Kusama’s Final Infinity and Dolly’s Departure
Me with a larger life Kusama!
Bienvenue and welcome back to Musée Musings, your idiosyncratic guide to Paris and art. This week, as I was writing about London’s marvelous museums, pleasurable parks and fabulous food, people kept dying. First Dolly Parton. She was only 80 and I am really sad that she is gone. My Instagram feed has been filled with clips of her singing with various people from Kenny Rogers to Kermit the Frog (not technically a person); chatting on late night shows with Johnny Carson, to whom she sang a song she had written about appearing on the Johnny Carson show, and Stephen Colbert, who teared up as Dolly sang a song her mother used to sing to her, ‘Bury Me Beneath the Willow.’
And I learned about so many charitable contributions that she made as soon as she had money to spare. The Imagination Library that she founded 20 years sends new books to children every month from birth until their 5th birthday. So that no child has to grow up in the house without books. She made donations to organizations that shouldn’t have needed them, like the $1 million she gave to Vanderbilt University’s Covid vaccine research. (Shouldn’t the government have sponsored the research with our tax dollars) Amidst all this, one interview kept popping up. The Barbara Walters interview. Walters told Dolly among other things, that her wigs and clothes made her look like a joke and that her kind of people (Barbara’s) would call Dolly’s kind of people hillbillies. Dolly Parton did not get angry or walk out of the interview. She answered Barbara’s patronizing questions thoughtfully and confidently, explaining that her look was a deliberate choice and that eventually the joke would be on anyone who underestimated her. About her people, she said that while they may not have been ‘educated’ they were intelligent. Walters never apologized for the demeaning questions but the people who post clips of that interview use it to show us how we should respond when someone tries to belittle us. Stay cool and do what Dolly did.
Miss you Dolly!!
And then if that wasn’t enough sadness for one week (added to all the sadness and misery in the world in general) Yayoi Kusama death was announced on Thursday. She was 97. She had been dead for two weeks. AI tells me that “delaying public death announcements for prominent cultural figures is a common Japanese custom meant to ensure privacy, dignity, and a composed transition for the estate and family.” For the last 49 years of Kusama’s long life she lived in a psychiatric hospital, by choice. She checked herself in soon after she returned to Japan from New York, where she had lived for 15 years (1958-1973). As I reread the posts I wrote about Kusama, they almost made the blatant hostility of Barbara Walters’ questions to Dolly Parton seem like child’s play. By which I do not mean to condone Walters’ egregious lack of humanity or empathy but only to say that what a young Japanese female artist suffered at the hands of her white male cohorts and the art world in general, just takes your breath away with its hatefulness.
Whenever I talk about productivity with Ginevra, she reminds me that men celebrated for their productivity are almost always men with wives to care for them. Benjamin Franklin, for example, had not only a wife, but slaves, too (as many as 7). So did the father of our country and the author of the Declaration of Independence. The reality of which the current administration has been trying to ‘white-wash’ since they arrived in time to celebrate/desecrate the 250 anniversary of a country founded upon the evils of slavery and inequality.
Kusama didn’t have a wife, but the psychiatric hospital in which she lived provided her with more than just ‘a room of her own.’ She had a safe place to sleep, food to eat and the mundane details of life taken care of for her. She could concentrate on making art. Most days, she walked from the hospital to her nearby studio to work. In 2017, the museum dedicated to her art, opened. It too was within walking distance of the hospital. Kusama envisioned her museum as a way to “promote her lifelong messages of world peace, love for humanity, and the healing power of art.” Sentiments which Dolly Parton, who told interviewers that she viewed her career and songs as "almost like my ministry," (to) …. lift people up and provide comfort” shared.
So today, in honor of Yayoi Kusama and all the strong and independent women who forge their own path and stay true to their own dreams, enjoy a read of:
Yayoi Kusama: The New York Years 1958 - 1973
Thanks to everyone who has sent Comments, I appreciate them very much. Veronique, a new reader, sent a comment last week that warms the cockles of my heart. And two days ago, Sergio in Brazil commented on a post I wrote about Botticelli. Comments from long time readers and new ones are a gift, thank you!
Que texto agradavel, leve porem profundo, gostei muito vou clicar para ler mais artigos seus. do brasil saudacoes Sergio
(What a pleasant piece—light yet profound. I really enjoyed it and will click to read more of your articles. Greetings from Brazil. Sergio)
From Muse to Maker: “I would rather take a picture than be one" Lee Miller
Hello, I discovered your blog when I was researching the David Hockney 25 exhibition and immediately got hooked. I enjoy reading your posts every week, some more than others but there is always something to learn. Thank you! Veronique
Another great post Ginevra. I am a Wes Anderson fan as well. Deedee, Baltimore
A Life in Art / An Artful Life, Part 2:
As ever Beverly, you shine a light on such a fascinating subject, taking nothing for granted. Thank you. Kathy, Oxford, England
Down a Rabbit Hole of Research to Fill a Lacuna:
Oh, Dr. B., how do you do it? How do you find enough hours to do all of the research indicated by this lavish post? How do you find the hours to draft and carefully edit the post? “The Mme de Sevigne … the … blogger” I love it! Thank you for your enriching work! Morris
