The thought of continually eating something like macaroni, spat out by machinery, fills me with fear and revulsion, so I make macaroni sculptures. I make them and make them and then keep on making them, until I bury myself in the process. I call this 'obliteration.'
Interpretation
The quote expresses the artist's repulsion towards conventional food and her dedication to creating art as a form of expression.
Yayoi Kusama articulates her disdain for the mechanical and artificial nature of processed food, specifically macaroni, which symbolizes a lack of authenticity and creativity. In response, she turns to art, creating macaroni sculptures as a way to confront her fears and revulsion. The process of making these sculptures becomes a form of catharsis for her, leading to what she defines as 'obliteration'—a complete immersion in her artistic process that allows her to escape the conventional and embrace her unique vision.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of creativity in overcoming fears, one might reference Kusama's quote.
A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots can't stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka-dots become movement... Polka-dots are a way to infinity.
When I was a child, I used to paint intently. The older I become, and the closer death approaches, the brighter my life gets day by day.
It doesn't matter at all for me that I work in hospital or anywhere with limited space. Every day, I'm creating new works with all my might.
You should create a work that is so valuable it might eventually sell at a high price, but you've got to concentrate on how you create that artwork.
18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Middle-earth is our world. I have (of course) placed the action in a purely imaginary (though not wholly impossible) period of antiquity, in which the shape of the continental masses was different.
There’s something very important about films about black women and girls being made by black women. It’s a different perspective. It is a reflection as opposed to an interpretation, and I think we get a lot of interpretations about the lives of women that are not coming from women.
To be true to life, a novel must have an ending that is inevitable given the specific personalities of the characters involved. The novelist must not impose an ending upon them.
I shall create! If not a note, a hole./If not an overture, a desecration.
It's more like you write what comes to you... You try to reflect the mood of the songs. Take 'Rearviewmirror', we start off with the music and it kinds of propels the lyrics. It made me feel like I was in a car, leaving something, a bad situation. There's an emotion there. I remembered all the times I wanted to leave.
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