“Shine of Life”
by Yayoi Kusama

Sculpture by japaneese artist Yayoi Kusama showing octopuslike red and white dotty arms emerging up from the water.

Yayoi Kusama, Shine of Life, 2019. Kistefos. © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. © YAYOI KUSAMA. Photo: Einar Aslaksen

Shine of Life

  • Materials Cast aluminum, paint
  • Dimensions 600 cm (height above water level); footprint of 771.3 cm × 725.9 cm
  • Artist Yayoi Kusama
  • Where Show on map

Rising from the water inlet of the mill, this work’s swirling tentacles are a monumental example of Yayoi Kusama’s obsession with pattern and color. The sculpture is named Shine of Life and is the largest sculpture by Kusama in the Nordic countries. The process of realizing this major site-specific work began in 2012 and is finally materialized on May 26th, 2019.

Portrait of Kusama kopi

©YAYOI KUSAMA

Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore / Shanghai, Victoria Miro, London / Venice

Kusama is possibly the greatest artist of all in the art world, and we are delighted to present such an enormous sculpture by her for our season opening

Former director Egil Eide
Kistefos Museet EA Yayoi Kusama 0001 73

Yayoi Kusama, Shine of Life, 2019, Kistefos © YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. © YAYOI KUSAMA, Photo: Einar Aslaksen

Kistefos Museet EA Yayoi Kusama 0001 100

Yayoi Kusama, Shine of Life' 2019 (detail), Kistefos, © YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. © YAYOI KUSAMA, Photo: Einar Aslaksen.

Kistefos Museet EA Yayoi Kusama 0001 164

Yayoi Kusama, Shine of Life, 2019 (detail), Kistefos, © YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. © YAYOI KUSAMA, Photo: Einar Aslaksen

Kusama’s art encompasses a broad spectrum of media, including film, painting, and performance. She is best known, however, for her immersive and energetic installations and sculptures, which have been exhibited worldwide at most leading museums.

My eternal soul is now rising up to the universe.
Together with people from all over the world, I want to sing the hymn of humanity for superlative peace and hope for the future.
My prayers for the world to be filled with love and hope is wished upon Shine of Life.
It is my great hope that this thought is conveyed to everyone, through sharing Shine of Life with you

Yayoi Kusama about Shine of Life
KUSA Infinity Mirror Room Phallis Field 1965

Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli's Field (Floor Show), 1965

Shine of Life is the second work in the park by an Asian artist and deepens the Kistefos’s representation of eminent practitioners from the twentieth century. The work is situated at the very heart of the park in direct dialogue with the natural and the industrial, a marriage of opposites much like the contradictory nature of Kusama’s unique vision: intimate yet cosmic, and natural yet otherworldly.