Cyndi Lauper‘s farewell tour began this past weekend featuring art by Yayoi Kusama.
During the first two nights of the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour” in Montreal on October 18 and Toronto on October 20, images of the Japanese artist herself were shown on large video screens.
Images and videos posted on social media show graphics featuring white sculptures and walls covered in the artist’s signature red polka dots. Lauper and other performers also dressed in matching white clothes with large red polka dots while singing the tour’s namesake song for the finale. This motif was central to a critically-acclaimed collection with Louis Vuitton in 2012.
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A press release stated that other artistic collaborations for the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour include Sonia Delaunay, Daniel Wurtzel, Reza Dolatabadi, Refik Anadol and fashion designer Christian Siriano. “Each night of the tour, Lauper will perform immersed in their creations; a one of a kind experience to celebrate with her fans on her Farewell Tour.”
Wurtzel posted on Instagram that the singer’s farewell tour “features my Air Fountain with the biggest fabric ever.” Versions of Wurtzel’s Air Fountain installation have previously appeared at the Tate Modern, the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center in Rio de Janiero, as well as the closing ceremony for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games.
“I want it to be beautiful,” Lauper told The Oregonian on October 3. “I was an art major in school, so I always wanted to combine art and music.”
Writer Jamie Bradburn attended the concert in Toronto and said the visual collaborations made the experience “much more of a visual spectacle” and it was “one of the more impressive stage back drops I’ve ever seen, especially the use of interactive graphics.”
“My wife and sister and I, we were all walked away extremely impressed by what we saw,” Bradburn told ARTnews. “Also you could just see it clear as a bell from where we were at the far back of the arena.”
Lauper also visited the Kusama’s museum in Tokyo in October 2019.
The singer’s farewell tour was announced in June, in tandem with the release of Let The Canary Sing, a feature-length documentary film about Lauper’s life and career directed by Alison Elwood.
In addition to Montreal and Toronto, “The Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour” will go to 22 other cities in North America, including a sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden on October 30. The tour will continue in the UK and Europe starting on February 8.
Earlier this month, the gallery Victoria Miro also opened its 14th solo exhibition with the 95-year-old Japanese artist in London. It included Kusama’s newest “Infinity Room”, titled Infinity Mirrored Room – Beauty Described by a Spherical Heart, as well as several sculptures featuring her trademark polka dots.
Update, October 21, 2024: Added detail about Wurtzel’s Air Fountain and comments from Jamie Bradburn.