AIC's 51st Annual Meeting

Yayoi Kusama’s Self-Obliteration (1966-1974) is an installation consisting of six mannequins, four chairs, and a table decorated with an ensemble of tableware, ashtrays, fruit, and a plant. Kusama painted the entirety of this assemblage with her iconic ‘infinity net’ motif, which was a representative concept she used in her paintings and throughout the artistic career. To produce this decorative scheme, the artist painted thick loops of impasto that intricately linked together into a net. The repetition of these loops camouflaged the underlying form thus collapsing the distinction between all elements of the artwork and ‘obliterating’ any notion of individuality.

This study examines the form and structure of Self-Obliteration in preparation for the artist solo retrospective at M+ museum to open in November of 2022. Close examination of the mannequin’s surfaces reveals previous interventions. In certain areas the artist's hand in restoration can be observed while other parts appear to be conservation treatments designed to either stabilize delamination of paint layers from the mannequin fiberglass surface or account for loss. This paper thus details the condition of the artwork, as well as its treatment needs before its presentation within the exhibition. The treatment focused on the consolidation and stabilization of the delaminated painted surfaces on the mannequins and the cleaning of embedded dirt. Technical research of the materials and construction of Self-Obliteration’s painted surface provided a deeper understanding of the objects and Kusama’s artistic and technical choices. Py-GCMS and Raman microscpectroscopy were used to understand the binding media and pigment identification, respectively. Cross-sections revealed the paint layer structure and provided deeper insights into how Kusama produced her infinity nets. This presentation describes both the decision-making associated with the treatment, and the characterization of the paint material intended to broaden our knowledge of Kusama’s artistic practices.