Subject Matter vs. Content

The subject matter of a piece of art is defined by what the picture literally shows you while content is defined by the meaning of the image. Yayoi Kusama's depiction of dots is great to use to demonstrate the difference between subject matter and content because they are completely different on this particular installation. As seen with Yayoi Kusama's artwork called Narcissus Garden, the subject matter is a room of 1,500 silver plastic balls that each reflect the person that is standing in the middle of the room. The content of the piece is meant to demonstrate how each person is simply a dot in the universe. She wants to show people that they are a little piece of this giant world by letting them see 1,500 reflections or “other people” around. I found it interesting to see how different the subject matter is compared to the content. When I first looked at the picture I just saw someone laying in a sea of chrome balls, but after completing my research I have found out that this artwork means so much more.

References

Unknown, A. (n.d.). A dot in the universe – Yayoi Kusama and the link between self and other | Mutable Matter. Mutable Matter | Interdisciplinary writing on representation, materiality and agency. Retrieved June 7, 2013, from http://mutablematter.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/a-dot-in-the-universe-yayoi-kusama-and-the-link-between-self-and-other/