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Yayoi Kusama – Yellow Trees, 1994, 14th Street, New York, 2012 — Yayoi Kusama – *Yellow Trees*, 1994, 14th Street, New York, 2012

Yellow Trees wrapped around building

In celebration of Yayoi Kusama’s past retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art earlier in 2012, two off-site projects took place. In one of them, Kusama’s rhythmic dotted “Yellow Tree motif transformed a construction site in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan into a giant canvas.

A detail of the original painting Yellow Trees (1994) has been printed onto special mesh netting and wrapped around the building. The large-scale (150 feet wide by 120 feet high) reproduction applies patterns to the surface of the canvas, often using strong linear gestures to give a sense of space along with jarring visual contrast. Trees have long been a common motif in art, serving as powerful symbols of growth, interconnectedness, and the natural world.

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929. She lives and works in Tokyo.