April 1964.

Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958 to 1968, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, March 8-June 6, 1998, EX.98.131; Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 9-September 22, 1999; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 10, 1998-March 7, 1999; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan, April 29-July 4, 1999.

Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 26,2009-March 15, 2010.

Part Object Part Sculpture, Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, October 28, 2005-February 26, 2006.

Possibly in Kusama's Peep Show / Endless Love Show, Richard Castellane Gallery, New York, New York, 1966.

Soft Sculpture, Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, Germany, November 15, 1979-February 3, 1980.

The Expanding Universe of Postwar Art, Northeast Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26-December 1, 2019.

Yayoi Kusama, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida, December 6, 2002-May 11, 2003.

Yayoi Kusama, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Rein Sofia, Madrid, Spain, May 10-September 18, 2011; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, October 19, 2011-January 9, 2012; Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom, February 1, 2012-May 20, 2012; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, June 11-September 28, 2012.

Publication History

Lynn Zelevansky, Laura Hoptman, Akira Tatehata, Alexandra Munroe, Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968, Los Angeles: Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1998, ill. catalogue number 43

Udo Kultermann, The New Sculpture, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1968, p. 36, no. 39.

James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001, ill. no. 105.

Mit Texten von Ralf Burmeister, Eckhard Furlus, Karoline Hille, Maria Makela and Eva Zuchner, Hannah Hoch: Eine Lebenscollage, Archive Edition, Volume 3 (1946-1978), Berlin, Germany: Berlinische Galerie, December 2001, 263 pp., ill. p. 232.

Mark Ormond and Diane W. Camber, Yayoi Kusama (Exhibition Catalogue), Miami Beach, Florida: Bass Museum of Art, December 2002, 48 pp., ill. p. 26.

Alice Gomstyn, "What's Under the Hood? A peek at some of the rarest and most offbeat items housed in the College's Hood Museum of Art," Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Volume 96, Number 4, March-April 2004, pp. 30-31, ill. pp. 31.

David Joselit, "Molds and Swarms" in Helen Molesworth, Part Object Part Sculpture, University Park, Pennsylvania and Columbus, Ohio: The Pennsylvania State University Press and Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, 2005, pp. 166-171, ill. pp.170-171 and frontispiece.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009, p.94, no.69.

Udo Kultermann, Neue Dimensionen der Plastik (under the name "Phallic Plastik"), Tubingen, Germany: Wasmuth, 1967.

Ed. Frances Morris, Yayoi Kusama, London: Tate Publishing, 2012, pp. 52-53.

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 170, ill. plate no. 101.

Doryun Chong and Mika Yohitake, eds., Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now, London and Hong Kong: Thames & Hudson in collaboration with M+, 2022, pp. 92-95, ill. p. 94.

Brandon Taylor, Make it Modern: A History of Art in the 20th Century, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2022, pp. 331-332, ill. p. 332.

Provenance

The artist; Richard Castellane Gallery, New York, New York; sold to Belle Aronson Tepper (1897-1993) and Harry L. Tepper (1896-1980), East Orange, New Jersey, probably about 1966-68; given to present collection, 1974.

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