So.

Thank you Yayoi Kusama for letting us participate in your mental and emotional landscape. To have you achingly search and generate joy for others as you yourself struggle to make sense of your own being – it’s been our privilege.

It’s such an irony then to see some people turning gallery to theme park, obsessed with using your patterns as a background for their own addiction. Hand in pocket, the over-shoulder look, their back view against one of your art. Is it possible to capture all angles in one of your infinity pieces? Let’s try.  

“What does this mean?”
“I’m not sure… some nerve or something…”
“You want a picture?”
“No, not nice one.”
Hurried shuffling feet to the next exhibit.

In a gallery of your canvas pieces, a girl instructs her friend on her desired framing. Dutifully arranging herself in a pose suggesting appreciation, eyes unseeing the piece before her, she snaps back to life when her friend announces, “ok”. I can only imagine the thoughtful caption that will go with that snap.

Seeing how some folks take photos where they are not supposed to, harassing ushers to let them go solo in the installation rooms , lamenting how long they had to wait just to see an exhibit… it’s odd how beyond your pieces, there’s another performance in play. Maybe you knew it all along. One of your pieces is titled Narcissus after all.

With all this going-ons, my only thought is that maybe you are not really the one with a mental health obstacle here.