Sayart.net 

LUHA LEE, luhachloe@gmail.com 

On October 4, a giant pumpkin sculpture by artist Yayoi Kusama was reinstalled on the Naoshima island in Japan after being thrashed by a typhoon last year. This sculpture has been restored after being damaged several times. The sculpture is made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic and is 2 meters tall and 2.5 meters wide. In Aug 2021, the sea swept it away and broke it into three pieces. Kusama's team decided to make a new yellow pumpkin sculpture that was the same as the original.

 

▲ Kusama’s giant pumpkin sculpture in Naoshima island, courtesy of GaijinPot

Early this spring, the artist's team started making a new pumpkin. The sculpture's outer shell is now 10% thicker than it was before, so it can stand up to strong waves and wind in the future. Also, a hook was put into the tree's stem so that it could be pulled to safety if another typhoon came.

Naoshima is also called "the art island" because it has three museums of modern and contemporary art. And the yellow pumpkin stands out against the blue sea, attracting social media users to take pictures of it for a long time.