Why art matters module 8

The capability and desire to create art existed prior to the evolution of
Homo Sapiens, the oldest artwork having been made by a Homo
Erectus. There must be a reason that humans are drawn towards art.
Studies have shown that art heals by engaging both body and mind.
Humans have been creating art for a long time. Numerous studies
have demonstrated the positive effects of art on both the body and
mind. Therapeutic studies utilizing art began in the 1940s.
Many recognize the calming effects that creating art provides, as it
often leads to free thinking, new ideas, and self-expression.

Figure. Portrait of Frida
Kahlo, by Guillermo Kahlo.
Copyright © Sotheby's.
At the age of 6, Kahlo contracted the
poliomyelitis virus which weakened and
deformed her body.
Later, when she was 18, she was in a bus
accident . The bus collided with a streetcar
and metal handrail went straight through
her body near her hip resulting in
horrendous physical injuries. Her spine and
pelvis were shattered.
She had to undergo more than 30 surgeries
in her lifetime.
As a result she had both physical and
emotional challenges that would continue
into adulthood as she struggled with
chronic pain, infertility, and depression.

Frida Kahlo Painting in bed at
her easel, via Kimball Art
Center, Park City
Due to her spinal problems, she wore 28
separate supportive corsets, varying
from steel and leather to plaster. She
experienced pain in her legs, and the
infection on her hand had become
chronic.
Frida Kahlo taught herself to paint during
her recuperation period. Through her art
she reflected and transcended her
suffering and loss.
In her highly personalized style she
exposed intimate aspects of herself.
Kahlo’s poor health and chronic pain
became prominent themes in her artwork.

Kahlo wrote, “I paint self-portraits, because I
paint my own reality. I paint what I need to.
Painting completed my life. I lost three children
and painting substituted for all of this.” She
wrote in her diary, “I am not sick, I am broken.
But I am happy to be alive as long as I can
paint.”
Instead of hiding her disability and traumas,
Kahlo used her pain and tragedy as a source of
inspiration. In this portrait she seems she is
patiently enduring the pain.
Through her many self-portraits she was able to
project her pain onto the canvas. This enabled
her to relieve herself from the burden of dealing
with her agony.
Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait
with Thorn Necklace and
Hummingbird, 1940.
Oil on canvas, 16 x 24
inches.

Firda Kahlo, Without Hope, 1945,
Oil on canvas.
Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City,
Mexico.
This painting represents a moment
of Frida’s life when she felt very
sick. She became malnourished
due to lack of appetite after many
surgeries, so she had to follow a
strict dietary regime, prescribed by
her doctor.
Here the artist seems trapped in
her bed, weeping, while the
wooden easel above her holds a
funnel. She stares directly at the
viewer as if she is asking for help.

The Wounded Deer by Frida Kahlo, 1946.
Mexico City, Mexico
In this painting, Kahlo represents
herself as a deer wounded by nine
arrows.
She painted it after a failed spinal
surgery that was supposed to lessen
her pain, but instead brought even
more pain. As well as in many other
artworks, the subject is in a desolate,
empty landscape, which shows the
artist’s sense of isolation and
desperation.
In the lower left corner of the work,
Kahlo scrawled the word “karma,”
meaning “fate.”

Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column , 1944,
Oil on Canvas. Museo Dolores Olmedo,
Mexico City, Mexico
In this painting, Kahlo painted herself wearing
a steel brace to hold her body as ordered by
her doctors.
A large opening runs through her torso to
reveal her broken spine. Hundreds of nails are
embedded in her body, the one in her heart
showing an enormous sadness.
We can see tears in her eyes and, behind her, a
desolate background. The entire work is a
desperate cry of pain.

Frida Kahlo, Henry Ford Hospital,
1932. Oil on canvas. Museo Dolores
Olmedo, Mexico City, Mexico.
In the painting, we see Kahlo lying in a
hospital bed, covered in blood after she
suffered a second miscarriage in 1932,
while living in America. This was one of
the most traumatic moments of her life.
She suffered three miscarriages.
The accident and all the surgeries she
had compromised her chance of having
children.
Kahlo channeled her grief into art,
drawing while in the hospital, then
painting the evocative self portrait
Henry Ford Hospital.

Frida Kahlo, The Dream (The Bed, 1940,
Nesuhi Ertegun Collection, New York
City, NY, USA.
For Kahlo death became a
reason to live fully, and to
experience everything.
This painting depicts the artist’s
relationship with death. She is
sleeping in her bed, enveloped
by a plant that symbolizes
rebirth.
The skeleton which lays above
the canopy of her bed, is holding
flowers and bombs are attached
to it.

Frida Kahlo, What the Water Gave Me,
1938, Collection of Daniel Filipacchi,
Paris, France.
Frida Kahlo often said: “They thought I was a
Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted
dreams. I painted my own reality.”
Frida Kahlo, FridaKahlo.org.
She didn’t want to represent her
subconscious, but to let her feelings, both
good and bad, show. Art was therapy for
Kahlo. It was the only way she could depict
the pain she experienced, and what gave
meaning to her life.

For French-American artist Niki
de Saint Phale, and the only
woman within the Nouveau
Réalisme group including
Arman, Christo, Yves Klein, Jean
Tinguely, and Jacques de la
Villeglé, art was a cure.
She used assemblage and
performative modes of
production—such as shooting at
her canvases–as well as large-
scale sculptures she called
Nanas.
Niki de Saint Phalle, 1965.
Gelatin silver print. Collection
Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, New York. Gift of
Samuel I. Hoffberg, 1981

de Saint Phalle (born Catherine-Marie-
Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle, on 29
October 1930, was a French-American
sculptor, painter, and filmmaker. She
was born in France, grew up in the
U.S., and moved to Europe in the 1950s
and became an artist. She was the
second of five children of a wealthy
noble family.
New Yorker writer Ariel Levy reported
that when she was 11 her father abused
her, and in adulthood two of her
siblings committed suicide. She had
what she called a "mental breakdown“.
In the early 1950s she became suicidal,
spent six weeks in a French asylum
and, with no formal training, started to
paint.
Self Portrait, 1958, plaster and
mixed media on wood. 141 X 141
x10 cm

"I started painting in the
madhouse," Saint Phalle once
said, "where I learnt how to
translate emotions, fear, violence,
hope and joy into painting.
It was through creation that I
discovered the sombre depths of
depression, and how to overcome
it."
She believed art healed her. She
said “Painting, calms the chaos
that was agitating my soul, it was
a way of taming the dragons”
Niki De Saint Phalle.
Detail of Pink Nude in Landscape, 1956.

Niki de Saint Phalle
got famous in the
early 1960s for
attaching small
plastic bags filled
with paint onto
canvases, covering
them with plaster, and
then shooting them
with a rifle.
These artworks are
referred to as
shooting paintings
(tirs). Tir is the French
word for "shooting"
or "to fire",
Niki de Saint Phalle making
one of her bas-reliefs, 1963.
Photo: Dennis Hopper

First Shooting at Impasse Ronsin,
Paris.
The first shooting session was
held on 12 February 1961 in
Impasse Ronsin, and was
attended by many artists.
Other actions-tirs were completed
outdoors as part of exhibitions.
On 13 July 1961, at the Roseland
Abbey, the first Festival of
“Nouveau Réalisme” was opened
in Nice. Niki de Saint Phalle
prepared a relief for the event,
which many artists and guests
took turns to shoot at. Once the
work was complete, it was named
Tir à Volonté.

With the help of Jean Tinguely, Niki
de Saint Phalle set up twelve actions-
tirs produced between 1961 and
1963. The majority were completed in
Impasse Ronsin, Paris. The location,
land surrounded by fences and brick
walls, offered a safe place to set up a
shooting range.
Niki de Saint Phale attached various
objects to an old door, a wooden or
plywood panel, depending on the
specific composition. The artwork
would begin completely blank,
immaculate even, painted and
repainted multiple times, if
necessary.
Shooting at Impasse Ronsin, Paris.

Niki de Saint Phalle, Tir neuf trous -
Edition MAT, 1964, paint in plastic bags,
embedded in plaster on wood
© 2021 Niki Charitable Art Foundation
Niki de Saint Phalle created the color flows in this
artwork by positioning plastic bags filled with
paint in the upper part of the board, and coated
them in plaster and white paint.
The relief would be propped against the wooden
fence, ready for the artist, friends, enthusiasts and
visitors to use a rifle or revolver to fire at the
board.

Shooting Picture is one of a series of
works by Saint Phalle titled Tirs,
meaning fire or gunshot in French,
which were made up until 1970 and
involved the artist shooting at the
canvas.
These shootings were conceived as
performances, and as such formed
part of the work. At some shootings
audience members were invited to
participate.
Niki de Saint Phalle,
Action de Tir, 1961

SomeTirs incorporated found objects
into their surfaces, including crosses,
statues, plastic objects, dolls and toy
guns.
Often these compositions focused on
a particular experience, such as Tir
(Autel) 1970, which resembled an
altarpiece and alluded to Saint Phalle’s
convent education.
Niki de Saint Phalle, Altar Black and White,
1962 Plaster paint and found objects on
wood panel 100 X 82 x 35 inches

Niki de Saint Phalle – King Kong, 1964 Moderna
Museet de Stockholm
In this artwork Niki de Saint
Phalle addresses the
Cuban Missile Crisis, in
which the gigantic monster
approaches a bombed city.
It associates, among other
things, an air attack on the
towers of a large city,
masks of political leaders,
including General de
Gaulle, and childbirth - a
recurring theme in the work
of the artist who had two
children.

Niki de Saint Phalle, “Heads of State
(Study for King Kong)” (spring 1963) (©
BPK, Berlin, Dist. RMN-Grand
Palais/Michael Herling/Benedikt Werner)
Saint Phall’s famous Tirs
(Shoot) pieces drip like
Jackson Pollock’s but she
produced by shooting a rifle at
balloons of colorful paint
mounted on white canvases.

In 1961, Niki de Saint Phalle held an exhibition
titled "Fire at Will." Viewers were invited to shoot
a rifle at the canvas, causing the paint to run
down the textured white surface.
The process of creating the artwork became a
live performance event done with the public's
participation, challenging traditional perceptions
of the artist as a solitary figure.
Shooting Paintings involved the viewer directly
and physically in the creation of work, and left
the resulting image to chance.
Niki de Saint Phalle. Shooting Picture, Plaster, paint,
string, polythene and wire on wood - Tate, London

In 1964, Niki de Saint Phalle
introduced the Pop Gun method, a
technique known as an Operatic
Multiple, involving shots performed
by untrained spectators.
This was a dramatic experiment
which later solidified the her future as
not only a pioneer in performance,
but an innovator in the genre of
conceptual art.
In conceptual art the concept or idea
involved in the work take precedence
over traditional aesthetic, technical,
and material concerns.
Niki de Saint Phalle,
Edgar Nash, takes aim at one of two
versions of Untitled Edition, MAT 64

Niki de Saint Phalle, Nana Dawn, 1993
painted stratified polyester
56 by 44 by 25 1/2 in.
By the mid-1960s Niki de Saint Phalle
began making a new series titled the
Nanas, the title of which draws on the
slang word for woman in French. These
figurative sculptures depict women
decorated with bright colors and motifs.
As Niki de Saint Phalle became
successful her personal demons
subsided and her focus shifted towards
new and varying forms of sculpture.

Saint Phalle's largest project is located
in Tuscany. It is called Tarot Garden. It
took her almost 20 years to create the
14-acre sculpture park studded with
monumental figures, some of them 40
feet high, made of sprayed concrete
paved with mosaics of colorful china,
glass and mirror shards, all inspired by
tarot cards. The park opened to the
public in 1998. It was her triumph over
darker angels.
Panoramic view of the Tarot
Garden, 1999 .
© Giulio Petromarchi

Yayoi Kusama at the
age of ten in 1939
Kusama was born in Japan, the youngest of four
children to a wealthy family who owned a large
seed farm, growing exotic varieties of flowers
they sold throughout the country.
Yet her childhood was deeply unhappy. Her
parents lived in an arranged, loveless marriage.
Her father was a serial adulterer and her mother
was a bitter and enraged figure of contempt.
Kusama discovered early that she wanted to be
an artist rather than a Japanese housewife. That
enraged her mother, who’s distroy her drawings
of flowers.

A flower field in the Nakatsutaya
seed nursery owned by Yayoi
Kusama’s family in Matsumoto,
Japan
At the age of 10 Kusama began having
terrifying hallucinations, which stayed
with her throughout her childhood.
She found drawing could normalize
her visions and make them seem less
threatening, as she explained,
“Whenever things like this happened I
would hurry back home and draw what
I had seen in my sketchbook…
recording them helped to ease the
shock and fear of the episode.”

During World War II, Kusama who
was 13 year old, was sent to work
in a Japanese military factory
sewing fabric together for
parachutes. There she developed
sewing skills that would later be
translated into her art.

She found the horrors of working in a dark
factory building as air raid sirens and army
planes blared around her terrifying, a traumatic
experience which would stay with her for the
rest of her life.
After the war, Kusama’s mother allowed her to
attend the Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts, on
the strict condition that she also attend regular
etiquette classes. Kusama had no intention of
learning etiquette. Instead she gravitated
toward American art and studied Georgia
O’Keeffe’s paintings.

In 1955 Kusama wrote to Georgia
O’Keffe for advice. She moved to
New York City in 1958 and became a
part of the New York avant-garde
scene throughout the 1960s,
especially in the pop-art movement.
O’Keeffe helped Kusama find
galleries to show her work in New
York, but she was still living in
extreme poverty.
Despite the hardships, In New York
she found the creative culture she
had craved for years.

A breakthrough came when Kusama
began making her Infinity Net
paintings, made from tiny repetitive
loops in intricate designs based on
her fantastical childhood
experiences, which caught the
attention of Minimalist artists and
galleries.
Yayoi Kusama, Infinity
Nets.

Kusama also began her first
Infinity Rooms in the 1960s, in
which viewers enter a mirror-lined,
dimly lit room alone as light
refracts around them, creating the
illusion of infinite, endless space
and reflecting on our
insignificance in the face of the
vast universe. Dots often appear
in these installations on sculptural
objects that reflect into limitless
fields of color and light, as a
symbol of life, planetary forms or
miniscule particles, as Kusama
writes, “My life is a dot lost
among thousands of other
dots.”
Installation view of Kusama in Infinity
Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field, at her solo
exhibition “Floor Show” at R. Castellane
Gallery, New York / 1965

Though her reputation was growing
within the art world, Kusama was well
aware that her position as
a Japanese woman fighting for her place
in a patriarchal system was precarious.
Her struggles drove her to attempt
suicide several times.
Kusama’s desire to be heard, pushed her
to became increasingly prolific in the
later 1960s, spanning a huge range of
media including drawing, painting,
writing, sculpture, performance, fashion
and installation.
An extreme workaholic, she was said to
have often painted all night, sometimes
working for 50 hours straight.
View of Yayoi Kusama’s studio

During the 1960’s Kusama became
notorious in the press for her
organizing naked happenings.”
In a series of “Body Festivals”
Kusama painted people’s bodies
with her trademark dot patterns.

By the early 1970s the media circus
surrounding Kusama’s practice had led her
to get a notorious reputation in New York.
As a result she struggled to be taken
seriously, particularly when America’s
political climate became more conservative
under Nixon’s second term.
The hard time and mental exhaustion,
coupled with the death of her close friend
Joseph Cornell led her to return to Japan in
1973.
When her father died several years later her
mental health took a major toll and in 1977
she admitted herself into the Sewei Mental
Hospital, where she has been living by
choice since.
Yayoi Kusama and Joseph Cornell
photographed in New York in 1970

In Sewei she attended art therapy
classes and worked on a series of
collages in homage to Cornell, while
she spent a huge amount of time
assessing her life and art.
Biomorphic forms slowly appeared in
her art, particularly the pumpkin,
which, became a symbol of
Kusama’s alter-ego.
Yayoi Kusama, Kusama with Pumpkin /
2010 / Installation View, Aichi Triennale /
2010

Though she continued to make art, for over 20
years Kusama was almost completely forgotten
by the art world, until the International Centre
for Contemporary Arts in New York organized a
major retrospective in 1989.
Since then, her art has steadily grown in
popularity, reaching staggering heights of
success in the last two decades that she could
only have dreamed of in her youth.
In 2017 a five story museum building was
dedicated to her life and work in Tokyo. The
exhibition was so popular, visitor numbers had
to be capped every day. One of the most popular
works in the museum was her famous Infinity
Room Pumpkins Screaming about Love Beyond
Infinity, 2017, a series of dotted, glowing
pumpkins.
Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkins
Screaming about Love
Beyond Infinity, 2017. Tokyo,
Japan

This installation at the Louisiana
Museum of Modern Art, is titled
Gleaming Lights of the Souls.
The installation offered visitors an
immersive experience. Inside the
108 square feet room, the floor is a
reflecting pool; in the middle of the
water, there is a marked platform
placed specifically for the viewer to
stand on.
The walls and ceilings are covered
with mirrors, and around 100 lamps
(which closely resemble ping pong
balls) are suspended from the
ceiling. The lamps change colours
continuously, and seem to go on
into infinity.
Yayoi Kusama
Gleaming Lights of the Souls

Love is Calling is Yayoi Kusama’s largest and most immersive
Infinity Mirror Room. The dark, spacious room is illuminated by
glowing inflatable forms that emerge from both the floor and the
ceiling. Covered in polka dots, these tentacle-like forms gradually
change colors. As the visitors walk through the installation, they
also heard a sound recording of Yayoi Kusama herself reciting
one of her very own love poems in Japanese!
Yayoi Kusama, Love is Calling

At 90, Kusama continues to create
work in a studio near Sewei
Hospital, where she has no plans to
stop anytime soon.
She wrote, “Even now, there isn’t a
single day when I’m not painting.”

Once Kusama said: “I followed the
thread of art and somehow
discovered a path that would
allow me to live.”
From paintings of dots to
psychedelic body art and rooms
of infinite light, Kusama’s art
presents a complex world that
exists just beyond reality.
She has become a worldwide
phenomenon in recent decades.
But beneath the vivid colors,
rivers of pain and suffering run
through Kusama’s art.

Since childhood her art
has taken on a curing
quality, allowing her to
silence the inner demons
that tormented her.
She wrote, “I fight pain,
anxiety and fear every day
and the only method I
have found that relieves
my illness is to keep
creating art.”

“I Just Kept Trying to Make
My Own World”
Yayoi
Kusama
named
world's
most
popular
artist in
2014

ART THERAPY is a technique
rooted in the idea that creative
expression can foster healing and
mental well-being.
Art, either creating it or viewing others'
art, is used to help people explore
emotions, develop self-awareness, cope
with stress, boost self-esteem, and
work on social skills.

Art therapy uses creative
mediums like drawing,
painting, coloring, and
sculpture. For PTSD
recovery, art helps process
traumatic events in a new
way, by providing an outlet
when words fail. With a
trained art therapist, every
step of the therapy process
involves art.
Integrating art into therapy
addresses a person’s
whole experience. This is
critical with PTSD. Trauma
is not experienced just
through words.

Art therapy is most often practiced alongside
other forms of therapy and mental health
management.
To become an art therapist, individuals need
to earn a degree from an accredited institution
of higher education, and pass the Art Therapy
Board Certification Exam (ATBCE).
Some are surprised to learn that art therapy is
an established discipline in the mental health
field. It's often used alongside psychotherapy.
Group mural project

Patients can use art to express
themselves and work through their
feelings. According to the American
Art Therapy Association, art therapy
is a way of utilizing creation to
improve emotional, physical, and
mental overall wellness. During the
process, the patients gain more
insight into their minds and feelings.
Art therapy also helps individuals develop new or better
coping skills. The techniques used in art therapy can
encompass any visual art form including sculpture, collage,
coloring, painting, and drawing. Patients and their therapists
often analyze their creations and how they feel about them as
they work.

Interactive digital
artwork by OUVA,
digital display,
108 x 132 inches.
Lucile Packard
Children’s
Hospital at
Stanford.
Photo courtesy of
Stanford
Children’s Health
and Steve
Babuljak.

Art therapy is used in a wide
variety of different
circumstances. It can treat
many mental disorders and
help patients process
sources of psychological
distress.
Art therapy can be utilized to
serve patients of all ages,
and it's often especially
helpful for people who
struggle with expressing
themselves and
communicating verbally.

Creative therapies like art
therapy and music therapy are
often introduced for children
who have learning disabilities.
Adults experiencing serious
stress can also benefit from
using art therapy to process
their stress and vent their
emotions.
Art therapy has also been
successfully used for patients
suffering from brain injuries,
especially when those brain
injuries make self-expression
and communication difficult.

All art therapy is slightly different
depending on the patient and their
needs. All art therapy is ultimately
done to help patients achieve more
emotional wellness and better
coping mechanisms for the
stresses of day-to-day life.
Art therapy isn't always used just
for the treatment of psychological
disorders and trauma. Patients with
chronic physical illnesses have
reported art therapy sessions have
helped with day-to-day functioning.
The same is true of individuals with
cancer and those undergoing
hemodialysis.
It helps others see what one is going
through.

Art therapy works best when
paired with other forms of
therapy, but on its own, it's
often not enough to make a
significant impact. For
individuals suffering from
psychological conditions, art
therapy might also be paired
with medication.
Art therapy can be used to help
individuals better understand their
thoughts and feelings, and develop
coping mechanisms, process
trauma, and work through inner
emotional conflicts.

Due to the healing qualities of art, it is vital that healthcare
organizations incorporate art into their process and setting. The
opportunity for creative expression, allows patients to lower
stress levels and potentially decrease recovery time.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the positive effects of art
on both the body and mind. The art’s impact on the body also
affects chemical and hormone levels.
Healthcare organizations incorporate art into their practices to
allow patients the opportunity for creative expression, to lower
stress levels in patients, and potentially decrease recovery time.

The arts matter
because they
improve the quality
of our lives.

Why art matters module 8

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Why art matters module 8