Art on the Underground commissioned one of Japan’s most famous living artists, Yayoi Kusama, to create the 15th Pocket Tube Map cover in the series, entitled Polka Dots Festival in London.
For the commission, Kusama, whose career spans a remarkable seven decades, used her signature pattern of cartoon-like dots, coloured in red, blue and yellow. The dots spill across the image creating a sense of endless variation and eternity. There is a psychedelic intensity to the patterning that reveals the artist’s meditative state and dynamic vision.
Kusama said: “The dots are spreading out over the earth and beyond, onto the infinite great universe. Like these dots, London is a progressive and ever changing force with a spectrum of colours that echo a vibrancy of life and how brilliantly it shines!”
Art on the Underground’s commission coincided with Kusama’s retrospective show at the Tate Modern in February 2012. The exhibition included seminal works such as: The Clouds 1984, Heaven and Earth, 1991 and I’m Here, but Nothing, 2000.
