Music+Arts=Garden Stage

The art and music collaboration between Stockholm Music & Arts, Moderna Museet and ArkDes, featuring the installation The Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees by Yayoi Kusama and concerts.

On 15 July, you can see José González and Lina Nyberg, and every day throughout the festival on 29–31 July, there will be concerts by, among others, the legendary revolutionary, poet and rock artist Patti Smith. Unplugged, and with her constant companion Tony Shanahan, her son Jackson, and Seb Rochford, they will perform with spoken word and music.

The unique art installation by Yayoi Kusama will be shown from 8 June to 11 September, 2016, and the concerts will give a sneak taste of the Stockholm Music & Arts Festival on 29–31 July.

If you have a ticket for Stockholm Music & Arts, ticket for the concert in the Garden on July 15 are SEK 99 + service charge (regular price: SEK 299 + service charge). Doors open at 18, and the event are estimated to end around 23.

Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees, 2016

In her autobiography, Kusama writes that she had hallucinations even as a child. She has said that these experiences made her feel like she was “returned to infinity, to eternal time and absolute space”. In these hallucinations, the polka dots appeared that are so characteristic of Kusama’s oeuvre. These polka dots gradually spread to entire rooms and eventually into landscapes.

In recent decades, she has used the polka dots in installations in urban spaces all over the world. When Kusama’s art includes trees and nature, the poetic and psychedelic elements in her infinity vision blends with nature’s own mystery. Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees is a work she has previously installed in several cities, including Singapore, London, Aix-en-Provence and Moscow. And now it is in our garden!

The exhibition Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity is on show at Moderna Museet and ArkDes 11 June–11 September 2016.