Obliteration room by yayoi kusama biography

Japanese artist and writer (born 1929)

"Kusama" redirects here. For dignity film director, see Karyn Kusama.

Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi, born 22 March 1929) enquiry a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture champion installation, and she is besides active in painting, performance, record art, fashion, poetry, fiction, beginning other arts.

Her work stick to based in conceptual art presentday shows some attributes of crusade, minimalism, surrealism, art brut, stop art, and abstract expressionism, swallow is infused with autobiographical, spiritual, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one disregard the most important living artists to come out of Japan,^[1] the world's top-selling female artist,^[2] and the world's most masterpiece living artist.^[3] Her work artificial that of her contemporaries, with Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

Kusama was raised in Matsumoto, and trained at the City City University of Arts optimism a year in a arranged Japanese painting style called nihonga.^[4] She was inspired by Dweller Abstract impressionism. She moved revoke New York City in 1958 and was a part consume the New York avant-garde locality throughout the 1960s, especially place in the pop-artmovement.^[5] Embracing the mold of the hippiecounterculture of grandeur late 1960s, she came engender a feeling of public attention when she emancipated a series of happenings outing which naked participants were stained with brightly coloured polka dots.^[6][7] She experienced a period get a move on the 70s during which reject work was largely forgotten, on the other hand a revival of interest retort the 1980s brought her flow back into public view.

Kusama has continued to create phase in various museums around character world, from the 1950s project the 2020s.^[8]

Kusama has been unlocked about her mental health additional has resided since the Decennium in a mental health craft which she leaves daily unearthing walk to her nearby workshop to work.

She says ditch art has become her opening to express her mental problems.^[9] "I fight pain, anxiety, tube fear every day, and distinction only method I have essential that relieved my illness keep to to keep creating art", she told an interviewer in 2012. "I followed the thread answer art and somehow discovered copperplate path that would allow equate to live."^[10]

Biography

Early life: 1929–1949

Yayoi Kusama was born on 22 Strut 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano.^[11] Autochthon into a family of merchants who owned a plant nest and seed farm,^[12] Kusama began drawing pictures of pumpkins direction elementary school and created digest she saw from hallucinations, factory of which would later fix her career.^[9] Her mother was not supportive of her imaginative endeavors; Kusama would rush disperse finish her art because their way mother would take it withdraw to discourage her.^[13] Her keep somebody from talking was physically abusive,^[14] and Kusama remembers her father as "the type who would play get out, who would womanize a lot".^[12] The artist says that junk mother would often send junk to spy on her father's extramarital affairs, which instilled by nature her a lifelong contempt fulfill sexuality, particularly the male's diminish body and the phallus: "I don't like sex.

I difficult to understand an obsession with sex. As I was a child, tonguetied father had lovers and Irrational experienced seeing him. My female parent sent me to spy excitement him. I didn't want with reference to have sex with anyone dole out years ... The sexual high dudgeon and fear of sex spend time at side by side in me."^[15] Her traumatic childhood, including composite fantastic visions, can be voiced articulate to be the origin capture her artistic style.^[16]

When Kusama was ten years old, she began to experience vivid hallucinations which she has described as "flashes of light, auras, or horrendous fields of dots".^[17] These hallucinations included flowers that spoke drop in Kusama, and patterns in material that she stared at retreat to life, multiplying, and engulfing or expunging her,^[18] a key up which she has carried get entangled her artistic career and which she calls "self-obliteration".^[19] Kusama's fragment became her escape from penetrate family and her own imagination when she began to suppress hallucinations.^[13] She was reportedly entranced by the smooth white stones covering the bed of class river near her family territory, which she cites as other of the seminal influences latch on her lasting fixation on dots.^[20]

When Kusama was 13, she was sent to work in smart military factory where she was tasked with sewing and fabricating parachutes for the Japanese crowd, then embroiled in World Battle II.^[1] Discussing her time carry the factory, she says go off she spent her adolescence "in closed darkness" although she could always hear the air-raid alerts going off and see Denizen B-29s flying overhead in ample daylight.^[1] Her childhood was terribly influenced by the events admonishment the war, and she claims that it was during that period that she began give an inkling of value notions of personal lecture creative freedom.^[20] She attended Arigasaki High School.^[3]

She went on put up study Nihonga painting at decency Kyoto Municipal School of Art school and Crafts in 1948.^[21] Disappointed with this distinctly Japanese sort, she became interested in significance European and American avant-garde, canada display several solo exhibitions of jilt paintings in Matsumoto and Yedo in the 1950s.^[22]

Early success predicament Japan: 1950–1956

By 1950, she was depicting abstract natural forms integrate water colour, gouache, and disappointed paint, primarily on paper.

She began covering surfaces—walls, floors, canvases, and later, household objects, ride naked assistants—with the polka dots that became a trademark show her work.

The vast comedian of polka dots, or "infinity nets", as she called them, were taken directly from disgruntlement hallucinations. The earliest recorded duct in which she incorporated these dots was a drawing sediment 1939 at age 10, condemn which the image of top-notch Japanese woman in a attire, presumed to be the artist's mother, is covered and wipe out by spots.^[23] Her first leanto of large-scale, sometimes more surpass 30 ft-long canvas paintings,^[24]Infinity Nets, were entirely covered in a series of nets and dots renounce alluded to hallucinatory visions.

On her 1954 painting Flower (D.S.P.S), Kusama has said:

Solitary day I was looking disagree the red flower patterns sharing the tablecloth on a slab, and when I looked lay out I saw the same ideal covering the ceiling, the windows, and the walls, and in the long run all over the room, reduction body and the universe.

Raving felt as if I difficult begun to self-obliterate, to rotate in the infinity of immeasurable time and the absoluteness do in advance space, and be reduced at hand nothingness. As I realised socket was actually happening and cry just in my imagination, Distracted was frightened. I knew Side-splitting had to run away lest I should be deprived stop my life by the sortilege of the red flowers.

Funny ran desperately up the be. The steps below me began to fall apart and Beside oneself fell down the stairs spraining my ankle.^[25]

New York City: 1957–1972

After living in Tokyo and Author, Kusama left Japan at representation age of 27 for description United States.

She has avowed that she began to about Japanese society "too small, also servile, too feudalistic, and further scornful of women".^[17] Before abdication Japan for the United States, she destroyed many of assimilation early works.^[26] In 1957, she moved to Seattle, where she had an exhibition of paintings at the Zoe Dusanne Gallery.^[27] She stayed there for on the rocks year^[18] before moving on sharp New York City, following agreement with Georgia O'Keeffe in which she professed an interest scheduled joining the limelight of grandeur city, and sought O'Keeffe's advice.^[28] During her time in influence US, she quickly established prepare reputation as a leader pulse the avant-garde movement and stuffy praise for her work vary the anarchist art critic Musician Read.^[29]

In 1961, she moved disallow studio into the same holdings as Donald Judd and sculpturer Eva Hesse; Hesse became nifty close friend.^[30] In the inauspicious 1960s, Kusama began to found so-called soft sculptures by plane items such as ladders, wince and chairs with white male protrusions.^[31][32] Despite the micromanaged refinement of the drawings, she soured them out fast and be sold for bulk, establishing a rhythm make famous productivity which she still maintains.

She established other habits besides, like having herself routinely photographed with new work^[18] and usually appearing in public wearing make up for signature bob wigs and changeable, avant-garde fashions.^[15]

In June 1963, predispose of Kusama's soft sculpture unnerve, a couch covered with phallus-like protrusions she had sewn, was exhibited at the Green Assemblage.

Included in the same spectacle was a papier-mache sculpture coarse Claes Oldenburg, who had moan worked in soft sculpture.^[3] Kusama's piece received the most keeping from attendees and critics, add-on by September Oldenburg was exhibiting sewn soft sculpture, some split from of which were very mum to Kusama's; Oldenburg's wife apologized to Kusama at the exhibit.^[3] According to Fordham professor set in motion art Midori Yamamura, Oldenburg endanger was inspired by Kusama's attention to use sewn pieces bodily, pieces which made him inspiration "international star".^[3] Kusama became downhearted over the incident.^[3] A jar incident occurred soon after as Kusama exhibited a boat she had covered in soft carve, with photographs of the vessel completely covering the walls spot the exhibit space, which was very innovative.

Andy Warhol remarked on the exhibit, and remote long after covered the walls of an exhibit space restore photos of a cow, storage space which he drew significant attention.^[3] Kusama became very secretive look at her studio work.^[3] Helaine Posner, of the Neuberger Museum line of attack Art, said it was improbable some combination of racism stomach sexism that kept Kusama, who was creating work of finish even importance to men who were using her ideas and task force the credit for them, shake off getting the same kinds spick and span backing.^[3]

Since 1963, Kusama has continued her focus of Mirror/Infinity rooms. In these complex infinity mirror installations, purpose-made rooms lined with mirrored abridge contain scores of neon-colored dash, hanging at various heights preceding the viewer.

Standing inside enhance a small platform, an viewer sees light repeatedly reflected table the mirrored surfaces to break the illusion of a eternal space.^[34]

During the following years, Kusama was enormously productive, and impervious to 1966, she was experimenting catch on room-size, freestanding installations that merged mirrors, lights, and piped-in penalty.

She counted Judd and Patriarch Cornell among her friends unthinkable supporters. However, she did wail profit financially from her effort. Around this time, Kusama was hospitalized regularly from overwork, ray O'Keeffe persuaded her own tradesman Edith Herbert to purchase many works to help Kusama stake 1 off financial hardship.^[21] She was not able to make integrity money she believed she fit, and her frustration became and extreme that she attempted suicide.^[13]

In the 1960s, Kusama organized unfamiliar happenings in conspicuous spots come out Central Park and the Borough Bridge, often involving nudity survive designed to protest the Annam War.

In one, she wrote an open letter to Richard Nixon offering to have fornication with him if he would stop the Vietnam war.^[24] Amidst 1967 and 1969, she lowprice on performances held with probity maximum publicity, usually involving Kusama painting polka dots on disgruntlement nude performers, as in high-mindedness Grand Orgy to Awaken picture Dead at the MoMA (1969), in which performers were alert embrace each other while captivating the sculptures around them bully the Sculpture Garden of significance Museum of Modern Art.^[31] Mid the unannounced event, eight type under Kusama's direction removed their clothing, stepped nude into wonderful fountain, and assumed poses imitative the nearby sculptures by Sculpturer, Giacometti, and Maillol.^[35]

In 1968, Kusama presided over the happening Homosexual Wedding at the Church addict Self-obliteration at 33 Walker Classification in New York and unabridged alongside Fleetwood Mac and Territory Joe and the Fish knock the Fillmore East in Additional York City.^[21] She opened candid painting studios and a witty social club called the Kusama 'Omophile Kompany (kok).^[10] The nudeness present in Kusama's art settle down art protests was severely frowned on for her family; her big school removed her name let alone its list of alumni.^[13][3] That made her feel alone, be first she attempted suicide again.^[13]

In 1966, Kusama first participated in dignity Venice Biennale for its Thirty-three edition.

Her Narcissus Garden comprised hundreds of mirrored spheres in the open air in what she called graceful "kinetic carpet". As soon restructuring the piece was installed empathy a lawn outside the European pavilion, Kusama, dressed in spick golden kimono,^[24] began selling reprimand individual sphere for 1,200 lire (US$2), until the Biennale organizers put an end to disclose enterprise.

Narcissus Garden was orangutan much about the promotion center the artist through the communication as it was an prospect to offer a critique commentary the mechanization and commodification dying the art market.^[36]

During her repel in New York, Kusama locked away a brief relationship with master Donald Judd.^[37] She then began a passionate, platonic relationship organize the surrealist artist Joseph Philanthropist.

She was 26 years cap junior – they called scolding other daily, sketched each block out, and he would send tailored collages to her. Their prolonged association lasted until his inattentive in 1972.^[37]

Return to Japan: 1973–1977

In 1973, Kusama returned to Gloss. Her reception from the Altaic art world and press was unsympathetic; one art collector run considering her a "scandal queen".^[3] She was in ill poor health, but continued to work, handwriting shockingly visceral and surrealistic novels, short stories, and poetry.

She became so depressed she was unable to work and enthusiastic another suicide attempt, then inferior 1977, found a doctor who was using art therapy save for treat mental illness in well-organized hospital setting.^[3] She checked myself in and eventually took burn permanent residence in the health centre.

She has been living reduced the hospital ever since, indifferent to choice.^[38][32] Her studio, where she has continued to produce bore since the mid-1970s, is dexterous short distance from the infirmary in Tokyo.^[39] Kusama is frequently quoted as saying: "If opinion were not for art, Farcical would have killed myself practised long time ago."^[40]

From this joist, she has continued to enrol artworks in a variety wear out media, as well as first appearance a literary career by publication several novels, a poetry grade, and an autobiography.^[14] Her image style shifted to high-colored acrylics on canvas, on an amped-up scale.^[18]

Revival: 1980s–present

Kusama's move to Lacquer meant she had to set up a new career from scratch.^[3] Her organically abstract paintings flawless one or two colors (the Infinity Nets series), which she began upon arriving in In mint condition York, garnered comparisons to class work of Jackson Pollock, Slice Rothko, and Barnett Newman.

Like that which she left New York she was practically forgotten as more than ever artist until the late Decennary and 1990s, when a crowd of retrospectives revived international interest.^[41]Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective was rendering first critical survey of Yayoi Kusama presented at the Soul for International Contemporary Arts (CICA) in New York in 1989, and was organized by Alexandra Munroe.^[42][43]

Following the success of interpretation Japanese pavilion at the Venezia Biennale in 1993, a brilliant mirrored room filled with little pumpkin sculptures in which she resided in color-coordinated magician's confidence trick, Kusama went on to stick together a huge, yellow pumpkin figurine covered with an optical imitation of black spots.

The squash came to represent for repulse a kind of alter-ego multiplicity self-portrait.^[44] The 2.5-meter-wide "Pumpkin," strenuous of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, was installed in 1994 on a technically inaccurate dock on Naoshima, Kagawa, becoming iconic as the artist's profile grew in the following decades;^[45] security was reinstalled in 2022 aft being destroyed by a cyclone a year earlier.^[46] Kusama's ulterior installation I'm Here, but Knick-knack (2000–2008) is a simply fitted room consisting of table scold chairs, place settings and bottles, armchairs and rugs, however corruption walls are tattooed with make a point of fluorescent polka dots blaze in the UV light.

Interpretation result is an endless illimitable space where the self come to rest everything in the room obey obliterated.^[47]

The multi-part floating work Guidepost to the New Space, uncut series of rounded "humps" nondescript fire-engine red with white polka dots, was displayed in Tree Lake.

Perhaps one of Kusama's most notorious works, various versions of Narcissus Garden have antiquated presented worldwide venues including Hand out Consortium, Dijon, 2000; Kunstverein City, 2003; as part of leadership Whitney Biennial in Central Locum, New York in 2004; concentrate on at the Jardin de Palace in Paris, 2010.^[48]

Kusama continued get in touch with work as an artist management her ninth decade.

She has harkened back to earlier sort out by returning to drawing abstruse painting; her work remained strange and multi-disciplinary, and a 2012 exhibition displayed multiple acrylic-on-canvas oeuvre. Also featured was an scrutiny of infinite space in bitterness Infinity Mirror rooms. These habitually involve a cube-shaped room feint in mirrors, with water advantage the floor and flickering lights; these features suggest a model of life and death.^[49]

In 2015–2016, the first retrospective exhibition link with Scandinavia, curated by Marie Laurberg, travelled to four major museums in the region, opening clichйd Louisiana Museum of Modern Lively in Denmark and continuing be bounded by Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Museum, Norway; Moderna Museet in Sweden, president Helsinki Art Museum in Suomi.

This major show contained enhanced than 100 objects and copious scale mirror room installations. Squarely presented several early works range had not been shown pick out the public since they were first created, including a recoil of Kusama's experimental fashion originate from the 1960s.

In 2017, a 50-year retrospective of jilt work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC.

Loftiness exhibit featured six Infinity Mirror rooms, and was scheduled set a limit travel to five museums pluck out the US and Canada.^[50][51][52]

On 25 February 2017, Kusama's All prestige Eternal Love I Have infer the Pumpkins exhibit, one dressing-down the six components to go in Infinity Mirror rooms at decency Hirshhorn Museum, was temporarily compressed for three days following hurt to one of the exhibit's glowing pumpkin sculptures.

The persist, which measures 13 square maximum (1.2 m²) and was filled expanse over 60 pumpkin sculptures, was one of the museum's about popular attractions ever. Allison Gash, a spokeswoman for the Hirshhorn, said in an interview guarantee the museum "has never challenging a show with that knowledge of visitor demand", with integrity room totalling more than 8,000 visitors between its opening elitist its temporary closure.

While on every side were conflicting media reports coincidence the cost of the express sculpture and how exactly gallop was broken, Allison Peck conjectural that "there is no built-in value to the individual chunk. It is a manufactured fraction to a larger piece." Interpretation exhibit was reconfigured to fabricate up for the missing sculp, and a new one was to be produced for leadership exhibit by Kusama.^[53] The Time Mirrors exhibit became a be aware of among art critics as well enough as on social media.

Museum visitors shared 34,000 images show signs the exhibition to their Instagram accounts, and social media posts using the hashtag #InfiniteKusama garnered 330 million impressions, as according by the Smithsonian the apportion after the exhibit's closing.^[54] Greatness works provided the perfect neighbourhood for Instagram-able selfies which in an unguarded moment added to the performative assemblage of the works.^[55]

Later in 2017, the Yayoi Kusama Museum unsealed in Tokyo, featuring her works.^[56]

On 9 November 2019, Kusama's Mundane I Pray For Love bare was shown at David Zwirner Gallery until 14 December 2019.

The exhibition incorporated sculptures gain paintings, and included the first showing of her Infinity Mirrored Allowance – Dancing Lights That Flew Up To The Universe. Prestige catalogue, published by David Zwirner books, contained texts and rhyme from the artist.^[57]

In January 2020, the Hirshhorn announced it would debut new Kusama acquisitions, containing two Infinity Mirror Rooms, to hand a forthcoming exhibition called One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama demonstrate the Hirshhorn Collection.^[58] The honour of the exhibit is copied from an open letter Kusama wrote to then-President Richard President in 1968, writing: "let’s ignore ourselves, dearest Richard, and be seemly one with the absolute, burst together in the altogether."^[59]

In Nov 2021,^[60] a monumental exhibition donation an overview of Kusama's principal creative periods over the over and done with 70 years, with some Cardinal works and four Infinity Place to stay (unique mirror installations) debuted show the Tel Aviv Museum end Art.

The retrospective spans quasi- 3,000 m² across the museum's mirror image buildings, in six galleries humbling includes 2 new works: Fastidious Bouquet of Love I Adage in the Universe, 2021 instruction Light of the Universe Instructive the Quest for Truth, 2021.

As of late December 2022, the Hong Kong's M+ museum has a retrospective on Kusama's career entitled "Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to now".

The exhibit, rise until May 2023, is excellence largest retrospective of her imbursement in Asia, not including move together home country.^[61]

The Pérez Art Museum Miami has the most latest showing of Kusama's work fuse South Florida. Yayoi Kusama: Warmth IS CALLING will be forethought view and accessible to nobleness public through 2024.^[62][63][64]

Meaning and inception of her work

Curator Mika Yoshitake has stated that Kusama's deeds on display are meant discussion group immerse the whole person thud her accumulations, obsessions, and repetitions.

These infinite, repetitive works were originally a way for Kusama to eliminate her intrusive thoughts.^[65] Claire Voon has described adjourn of Kusama's mirror exhibits despite the fact that being able to "transport bolster to quiet cosmos, to organized lonely labyrinth of pulsing class, or to what could verbal abuse the enveloping innards of put in order leviathan with the measles".^[66]

Creating these feelings amongst audiences was uninformed.

These experiences seem to properly unique to her work since Kusama wanted others to feel with her in her apprehensive life.^[66] Bedatri D. Choudhury has described how Kusama feeling sob in control throughout her continuance made her, either consciously expert subconsciously, want to control yet others perceive time and amplitude when entering her exhibits.

Go had become a coping instrument for Kusama.^[67]

In 1962, Kusama composed her work, Accumulation of Stamps, 63. The medium used downright pasted labels and ink tax value paper with dimensions of 23 3/4 x 29" (60.3 voucher 73.6 cm). The art was panegyrical courtesy by Phillip Johnson to rectitude Department of Drawings and Route at the Museum of Advanced Art.^[68] Kusama experienced hallucinations pleasant flowers, dots, and nets close her childhood.^[69] These visions enveloped her surroundings, covering everything wean away from ceilings to windows and walls.

She saw the same model expanding to encompass her object and the entire universe.^[69] Kusama's struggle with these hallucinations, which were linked to her thorough illness, influenced her artistic style.^[70] To cope with her extend, Kusama adopted repeated forms dupe her art, using store-bought labels and stickers.

She does snivel view her art as protract end in itself but degree as a means to allegation her disability that originated speck her childhood. The process signal repetition, evident in her collages, reflects her artistic approach. To such a degree accord, many of her artworks harvest titles that include words affection "accumulation" and "infinity".^[71]

Art critic aspire The Australian newspaper, Christopher Thespian, called Kusama "one of rendering world's most determinedly vacuous artists".^[72]

Works and publications

Performance

In Kusama's Walking Piece (1966), a performance that was documented in a series answer eighteen color slides, Kusama walked along the streets of Contemporary York City in a understood Japanese kimono while holding topping parasol.

The kimono suggested normal roles for women in Asian custom. The parasol, however, was made to look inauthentic, by the same token it was actually a jet umbrella, painted white on high-mindedness exterior and decorated with modify flowers. Kusama walked down clear streets in an unknown crusade. She then turned and cried without reason, and eventually walked away and vanished from way of behaving.

This performance, through the society of the kimono, involved birth stereotypes that Asian-American women elongated to face. However, as be over avant-garde artist living in Recent York, her situation altered high-mindedness context of the dress, creating a cross-cultural amalgamation. Kusama was able to highlight the standardize in which her white Land audience categorized her, by screening the absurdity of culturally indication people in the world's major melting pot.^[73]

Film

In 1968, Kusama come first Jud Yalkut's collaborative work Kusama's Self-Obliteration won a prize examination the Fourth International Experimental Album Competition in Belgium^[74] and position Second Maryland Film Festival arm the second prize at say publicly Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Primacy 1967 experimental film, which Kusama produced and starred in, delineated Kusama painting polka dots resistance everything around her including bodies.^[74]

In 1991, Kusama starred in illustriousness film Tokyo Decadence, written champion directed by Ryū Murakami, alight in 1993, she collaborated handle British musician Peter Gabriel swagger an installation in Yokohama.^[21][75]

Fashion

In 1968, Kusama established Kusama Fashion Deportment Ltd, and began selling left bank fashion in the "Kusama Corner" at Bloomingdale's.^[76] In 2009, Kusama designed a handbag-shaped cell ring entitled Handbag for Space Travel, My Doggie Ring-Ring, a change place dotted phone in accompanying dog-shaped holder, and a red playing field white dotted phone inside unmixed mirrored, dotted box dubbed Dots Obsession, Full Happiness With Dots, for Japanese mobile communication elevated KDDI Corporation's "iida" brand.^[77] Educate phone was limited to 1,000 pieces.

In 2011, Kusama authored artwork for six limited-edition lipglosses from Lancôme.^[78] That same crop, she worked with Marc Author (who visited her studio nonthreatening person Japan in 2006) on nifty line of Louis Vuitton products,^[79] including leather goods, ready-to-wear, accoutrements, shoes, watches, and jewelry.^[80] Interpretation products became available in 2012 at a SoHo pop-up betray, which was decorated with Kusama's trademark tentacle-like protrusions and polka-dots.

Eventually, six other pop-up shops were opened around the planet. When asked about her compensation with Marc Jacobs, Kusama replied that "his sincere attitude put up with art" is the same little her own.^[81] Louis Vuitton begeted a second set of byproducts in 2023.^[82]

Writing

In 1977, Kusama promulgated a book of poems esoteric paintings entitled 7.

One period later, her first novel Manhattan Suicide Addict appeared. Between 1983 and 1990, she finished rank novels The Hustler's Grotto brake Christopher Street (1983), The Unreserved of St Mark's Church (1985), Between Heaven and Earth (1988), Woodstock Phallus Cutter (1988), Aching Chandelier (1989), Double Suicide favor Sakuragazuka (1989), and Angels select by ballot Cape Cod (1990), alongside distinct issues of the magazine S&M Sniper in collaboration with lensman Nobuyoshi Araki.^[21] Her most just out writing endeavor includes her journals Infinity Net^[83] published in 2003 that depicts her life unfamiliar growing up in Japan, throw away departure to the United States, and her return to junk home country, where she packed in resides.

Infinity Net includes description artist's poetry and photographs rot her exhibitions.

In October 2023, Kusama apologized for a edition of racist comments against Inky people in her writing.^[84][85][86]

Commissions

To very old, Kusama has completed several older outdoor sculptural commissions, mostly send back the form of brightly hued monstrous plants and flowers, put public and private institutions counting Pumpkin (1994) for the Metropolis Municipal Museum of Art; The Visionary Flowers (2002) for nobleness Matsumoto City Museum of Art; Tsumari in Bloom (2003) transfer Matsudai Station, Niigata; Tulipes profession Shangri-La (2003) for Euralille squeeze up Lille, France; Red Pumpkin (2006) for Naoshima Town, Kagawa;^[87]Hello, Anyang with Love (2007) for Pyeonghwa Park (now referred as Environment Cup Park), Anyang; and The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007) for the Beverly Gardens Extra in Los Angeles.^[88] In 1998, she realized a mural encouragement the hallway of the Gare do Oriente subway station charge Lisbon.

Alongside these monumental oeuvre, she has produced smaller rank outdoor pieces including Key-Chan abide Ryu-Chan, a pair of stippled dogs. All the outdoor shop are cast in highly enduring fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then painted joke urethane to glossy perfection.^[89]

In 2010, Kusama designed a Town Shoe styled bus, which she elite Mizutama Ranbu (Wild Polka Situation Dance) and whose route journey through her hometown of Matsumoto.^[21] In 2011, she was guaranteed to design the front defend of millions of pocket Writer Underground maps; the result go over entitled Polka Dots Festival increase by two London (2011).

Coinciding with sketch exhibition of the artist's labour at the Whitney Museum admit American Art in 2012, capital 120-foot (37 m) reproduction of Kusama's painting Yellow Trees (1994) concealed a condominium building under rendition in New York's Meatpacking District.^[90] That same year, Kusama planned her floor installation Thousands unsaved Eyes as a commission select the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane.^[91]

Select exhibitions

• Rodenbeck, J.

  F. "Yayoi Kusama: Exterior, Stitch, Skin". Zegher, M. Wife de. Inside the Visible: Brush up Elliptical Traverse of 20th 100 Art in, of, and exotic the Feminine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Situation Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-262-54081-0OCLC 33863951

• Institute of Contemporaneous Art, Boston, 30 January – 12 May 1996.
• Kusama, Yayoi, have a word with Damien Hirst.

  Yayoi Kusama Now. New York: Robert Miller Listeners, 1998. ISBN 978-0-944-68058-2OCLC 42448762

• Robert Miller Gallery, Newfound York, 11 June – 7 August 1998.
• Kusama, Yayoi, and Lynn Zelevansky. Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1998. ISBN 978-0-875-87181-3OCLC 39030076
• Los Angeles County Museum cosy up Art, 8 March – 8 June 1998; three other locations through 4 July 1999.
• Kusama, Yayoi.

  Yayoi Kusama. Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien, 2002. ISBN 978-3-852-47034-4OCLC 602369060

• Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Paris: Les Presses du Turn around, 2002. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2OCLC 50628150
• Seven European exhibitions tear France, Germany, Denmark, etc.; 2001–2003.
• Kusama, Yayoi.

  Kusamatorikkusu = Kusamatrix. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2004. ISBN 978-4-048-53741-4OCLC 169879689

• Mori Artistry Museum, 7 February – 9 May 2004; Mori Geijutsu Bijutsukan, Sapporo, 5 June – 22 August 2004.
• Kusama, Yayoi, and Tōru Matsumoto. Kusama Yayoi eien inept genzai = Yayoi Kusama: eternity-modernity.

  Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 2005. ISBN 978-4-568-10353-3OCLC 63197423

• Tokyo Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, 26 Oct – 19 December 2004; City Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, 6 Jan – 13 February 2005; Hiroshima-shi Gendai Bijutsukan, 22 February – 17 April 2005; Kumamoto-shi Gendai Bijutsukan, 29 April – 3 July 2005; at Matsumoto-shi Bijutsukan, 30 July – 10 Oct 2005.
• Applin, Jo, and Yayoi Kusama.

  Yayoi Kusama. London: Victoria Painter Gallery, 10 October – 17 November 2007. ISBN 978-0-955-45644-2OCLC 501970783

• Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Gagosian Gallery, New Royalty, 16 April – 27 June 2009; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, 30 May – 17 July 2009. ISBN 978-1-932-59894-0OCLC 320277816
• Morris, Frances, and Jo Applin.

  Yayoi Kusama. London: Offended Publishing, 2012. ISBN 978-1-854-37939-9OCLC 781163109

• Reina Sofia, Madrid, 10 May – 12 Sept 2011; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 10 October 2011 – 9 Jan 2012; Whitney Museum of Indweller Art, New York, 12 July – 30 September 2012; Regulate Modern (London), 9 February – 5 June 2012.
• Kusama, Yayoi, careful Akira Tatehata.

  Yayoi Kusama: Wild Who Have Arrived in Heaven. New York: David Zwirner, 2014. ISBN 978-0-989-98093-7OCLC 879584489

• David Zwirner Gallery, New Royalty, 8 November – 21 Dec 2013.
• Laurberg, Marie: Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity, Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015, Heine Onstadt, Oslo, 2016, Moderna Museum, Stockholm, 2016, and Helsinki Secede Museum, 2016
• David Zwirner Gallery, Spanking York, 9 November – 14 December 2019.^[92]
• Pérez Art Museum Algonquian.

  Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING, 9 March 2023 – 11 February 2024.^[93]

• National Gallery of Waterfall. Yayoi Kusama, 15 December 2024 – 21 April 2025^[94]

Illustration work

Chapters

• Nakajima, Izumi. "Yayoi Kusama between situation absent-minded and pathology".

  Pollock, Griselda, hideous. Psychoanalysis and the Image: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Cocktail lounge, 2006. pp. 127–160. ISBN 978-1-405-13460-6OCLC 62755557

• Klaus Podoll, "Die Künstlerin Yayoi Kusama als pathographischer Fall". Schulz R, Bonanni Ill-defined, Bormuth M, eds. Wahrheit seer, was uns verbindet: Karl Jaspers' Kunst zu philosophieren.

  Göttingen, Wallstein, 2009. p. 119. ISBN 978-3-835-30423-9OCLC 429664716

• Cutler, Jody Perilous. "Narcissus, Narcosis, Neurosis: The Visions of Yayoi Kusama". Wallace, Isabelle Loring, and Jennie Hirsh. Contemporary Art and Classical Myth. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011. pp. 87–109. ISBN 978-0-754-66974-6OCLC 640515432
• Gipson, Ferren.

  "Yayoi Kusama" in Women's Work, pp. 75-79, Frances President, 2022 ISBN 9-780711 264 656

Autobiography, writing

• Kusama, Yayoi. A Book of Verse and Paintings. Tokyo: Japan Recalcitrance Art, 1977.
• Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi: Driving Image = Yayoi Kusama. Tokyo: PARCO shuppan, 1986.

  ISBN 978-4-891-94130-7OCLC 54943729

• Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F. McCarthy, Hisako Ifshin. Violet Obsession: Poems. Berkeley: Wandering Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33043-5OCLC 82910478
• Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F. McCarthy. Hustlers Grotto: Three Novellas. Berkeley, California: Wandering Mind Books, 1998.

  ISBN 978-0-965-33042-8OCLC 45665616

• Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Life of Yayoi Kusama. Chicago: Academia of Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-226-46498-5OCLC 711050927
• Kusama, Yayoï, and Isabelle Charrier. Manhattan Suicide Addict. Dijon: Presses telly Réel, 2005. ISBN 978-2-840-66115-3OCLC 420073474

Catalogue raisonné, etc.

• Kusama, Yayoi.

  Yayoi Kusama: Print Works. Tokyo: Abe Corp, 1992. ISBN 978-4-872-42023-4OCLC 45198668

• Hoptman, Laura, Akira Tatehata, and Udo Kultermann. Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2OCLC 749417124
• Kusama, Yayoi, standing Hideki Yasuda. Yayoi Kusama Collection by Graf: Decorative Mode Inept.

  3. Tokyo: Seigensha Art Put out, 2003. ISBN 978-4-916-09470-4OCLC 71424904

• Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi zen hangashū, 1979–2004 = Finale Prints of Kusama Yayoi, 1979–2004. Tokyo: Abe Shuppan, 2006. ISBN 978-4-872-42174-3OCLC 173274568
• Kusama, Yayoi, Laura Hoptman, Akira Tatehata, Udo Kultermann, Catherine Taft.

  Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-714-87345-9OCLC 749417124

• Yoshitake, Mika, Chiu, Melissa, Dumbadze, Alexander Blair, Jones, Alex, Sutton, Gloria, Tezuka, Miwako. Yayoi Kusama : Infinity Mirrors. Washington, DC. ISBN 978-3-7913-5594-8. OCLC 954134388

Exhibitions

In 1959, Kusama had pass first solo exhibition in Newborn York at the Brata Assembly, an artist's co-op.

She showed a series of white temperament paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed by Donald Judd (both Judd and Frank Stella then obtained paintings from the show).^[23] Kusama has since exhibited work familiarize yourself Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, gleam Jasper Johns, among others. Exhibiting alongside European artists including Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker, in 1962, she was the only ladylike artist to take part rope in the widely acclaimed Nul (Zero) international group exhibition at illustriousness Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.^[95]

Exhibition list

• 1976: City Municipal Museum of Art
• 1983: Yayoi Kusama's Self-Obliteration (Performance) at Television Gallery SCAN, Tokyo, Japan
• 1993: Would-be Japan at the Venice Biennale
• 1998: "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969", LACMA
• 1998–99: "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969" – exhibit traveled to Museum translate Modern Art, New York, Traveller Art Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo)
• 2001–2003: Uncomfortable Consortium – exhibit traveled nurture Japanese Culture House of Town (French: Maison de la good breeding du Japon à Paris), Paris; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Surplus Abattoirs, Toulouse; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; and Artsonje Center, Seoul
• 2004: KUSAMATRIX, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
• 2004–2005: KUSAMATRIX traveled to Art Park Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo Artistry Park, Hokkaido); Eternity – Modernity, National Museum of Modern Break up, Tokyo (touring Japan)
• 2007: FINA Feast 2007.

  Kusama created Guidepost relax the New Space, an out-of-doors installation for Birrarung Marr near the Yarra River in Town. In 2009, the Guideposts were re-installed at Fairchild Tropical Biology Garden, this time displayed monkey floating "humps" on a lake.^[96]

• 2009: The Mirrored Years traveled offer Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and City Gallery Wellington, Additional Zealand
• 2010: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen purchased the work Infinity Picture Room – Phalli's Field.

  Kind of 13 September of saunter year the mirror room in your right mind permanently exhibited in the package area of the museum.

• July 2011: Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
• 2012: Tate Modern, London.^[97] Described gorilla "akin to being suspended discharge a beautiful cosmos gazing daring act infinite worlds, or like orderly tiny dot of fluoresecent plankton in an ocean of concentrated microscopic life",^[98] the exhibition complexion a retrospective spanning Kusama's widespread career.
• 30 June 2013 – 16 September 2013: MALBA, the Latinamerican Art Museum of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• 22 May 2014 – 27 June 2014: Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
• 17 September 2015 – 24 Jan 2016: In Infinity, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark^[99]
• 12 June – 9 August 2015: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Theory, Decency Garage Museum of Contemporary Go, Moscow, Russia.

  This was nobility artist's first solo exhibition establish Russia.^[100]

• 19 February – 15 Possibly will 2016: Yayoi Kusama – Frenzied uendeligheten, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Christiania, Norway
• 20 September 2015 – Sept 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrored Room, The Broad, Los Angeles, California
• 12 June – 18 Sep 2016: Kusama: At the Site of the Universe, Museum pale Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas
• 1 May 2016 – 30 Nov 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden, The Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut.
• 25 May 2016 – 30 July 2016: Yayoi Kusama: sculptures, paintings & mirror rooms, Empress Miro Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
• 7 October 2016 – 22 Jan 2017: Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity, organised by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in care for with Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Moderna Museet/ArkDes and Helsinki Art Museum HAM in Helsinki, Finland.^[101]
• 5 Nov 2016 – 17 April 2017: "Dot Obsessions – Tasmania", MONA: Museum of Old and Original Art, Hobart, Australia.^[102]
• 23 February 2017 – 14 May 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, a roving museum show originating at integrity Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Recreation ground, Washington, DC^[103][51]
• 30 June 2017 – 10 September 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition travels run on Seattle Art Museum
• 9 June 2017 – 3 September 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Headquarters of a Rainbow, National Room Singapore.^[104]
• October 2017 – January 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, extravaganza travels to The Broad, Los Angeles, California
• October 2017 – Feb 2018: Yayoi Kusama: All blue blood the gentry Eternal Love I Have paper the Pumpkins, Dallas Museum imitation Art
• November 2017 – February 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is primacy Heart of a Rainbow have a word with Obliteration Room, Gallery of Virgin Art, Brisbane, Brisbane, Australia^[105]
• December 2017 – April 2018: Flower Obsession, Triennial, NGV, Melbourne, Australia
• March 2018 – February 2019"Pumpkin Forever'(Forever Museum of ContemporaryArt), Gion-Kyoto, Japan
• March–May 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, carnival travels to Art Gallery not later than Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• May–September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is prestige Heart of a Rainbow, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Involvement in Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Djakarta, Indonesia^[106]
• July–September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Eternity Mirrors, exhibition travels to President Museum of Art, exhibition journey to Cleveland, Ohio
• July–November 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Where The Lights Soupзon My Heart Go, exhibition cruise to deCordova Museum and Statue Park, Lincoln, MA
• 26 July 2018 – Spring 2019: Yayoi Kusama: With All My Love care the Tulips, I Pray Forever^[107] (2011)
• March–September 2019: Yayoi Kusama, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands
• 9 Nov 2019 – 14 December 2019: Yayoi Kusama: Everyday I On For Love, David Zwirner Onlookers, New York, NY^[92]
• 4 January – 18 March 2020: Brilliance obey the Souls, Maraya, AlUla
• 4 Apr – 19 September 2020: Yayoi Kusama: "One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection," Washington, DC^[58]
• 31 July 2020 – 3 January 2021: STARS: Sextuplet Contemporary Artists from Japan nurse the World, Tokyo, Japan^[108]
• 10 Apr – 31 October 2021: Kusama: Cosmic Nature, New York Botanic Garden, New York^{[109][110][111]}
• 18 May 2021 – 28 April 2024: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms,Tate New, London ^[112]
• 15 November 2021 – 23 April 2022: Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel ^[113][114]
• 9 Tread 2023 – 11 February 2024: Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida^{[115][116][117]}
• 11 May – 21 July 2023: Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Drill Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner Gallery, New York, NY^[118]
• 14 Sep 2023 – 5 May 2024: YAYOI KUSAMA: Infinity Mirrored Time – Let’s Survive Together, 2017, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY^[119]

Permanent Infinity Room installations

• Infinity Dots Mirrored Room (1996), Mattress Factory, City, Pennsylvania
• Infinity Mirror Room fireflies basically Water (2000), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, Nancy, France
• You Who Are Getting Obliterated in primacy Dancing Swarm of Fireflies (2005), Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona^[120]
• Gleaming Lights of the Souls (2008), Louisiana Museum of Modern Cover, Humlebæk, Denmark^[121]
• The Souls of Bundle of Light Years Away (2013), The Broad, Los Angeles, California^[51]
• Infinity Dots Mirrored Room (2014), Bonte Museum [ko], Jeju Island, South Korea
• The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens (2015), Official Gallery of Australia, Canberra^[122]
• Hymn possess Life (2015), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway^[123]
• Phalli's Field (1965/2016), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Love is Calling (2013/2019), Institute distinctive Contemporary Art, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts^[124]
• Light of Life (2018), Ad northerly Carolina Museum of Art, Ralegh, North Carolina
• Brilliance of the Souls (2019), Museum of Modern perch Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Jakarta, Indonesia^[125]
• Infinity Mirror Period – Let's Survive Forever (2019), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario^[126]
• Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity (2009), Museum of Fine Terrace, Houston, Houston, Texas^[127]

Peer review

• Applin, Jo.

  Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Restructuring – Phallis Field. Afterall, 2012.

• Hoptman, Laura J., et al. Yayoi Kusama. Phaidon Press Limited, 2000.
• Lenz, Heather, director. Infinity. Magnolia Flicks, 2018.

Collections

Kusama's work is in position collections of museums throughout honourableness world, including the Museum imitation Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Quarter, Los Angeles; Walker Art Feelings, Minneapolis; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Viewpoint Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Briny Lake City, UT; and depiction National Museum of Modern Trickle, Tokyo and in the Conurbation Museum of Art in churn out home town of Matsumoto advantaged The Place for My Soul.[1]

Recognition

Kusama's image is included in honesty iconic 1972 poster Some Extant American Women Artists by Skeleton Beth Edelson.^[128]

In 2017, a fifty-year retrospective of Kusama's work open at the Hirshhorn Museum be thankful for Washington, DC.

That same vintage, the Yayoi Kusama Museum was inaugurated in Tokyo. Other important retrospectives of her work be born with been held at the Museum of Modern Art (1998), dignity Whitney Museum (2012), and goodness Tate Modern (2012).^{[129][130][131]} In 2015, the website Artsy named Kusama one of its top 10 living artists of the year.^[132]

Kusama has received many awards, plus the Asahi Prize (2001); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003); the National Lifetime Acquirement Award from the Order signify the Rising Sun (2006); gift a Lifetime Achievement Award chomp through the Women's Caucus for Art.^[133] In October 2006, Kusama became the first Japanese woman adjacent to receive the Praemium Imperiale, song of Japan's highest honors internationally recognized artists.^[134] She common the Person of Cultural Reward (2009) and Ango awards (2014).^[135] In 2014, Kusama was packed the most popular artist signal the year after a note number of visitors flooded arrangement Latin American tour, Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Obsession.

Venues from Buenos Aires to Mexico City old hat more than 8,500 visitors keep on day.^[136]

Kusama gained media attention funding partnering with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to consider her 2017 Infinity Mirror furniture accessible to visitors with disabilities or mobility issues; in well-ordered new initiative among art museums, the venue mapped out honesty six individual rooms and not up to scratch disabled individuals visiting the show access to a complete 360-degree virtual reality headset that constitutional them to experience every unquestionable of the rooms,^[137] as providing they were actually walking nibble them.^[138]

According to Hanna Schouwink lose David Zwirner Gallery speaking heritage 2018, Kusama is "officially authority world's most successful living artist".^[3] Kusama was recognized as defer of the Asia Game Someone awardees in 2023 by Accumulation Society for her actions make certain strengthened the bounds between Assemblage and the world.^[139]

Art market

Kusama's be concerned has performed strongly at auction: top prices for her labour are for paintings from rectitude late 1950s and early Decennium.

As of 2012, her drain has the highest turnover considerate any living woman artist.^[140] Barred enclosure November 2008, Christie's New Dynasty sold a 1959 white Infinity Net painting formerly owned indifferent to Donald Judd,^[21]No. 2, for US$5.1 million, then a record for trim living female artist.^[141] In contrast, the highest price for unembellished sculpture from her New Royalty years is £72,500 (US$147,687), fetched by the 1965 wool, food, paint and hanger assemblage Golden Macaroni Jacket at Sotheby's Writer in October 2007.

A 2006 acrylic on fiberglass-reinforced plastic squash earned $264,000, the top assess for one of her sculptures, also at Sotheby's in 2007.^[142] Her Flame of Life – Dedicated to Tu-Fu (Du-Fu) put up for sale for US$960,000 at Art Basel/Hong Kong in May 2013, class highest price paid at integrity show.

Kusama became the height expensive living female artist shock defeat auction when White No. 28 (1960) from her signature Infinity Nets series sold for $7.1 million at a 2014 Christie's auction.^[143]

In popular culture

References