As an ordinary person, the world of art seems to be very far from our daily life. A lot of people lack of interest of art exhibition, perhaps it is because there is a gap between artists and us. It is likely that to understand the meaning of many art works is difficult for us. However, Yayoi Kusama exhibition a boom, let many people rarely picked up interest in art, trying to feel the real world of art. Why do so many people so keen on the Yayoi Kusama’s work, hope that by this article to explore.

Zhang YuHeng, 110909241, Class 2

Following the recent Dior exhibition, ‘A dream I dreamed’ was another popular exhibition in Shanghai. People interested in Dior exhibition could be well understood, Dior is a well-known brand name all over the world, whether to buy or not to buy it, people all want to go to see her style. Or the exhibition of Monet, who is the world famous artists, who do not want to watch the painting by their own eyes? However, before the exhibition, the audience knows nothing about Yayoi Kusama at all. It is hard to deny that its boom seems to be kind of weird.

People first impression of this strange exhibition is “dot”. It was likely that her world is form by dots, the interpretation way of the world aroused my interest, and at least, it is an important reason why I went to see the exhibition. I am unable to hold myself back to know, using dots to interpretation her own world, what she really want to express? How did she use the complicated pattern to express her own mind? The answer of this question must be answer by myself after I watching it. I guess there are many fans of polka dots like me, deeply attracted by the impression of it. We almost never see any exhibition give simple but strong impression to the audience like ‘I have a dream’ before. It is common that the posters of the exhibition cannot find any clues of it. However, her works is too strong, can let a person immediately familiar with her style. Probably because the exhibition style approaches to daily life, Yayoi Kusama gives us a hint that we can understand her.

It is worth mention that, there is a psychological study popular in recent years. Many people have claimed to be intensive phobia, seeing intensive things makes them could not help sick. These people can not accept anything intensive, but the funny thing is, there are a lot of intensive phobia patients are also eager to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibition. This strange mood somewhat dumbfounding people, even many people call it the “intensive fear exhibition”.

However, many people do not know the story behind. Kusama fears about trauma since her childhood and she had lived in New York for a long time, which was dominated by male powers. However, her works was not to show what she can see in the world. Kusama created thousands of dots and net patterns to conquer her fear towards the life, and by the works she turned her horror into something funny and familiar. According to her biography, she said “in any case, I was terrified of sex, and of the phallus. My fear was of the hide-in-the-closed-trembling variety. And it was precisely because of this that I made tons and tons of these shapes. Creating them, putting myself right in the midst of the horror, helped me to heal the wounds in my heart and, little by little, escape the fear. Each day I would produce forms that I gradually turned the horror into something familiar.” That may give people who are fears of intensive deeply thought about how to conquer fears. It is possibly that many people believe that the feeling of familiar can heal their afraid of something so they came to the exhibition and try to be relax and enjoy.