Basara no Hana (Flowers of Extravagance)

Synopsis

In April 1985 Kusama staged a performance in the cherry tree grove at Kuhonbutsu Jōshin-ji, a Buddhist temple in Tokyo. Commissioned by a professor at Tokyo University, the performance was titled Basara no Hana (Flowers of Extravagance) in reference to the extravagance of the fourteenth-century lord Dōyo Sasaki. He was said to have held a lavish celebration of cherry blossoms near Kyoto that lasted twenty days. For the performance, Kusama encircled the flowering trees with red and white streamers, connecting them in a ‘net’.

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