TOKYO — Not to worry: A giant
pumpkin sculpture by artist
Yayoi Kusama has been reinstalled on the remote
Japanese island where it was thrashed by a typhoon last year.
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Technically, this particular specimen
of polka-dot, reinforced plastic is a replica of the one that was irreparably
damaged. But no matter. People are happy, and the Instagram-friendly artwork
has returned just in time for Japan’s reopening to foreign tourists after a
coronavirus-induced hiatus.
“The pumpkin is a special feature of
modern art, it’s been missing for a long time and it’s finally back,” Toshio
Hamaguchi, 74, who lives on the island, said over the phone on Saturday.
“Locals are happy to see it return. We’ve longed for this.”
The original piece was installed in
1994 on Naoshima, an island in western Japan that has since become an unlikely
haven for international art and architecture.
The yellow-and-black sculpture by
Kusama, one of the world’s most popular artists, is a cousin of sorts to her
“dancing” pumpkin that was featured at a sculpture show last year in the New
York
Botanical Garden. There is also a giant red Kusama pumpkin on Naoshima.
The yellow-and-black pumpkin, about 2m
tall and around 2.5m wide, was in its usual spot on a pier in August 2021 when
it was tossed into the sea by a storm that packed winds as high as 125kmph.
Staff members at Benesse Art Site, the work’s permanent home, were unable to
rescue it in time.
The pumpkin was later recovered in a
damaged state and hauled away, perhaps to the art-world equivalent of a compost
pile.
“It suddenly disappeared, and that left
what felt like a big hole in our life on the island,” said Shigenori Fujii, an
official from the Naoshima Tourism Association.
The sculpture’s return this past week
made national news. The new pumpkin is a bit sturdier and has a special
attachment in its stem — a feature that would allow it to be easily dragged to
safety if another typhoon were to threaten it.
When the original pumpkin was installed
on Naoshima almost three decades ago, residents were skeptical of its shape and
bright colors, Hamaguchi said.
At the time, the island’s economy was
mostly industrial. The place did not yet have a reputation as a home for
artworks by the likes of Claude Monet and James Turrell, or structures by
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando.
“My late wife asked, ‘What the hell is
it?’” said Yoshio Nishiguchi, 72, an innkeeper on Naoshima and a former seaweed
farmer. “We were all surprised to see the pumpkin at first.”
The sculpture is now seen as a
“treasure”, Hamaguchi said — to the point where, after it was damaged last
year, some residents complained that meteorologists should have issued
high-tide and high-wind warnings for the area as the fateful typhoon
approached.
“This time, I think we have to be more
mindful,” he added. “Even at night.”
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