Elite Traveler Winter 2020

DISCOVER

elite traveler WINTER 2020/21 29

Object of Desire by Samantha Coles

LA GRANDE DAMES Known for her avant-garde work (she’s been dubbed the ‘Princess of Polka Dots’), Yayoi Kusama is a celebrated Japanese contemporary artist, perhaps best-known for her kaleidoscopic installations and larger-than-life sculptures. In a partnership with Veuve Clicquot to mark the house’s newest vintage, La Grande Dame 2012, Kusama has created a limited-edition gift box of the champagne that features her signature polka dots, as well as a whimsical floral sculpture. The piece, entitled My Heart That Blooms in the Darkness of Night , was custom-made to wrap around the magnum bottle. A tribute to nature, the playful sculpture has ornate, blooming flowers and tentacle-esque leaves, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. It took over 250 hours to create, and only 100 are available — and only by request. The vintage itself has been created in honor of Madame Clicquot, a trailblazer who stormed the industry with her bold moves as a female entrepreneur in the early 1800s. Despite the two visionary women being separated by over 150 years, this is not the first time they have collaborated: In 2006, Kusama reimaged a portrait of Madame Clicquot using her iconic polka dots for a charity auction in Tokyo. La Grande Dame 2012 $195, sculpture $30,000, veuveclicquot.com

One day, after gazing at a pattern of red flowers on the tablecloth, I looked up to see that the ceiling, the windows, and the columns seemed to be plastered with the same red floral pattern. I saw the entire room, my entire body, and the entire universe covered with red flowers, and in that instant my soul was obliterated and I was restored, returned to infinity, to eternal time and absolute space. This was not an illusion but reality itself. YAYOI KUSAMA

Above and right Yayoi Kusama’s opulent flower creation wraps La Grande Dame 2012 Magnum; celebrated contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama

Photos © Yayoi Kusama / Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot