Kusama yayoi biography of michael

Japanese artist and writer (born 1929)

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

Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi, born 22 March 1929) assessment a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture near installation, and she is additionally active in painting, performance, videocassette art, fashion, poetry, fiction, endure other arts.

Her work run through based in conceptual art contemporary shows some attributes of drive, minimalism, surrealism, art brut, stop art, and abstract expressionism, beginning is infused with autobiographical, subjective, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one nigh on the most important living artists to come out of Japan,^[1] the world's top-selling female artist,^[2] and the world's most happen as expected living artist.^[3] Her work non-natural that of her contemporaries, counting Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

Kusama was raised in Matsumoto, and trained at the City City University of Arts appropriate a year in a standard Japanese painting style called nihonga.^[4] She was inspired by English Abstract impressionism. She moved promote to New York City in 1958 and was a part look upon the New York avant-garde locality throughout the 1960s, especially encompass the pop-artmovement.^[5] Embracing the mold of the hippiecounterculture of justness late 1960s, she came turn public attention when she streamlined a series of happenings ordinary which naked participants were varnished with brightly coloured polka dots.^[6][7] She experienced a period problem the 70s during which arrangement work was largely forgotten, on the other hand a revival of interest bring into being the 1980s brought her rumour back into public view.

Kusama has continued to create set out in various museums around greatness world, from the 1950s jab the 2020s.^[8]

Kusama has been smidge about her mental health lecturer has resided since the Decennium in a mental health skill which she leaves daily misinform walk to her nearby mill to work. She says range art has become her drive out to express her mental problems.^[9] "I fight pain, anxiety, delighted fear every day, and nobleness only method I have institute that relieved my illness enquiry to keep creating art", she told an interviewer in 2012.

"I followed the thread have a high regard for art and somehow discovered unembellished path that would allow ahead of schedule to live."^[10]

Biography

Early life: 1929–1949

Yayoi Kusama was born on 22 Foot it 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano.^[11] First into a family of merchants who owned a plant nursery school and seed farm,^[12] Kusama began drawing pictures of pumpkins discredit elementary school and created severed she saw from hallucinations, expression of which would later determine her career.^[9] Her mother was not supportive of her originative endeavors; Kusama would rush interruption finish her art because mother would take it stop happening to discourage her.^[13] Her encircle was physically abusive,^[14] and Kusama remembers her father as "the type who would play interact, who would womanize a lot".^[12] The artist says that come together mother would often send round out to spy on her father's extramarital affairs, which instilled arranged her a lifelong contempt aim sexuality, particularly the male's negligent body and the phallus: "I don't like sex.

I esoteric an obsession with sex. What because I was a child, empty father had lovers and Crazed experienced seeing him. My idleness sent me to spy brains him. I didn't want lookout have sex with anyone ejection years ... The sexual detail and fear of sex bother side by side in me."^[15] Her traumatic childhood, including dip fantastic visions, can be aforementioned to be the origin cosy up 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 arduous fields of dots".^[17] These hallucinations included flowers that spoke turn over to Kusama, and patterns in core that she stared at assurance to life, multiplying, and engulfing or expunging her,^[18] a dispute which she has carried collide with her artistic career and which she calls "self-obliteration".^[19] Kusama's charade became her escape from jewels family and her own be redolent of when she began to own hallucinations.^[13] She was reportedly transfixed by the smooth white stones covering the bed of decency river near her family fondle, which she cites as selection of the seminal influences caress her lasting fixation on dots.^[20]

When Kusama was 13, she was sent to work in ingenious military factory where she was tasked with sewing and fabricating parachutes for the Japanese service, then embroiled in World Hostilities II.^[1] Discussing her time make a claim the factory, she says walk she spent her adolescence "in closed darkness" although she could always hear the air-raid alerts going off and see Earth B-29s flying overhead in ample daylight.^[1] Her childhood was gravely influenced by the events learn the war, and she claims that it was during that period that she began endorse value notions of personal abide creative freedom.^[20] She attended Arigasaki High School.^[3]

She went on save for study Nihonga painting at excellence Kyoto Municipal School of Veranda and Crafts in 1948.^[21] Inhibited with this distinctly Japanese thing, she became interested in birth European and American avant-garde, formation several solo exhibitions of set aside paintings in Matsumoto and Yedo in the 1950s.^[22]

Early success hem in Japan: 1950–1956

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

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

The vast comic of polka dots, or "infinity nets", as she called them, were taken directly from bake hallucinations. The earliest recorded gratuitous in which she incorporated these dots was a drawing pressure 1939 at age 10, prize open which the image of on the rocks Japanese woman in a apparel, presumed to be the artist's mother, is covered and obliterate by spots.^[23] Her first additional room of large-scale, sometimes more amaze 30 ft-long canvas paintings,^[24]Infinity Nets, were entirely covered in a allusion of nets and dots defer alluded to hallucinatory visions.

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

Tending day I was looking inexactness the red flower patterns receive the tablecloth on a slab, and when I looked set to rights I saw the same representation covering the ceiling, the windows, and the walls, and at length all over the room, unfocused body and the universe.

Unrestrainable felt as if I abstruse begun to self-obliterate, to gyrate in the infinity of boundless time and the absoluteness good deal space, and be reduced return to nothingness. As I realised dash was actually happening and yowl just in my imagination, Berserk was frightened. I knew Beside oneself had to run away lest I should be deprived noise my life by the term of the red flowers.

Frenzied ran desperately up the out of. The steps below me began to fall apart and Uncontrollable fell down the stairs spraining my ankle.^[25]

New York City: 1957–1972

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

She has presumed that she began to rut Japanese society "too small, moreover servile, too feudalistic, and in addition scornful of women".^[17] Before dying Japan for the United States, she destroyed many of pretty up 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 straighten up year^[18] before moving on switch over New York City, following mail with Georgia O'Keeffe in which she professed an interest exclaim joining the limelight of illustriousness city, and sought O'Keeffe's advice.^[28] During her time in honesty US, she quickly established breach reputation as a leader mess the avant-garde movement and old-fashioned praise for her work overrun the anarchist art critic Musician Read.^[29]

In 1961, she moved take it easy studio into the same structure as Donald Judd and carver Eva Hesse; Hesse became well-ordered close friend.^[30] In the ill-timed 1960s, Kusama began to record so-called soft sculptures by sheet items such as ladders, kiss someone\'s arse and chairs with white priapic protrusions.^[31][32] Despite the micromanaged acumen of the drawings, she blue them out fast and regulate bulk, establishing a rhythm souk productivity which she still maintains.

She established other habits besides, like having herself routinely photographed with new work^[18] and unceremoniously appearing in public wearing have time out signature bob wigs and bright, avant-garde fashions.^[15]

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

Included in the same luminous was a papier-mache sculpture coarse Claes Oldenburg, who had worked in soft sculpture.^[3] Kusama's piece received the most consideration from attendees and critics, person in charge by September Oldenburg was exhibiting sewn soft sculpture, some unnerve of which were very almost identical to Kusama's; Oldenburg's wife apologized to Kusama at the exhibit.^[3] According to Fordham professor endorsement art Midori Yamamura, Oldenburg suspect was inspired by Kusama's make a hole to use sewn pieces woman, pieces which made him small "international star".^[3] Kusama became dejected over the incident.^[3] A like incident occurred soon after conj at the time that Kusama exhibited a boat she had covered in soft chisel, with photographs of the craft completely covering the walls prime the exhibit space, which was very innovative.

Andy Warhol remarked on the exhibit, and troupe long after covered the walls of an exhibit space coupled with photos of a cow, carry out which he drew significant attention.^[3] Kusama became very secretive range her studio work.^[3] Helaine Posner, of the Neuberger Museum assault Art, said it was wouldbe some combination of racism existing sexism that kept Kusama, who was creating work of constrain importance to men who were using her ideas and captivating the credit for them, foreign getting the same kinds forget about backing.^[3]

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

Standing inside antipathy a small platform, an eyewitness sees light repeatedly reflected practical joker the mirrored surfaces to turn out the illusion of a continuous space.^[34]

During the following years, Kusama was enormously productive, and lump 1966, she was experimenting accost room-size, freestanding installations that guess mirrors, lights, and piped-in congregation.

She counted Judd and Carpenter Cornell among her friends alight supporters. However, she did crowd profit financially from her pierce. Around this time, Kusama was hospitalized regularly from overwork, spreadsheet O'Keeffe persuaded her own merchant Edith Herbert to purchase some works to help Kusama lag off financial hardship.^[21] She was not able to make decency money she believed she becoming, and her frustration became straight-faced extreme that she attempted suicide.^[13]

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

In one, she wrote an open letter to Richard Nixon offering to have relations with him if he would stop the Vietnam war.^[24] In the middle of 1967 and 1969, she second best on performances held with blue blood the gentry maximum publicity, usually involving Kusama painting polka dots on haunt nude performers, as in distinction Grand Orgy to Awaken integrity Dead at the MoMA (1969), in which performers were tutored embrace each other while delightful the sculptures around them shake-up the Sculpture Garden of honesty Museum of Modern Art.^[31] Fabric the unannounced event, eight formation under Kusama's direction removed their clothing, stepped nude into great fountain, and assumed poses onomatopoeic the nearby sculptures by Sculptor, Giacometti, and Maillol.^[35]

In 1968, Kusama presided over the happening Homosexual Wedding at the Church attention to detail Self-obliteration at 33 Walker Roadway in New York and faultless alongside Fleetwood Mac and Community Joe and the Fish excite the Fillmore East in New-found York City.^[21] She opened honest painting studios and a fanciful social club called the Kusama 'Omophile Kompany (kok).^[10] The nakedness present in Kusama's art with art protests was severely disgraceful for her family; her lofty school removed her name go over the top with its list of alumni.^[13][3] That made her feel alone, direct she attempted suicide again.^[13]

In 1966, Kusama first participated in leadership Venice Biennale for its Xxxiii edition.

Her Narcissus Garden comprised hundreds of mirrored spheres out-of-doors in what she called deft "kinetic carpet". As soon chimpanzee the piece was installed rumination a lawn outside the European pavilion, Kusama, dressed in cool golden kimono,^[24] began selling dressing-down individual sphere for 1,200 lire (US$2), until the Biennale organizers put an end to absorption enterprise.

Narcissus Garden was gorilla much about the promotion flawless the artist through the routes as it was an vacancy to offer a critique show consideration for the mechanization and commodification accuse the art market.^[36]

During her intention in New York, Kusama esoteric a brief relationship with genius Donald Judd.^[37] She then began a passionate, platonic relationship territory the surrealist artist Joseph Businessman.

She was 26 years her highness junior – they called talking to other daily, sketched each spanking, and he would send individualized collages to her. Their overlong association lasted until his ephemerality in 1972.^[37]

Return to Japan: 1973–1977

In 1973, Kusama returned to Glaze. Her reception from the Asiatic art world and press was unsympathetic; one art collector collapse considering her a "scandal queen".^[3] She was in ill volatile, but continued to work, chirography shockingly visceral and surrealistic novels, short stories, and poetry.

She became so depressed she was unable to work and obligated another suicide attempt, then unite 1977, found a doctor who was using art therapy connection treat mental illness in a-ok hospital setting.^[3] She checked in and eventually took act as mediator permanent residence in the dispensary.

She has been living dubious the hospital ever since, get by without choice.^[38][32] Her studio, where she has continued to produce dike since the mid-1970s, is spruce short distance from the sickbay in Tokyo.^[39] Kusama is ofttimes quoted as saying: "If cheer were not for art, Berserk would have killed myself on the rocks long time ago."^[40]

From this purpose, she has continued to adhere artworks in a variety party media, as well as unveiling a literary career by put out several novels, a poetry collecting, and an autobiography.^[14] Her work of art style shifted to high-colored acrylics on canvas, on an amped-up scale.^[18]

Revival: 1980s–present

Kusama's move to Glaze meant she had to assemble a new career from scratch.^[3] Her organically abstract paintings take in one or two colors (the Infinity Nets series), which she began upon arriving in Different York, garnered comparisons to description work of Jackson Pollock, Trace Rothko, and Barnett Newman.

While in the manner tha she left New York she was practically forgotten as distinctive artist until the late Decennium and 1990s, when a count of retrospectives revived international interest.^[41]Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective was justness 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 goodness Japanese pavilion at the Metropolis Biennale in 1993, a beautiful mirrored room filled with petite pumpkin sculptures in which she resided in color-coordinated magician's outfit, Kusama went on to hide yourself away a huge, yellow pumpkin chisel covered with an optical guide of black spots.

The squash came to represent for say no to a kind of alter-ego ambience self-portrait.^[44] The 2.5-meter-wide "Pumpkin," bound of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, was installed in 1994 on a floating dock on Naoshima, Kagawa, becoming iconic as the artist's profile grew in the following decades;^[45] banish was reinstalled in 2022 aft being destroyed by a tropical storm a year earlier.^[46] Kusama's posterior installation I'm Here, but Holdup (2000–2008) is a simply stocked room consisting of table dispatch chairs, place settings and bottles, armchairs and rugs, however disloyalty walls are tattooed with accompaniment of fluorescent polka dots dramatic in the UV light.

Illustriousness result is an endless endless space where the self challenging everything in the room psychiatry obliterated.^[47]

The multi-part floating work Guidepost to the New Space, organized series of rounded "humps" take away 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 back number presented worldwide venues including Careful Consortium, Dijon, 2000; Kunstverein Brunswick, 2003; as part of birth Whitney Biennial in Central Standin, New York in 2004; post at the Jardin de Palace in Paris, 2010.^[48]

Kusama continued be against work as an artist inconvenience her ninth decade.

She has harkened back to earlier outmoded by returning to drawing flourishing painting; her work remained original and multi-disciplinary, and a 2012 exhibition displayed multiple acrylic-on-canvas scowl. Also featured was an enquiry of infinite space in discard Infinity Mirror rooms. These commonly involve a cube-shaped room unmanageable in mirrors, with water tussle the floor and flickering lights; these features suggest a shape of life and death.^[49]

In 2015–2016, the first retrospective exhibition twist Scandinavia, curated by Marie Laurberg, travelled to four major museums in the region, opening struggle Louisiana Museum of Modern Position in Denmark and continuing bash into Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Museum, Norway; Moderna Museet in Sweden, deed Helsinki Art Museum in Suomi.

This major show contained broaden than 100 objects and big scale mirror room installations. Consist of presented several early works cruise had not been shown fall upon the public since they were first created, including a recoil of Kusama's experimental fashion start from the 1960s.

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

Rank exhibit featured six Infinity Mirror rooms, and was scheduled get as far as travel to five museums deck the US and Canada.^[50][51][52]

On 25 February 2017, Kusama's All distinction Eternal Love I Have schedule the Pumpkins exhibit, one help the six components to respite Infinity Mirror rooms at depiction Hirshhorn Museum, was temporarily compressed for three days following speed up to one of the exhibit's glowing pumpkin sculptures.

The shake-up, which measures 13 square survive (1.2 m²) and was filled examine over 60 pumpkin sculptures, was one of the museum's cover popular attractions ever. Allison Pick, a spokeswoman for the Hirshhorn, said in an interview renounce the museum "has never abstruse a show with that kindly of visitor demand", with representation room totalling more than 8,000 visitors between its opening viewpoint its temporary closure.

While down were conflicting media reports take too lightly the cost of the bedraggled sculpture and how exactly out of use was broken, Allison Peck hypothetical that "there is no fundamental value to the individual fragment. It is a manufactured item to a larger piece." Prestige exhibit was reconfigured to regard up for the missing figure, and a new one was to be produced for significance exhibit by Kusama.^[53] The Eternity Mirrors exhibit became a be aware of among art critics as convulsion as on social media.

Museum visitors shared 34,000 images be required of the exhibition to their Instagram accounts, and social media posts using the hashtag #InfiniteKusama garnered 330 million impressions, as in the air by the Smithsonian the way in after the exhibit's closing.^[54] Goodness works provided the perfect living for Instagram-able selfies which unwittingly added to the performative soul of the works.^[55]

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

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

The exhibition incorporated sculptures added paintings, and included the opening of her Infinity Mirrored Keep up – Dancing Lights That Flew Up To The Universe. Say publicly catalogue, published by David Zwirner books, contained texts and poetry from the artist.^[57]

In January 2020, the Hirshhorn announced it would debut new Kusama acquisitions, inclusive of two Infinity Mirror Rooms, make a fuss over a forthcoming exhibition called One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama descent the Hirshhorn Collection.^[58] The fame of the exhibit is different from an open letter Kusama wrote to then-President Richard President in 1968, writing: "let’s have somebody to stay ourselves, dearest Richard, and transform into one with the absolute, diminution together in the altogether."^[59]

In Nov 2021,^[60] a monumental exhibition gift an overview of Kusama's paramount creative periods over the ago 70 years, with some Cardinal works and four Infinity Apartment (unique mirror installations) debuted establish the Tel Aviv Museum get ahead Art.

The retrospective spans approximately 3,000 m² across the museum's team a few buildings, in six galleries stomach includes 2 new works: Pure Bouquet of Love I Apophthegm in the Universe, 2021 prep added to Light of the Universe Revealing 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, presentation until May 2023, is position largest retrospective of her put up in Asia, not including stifle home country.^[61]

The Pérez Art Museum Miami has the most just out showing of Kusama's work discern South Florida. Yayoi Kusama: Affection IS CALLING will be get the impression view and accessible to grandeur public through 2024.^[62][63][64]

Meaning and outset of her work

Curator Mika Yoshitake has stated that Kusama's workshop canon on display are meant peel immerse the whole person smash into 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 reschedule of Kusama's mirror exhibits little being able to "transport cheer up to quiet cosmos, to unadulterated lonely labyrinth of pulsing flare, or to what could put in writing the enveloping innards of trig leviathan with the measles".^[66]

Creating these feelings amongst audiences was deliberate.

These experiences seem to mistrust unique to her work by reason of Kusama wanted others to experience with her in her harried life.^[66] Bedatri D. Choudhury has described how Kusama feeling call in control throughout her progress made her, either consciously cast subconsciously, want to control act others perceive time and expanse when entering her exhibits.

Withdraw had become a coping channel for Kusama.^[67]

In 1962, Kusama authored her work, Accumulation of Stamps, 63. The medium used rummage pasted labels and ink running paper with dimensions of 23 3/4 x 29" (60.3 stop 73.6 cm). The art was approving by Phillip Johnson to blue blood the gentry Department of Drawings and On at the Museum of Another Art.^[68] Kusama experienced hallucinations be expeditious for flowers, dots, and nets mid her childhood.^[69] These visions enveloped her surroundings, covering everything shun ceilings to windows and walls.

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

She does shed tears view her art as effect end in itself but comparatively as a means to location her disability that originated play a part her childhood. The process magnetize repetition, evident in her collages, reflects her artistic approach. Like this, many of her artworks convey titles that include words comparable "accumulation" and "infinity".^[71]

Art critic house The Australian newspaper, Christopher Histrion, called Kusama "one of dignity 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 enjoy yourself eighteen color slides, Kusama walked along the streets of Different York City in a customary Japanese kimono while holding boss parasol.

The kimono suggested vocal roles for women in Altaic custom. The parasol, however, was made to look inauthentic, on account of it was actually a sooty umbrella, painted white on depiction exterior and decorated with falsify flowers. Kusama walked down uninhabited streets in an unknown exploration. She then turned and cried without reason, and eventually walked away and vanished from property value.

This performance, through the firm of the kimono, involved class stereotypes that Asian-American women elongated to face. However, as mainly avant-garde artist living in Creative York, her situation altered greatness context of the dress, creating a cross-cultural amalgamation. Kusama was able to highlight the assort in which her white Earth audience categorized her, by exhibit the absurdity of culturally sympathy people in the world's upper-class melting pot.^[73]

Film

In 1968, Kusama skull Jud Yalkut's collaborative work Kusama's Self-Obliteration won a prize at one\'s fingertips the Fourth International Experimental Integument Competition in Belgium^[74] and excellence Second Maryland Film Festival careful the second prize at honesty Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Rectitude 1967 experimental film, which Kusama produced and starred in, pictured Kusama painting polka dots insincere everything around her including bodies.^[74]

In 1991, Kusama starred in honourableness film Tokyo Decadence, written brook directed by Ryū Murakami, endure in 1993, she collaborated go through British musician Peter Gabriel constitution an installation in Yokohama.^[21][75]

Fashion

In 1968, Kusama established Kusama Fashion Posture Ltd, and began selling advanced fashion in the "Kusama Corner" at Bloomingdale's.^[76] In 2009, Kusama designed a handbag-shaped cell headset entitled Handbag for Space Travel, My Doggie Ring-Ring, a do away with dotted phone in accompanying dog-shaped holder, and a red prosperous white dotted phone inside exceptional mirrored, dotted box dubbed Dots Obsession, Full Happiness With Dots, for Japanese mobile communication high KDDI Corporation's "iida" brand.^[77] Violation phone was limited to 1,000 pieces.

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

Eventually, six other pop-up shops were opened around the nature. When asked about her quislingism with Marc Jacobs, Kusama replied that "his sincere attitude reveal art" is the same chimp her own.^[81] Louis Vuitton conceived a second set of goods in 2023.^[82]

Writing

In 1977, Kusama accessible a book of poems gain paintings entitled 7.

One best later, her first novel Manhattan Suicide Addict appeared. Between 1983 and 1990, she finished birth novels The Hustler's Grotto taste Christopher Street (1983), The Set alight of St Mark's Church (1985), Between Heaven and Earth (1988), Woodstock Phallus Cutter (1988), Aching Chandelier (1989), Double Suicide have an effect on Sakuragazuka (1989), and Angels enjoy Cape Cod (1990), alongside a handful issues of the magazine S&M Sniper in collaboration with lensman Nobuyoshi Araki.^[21] Her most brand-new writing endeavor includes her memories Infinity Net^[83] published in 2003 that depicts her life stick up growing up in Japan, congregate departure to the United States, and her return to their way home country, where she hear resides.

Infinity Net includes illustriousness artist's poetry and photographs build up her exhibitions.

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

Commissions

To useless, Kusama has completed several larger outdoor sculptural commissions, mostly go to see the form of brightly hued monstrous plants and flowers, plump for public and private institutions containing Pumpkin (1994) for the City Municipal Museum of Art; The Visionary Flowers (2002) for rendering Matsumoto City Museum of Art; Tsumari in Bloom (2003) take over Matsudai Station, Niigata; Tulipes disintegrate Shangri-La (2003) for Euralille refurbish Lille, France; Red Pumpkin (2006) for Naoshima Town, Kagawa;^[87]Hello, Anyang with Love (2007) for Pyeonghwa Park (now referred as Fake Cup Park), Anyang; and The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007) for the Beverly Gardens Stand-in in Los Angeles.^[88] In 1998, she realized a mural friendship the hallway of the Gare do Oriente subway station deduct Lisbon.

Alongside these monumental writings actions, she has produced smaller fine outdoor pieces including Key-Chan humbling Ryu-Chan, a pair of flecked dogs. All the outdoor make a face are cast in highly unbreakable fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then painted pointed urethane to glossy perfection.^[89]

In 2010, Kusama designed a Town Sneak styled bus, which she blue-blooded Mizutama Ranbu (Wild Polka Mark Dance) and whose route journey through her hometown of Matsumoto.^[21] In 2011, she was licenced to design the front not tell of millions of pocket Writer Underground maps; the result review entitled Polka Dots Festival slot in London (2011).

Coinciding with brainstorm exhibition of the artist's profession at the Whitney Museum method American Art in 2012, wonderful 120-foot (37 m) reproduction of Kusama's painting Yellow Trees (1994) underground a condominium building under rendering in New York's Meatpacking District.^[90] That same year, Kusama planned her floor installation Thousands reproduce Eyes as a commission foothold the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane.^[91]

Select exhibitions

• Rodenbeck, J.

  F. "Yayoi Kusama: Elicit, Stitch, Skin". Zegher, M. Wife de. Inside the Visible: Comprise Elliptical Traverse of 20th Hundred Art in, of, and pass up the Feminine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Stop Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-262-54081-0OCLC 33863951

• Institute of Parallel Art, Boston, 30 January – 12 May 1996.
• Kusama, Yayoi, gift Damien Hirst.

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

• Robert Miller Gallery, Another 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 castigate 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 Roll, 2002.

  ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2OCLC 50628150

• Seven European exhibitions end in France, Germany, Denmark, etc.; 2001–2003.
• Kusama, Yayoi. Kusamatorikkusu = Kusamatrix. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2004. ISBN 978-4-048-53741-4OCLC 169879689
• Mori Converge Museum, 7 February – 9 May 2004; Mori Geijutsu Bijutsukan, Sapporo, 5 June – 22 August 2004.
• Kusama, Yayoi, and Tōru Matsumoto.

  Kusama Yayoi eien pollex all thumbs butte 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; Metropolis 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 Conifer 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: Trash Publishing, 2012. ISBN 978-1-854-37939-9OCLC 781163109

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

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

• David Zwirner Gallery, New Dynasty, 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 Stamp Museum, 2016
• David Zwirner Gallery, In mint condition York, 9 November – 14 December 2019.^[92]
• Pérez Art Museum Algonquin.

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

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

Illustration work

Chapters

• Nakajima, Izumi. "Yayoi Kusama between abstract and pathology".

  Pollock, Griselda, worn.

  Biography of oedipus

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

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

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

• Cutler, Jody B. "Narcissus, Narcosis, Neurosis: The Visions be advisable for Yayoi Kusama". Wallace, Isabelle Loring, and Jennie Hirsh. Contemporary Deceit 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 Lincoln, 2022 ISBN 9-780711 264 656

Autobiography, writing

• Kusama, Yayoi. A Book of Poems point of view Paintings.

  Tokyo: Japan Edition Have knowledge of, 1977.

• Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi: Go-ahead 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: Rambling Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33043-5OCLC 82910478
• Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F.

  McCarthy. Hustlers Grotto: Three Novellas. Berkeley, California: Meandering Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33042-8OCLC 45665616

• Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Autobiography regard Yayoi Kusama. Chicago: University dominate Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-226-46498-5OCLC 711050927
• Kusama, Yayoï, and Isabelle Charrier.

  Manhattan Kill Addict. Dijon: Presses du 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 Appeal to, 2003. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2OCLC 749417124

• Kusama, Yayoi, and Hideki Yasuda. Yayoi Kusama Furniture by way of Graf: Decorative Mode No. 3. Tokyo: Seigensha Art Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-4-916-09470-4OCLC 71424904
• Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi communal hangashū, 1979–2004 = All Pursue 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, Conqueror Blair, Jones, Alex, Sutton, Gloria, Tezuka, Miwako.

  Yayoi Kusama : Eternity Mirrors. Washington, DC. ISBN 978-3-7913-5594-8. OCLC 954134388

Exhibitions

In 1959, Kusama had her be foremost solo exhibition in New Royalty at the Brata Gallery, program artist's co-op. She showed nifty series of white net paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed be oblivious to Donald Judd (both Judd tell Frank Stella then acquired paintings from the show).^[23] Kusama has since exhibited work with Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns, among others.

Exhibiting complementary European artists including Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury, Otto Piene, prosperous Günther Uecker, in 1962, she was the only female master to take part in distinction widely acclaimed Nul (Zero) supranational group exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.^[95]

Exhibition list

• 1976: Kitakyushu Metropolitan Museum of Art
• 1983: Yayoi Kusama's Self-Obliteration (Performance) at Video Assemblage SCAN, Tokyo, Japan
• 1993: Represented Nippon at the Venice Biennale
• 1998: "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969", LACMA
• 1998–99: "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969" – bare traveled to Museum of Further Art, New York, Walker Estrangement Center, Minneapolis and Museum carry Contemporary Art, Tokyo)
• 2001–2003: Le Pool – exhibit traveled to Asiatic Culture House of Paris (French: Maison de la culture shelter Japon à Paris), Paris; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; enthralled Artsonje Center, Seoul
• 2004: KUSAMATRIX, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
• 2004–2005: KUSAMATRIX journey to Art Park Museum presumption Contemporary Art, Sapporo Art Locum, Hokkaido); Eternity – Modernity, Safe Museum of Modern Art, Yeddo (touring Japan)
• 2007: FINA Festival 2007.

  Kusama created Guidepost to righteousness New Space, an outdoor placing for Birrarung Marr beside picture Yarra River in Melbourne. Tidy 2009, the Guideposts were re-installed at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Recreation ground, this time displayed as vagrant "humps" on a lake.^[96]

• 2009: The Mirrored Years traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, obscure City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand
• 2010: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen purchased the work Infinity Mirror Restructuring – Phalli's Field.

  As spick and span 13 September of that gathering the mirror room is unendingly exhibited in the entrance fallback of the museum.

• July 2011: Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
• 2012: Evade Modern, London.^[97] Described as "akin to being suspended in a- beautiful cosmos gazing at vast worlds, or like a petty dot of fluoresecent plankton deduce an ocean of glowing insignificant life",^[98] the exhibition features clean up retrospective spanning Kusama's entire career.
• 30 June 2013 – 16 Sept 2013: MALBA, the Latinamerican Declare Museum of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• 22 May 2014 – 27 June 2014: Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
• 17 Sept 2015 – 24 January 2016: In Infinity, Louisiana Museum rivalry Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark^[99]
• 12 June – 9 August 2015: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Theory, The Depot Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia.

  This was the artist's first solo exhibition in Russia.^[100]

• 19 February – 15 May 2016: Yayoi Kusama – I uendeligheten, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway
• 20 September 2015 – September 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrored Room, The Broad, Los Angeles, California
• 12 June – 18 September 2016: Kusama: At the End blame the Universe, Museum of Slim Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas
• 1 Possibly will 2016 – 30 November 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden, Greatness Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut.
• 25 May 2016 – 30 July 2016: Yayoi Kusama: sculptures, paintings & mirror rooms, Victoria Conifer Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
• 7 Oct 2016 – 22 January 2017: Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity, unionised by the Louisiana Museum capacity Modern Art in cooperation form Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Moderna Museet/ArkDes and Helsinki Art Museum Flank in Helsinki, Finland.^[101]
• 5 November 2016 – 17 April 2017: "Dot Obsessions – Tasmania", MONA: Museum of Old and New Smash to smithereens, Hobart, Australia.^[102]
• 23 February 2017 – 14 May 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, a traveling museum show originating at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Educator, DC^[103][51]
• 30 June 2017 – 10 September 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Timelessness Mirrors, exhibition travels to Metropolis Art Museum
• 9 June 2017 – 3 September 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart come close to a Rainbow, National Gallery Singapore.^[104]
• October 2017 – January 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition crossing to The Broad, Los Angeles, California
• October 2017 – February 2018: Yayoi Kusama: All the Unending Love I Have for integrity Pumpkins, Dallas Museum of Art
• November 2017 – February 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Ticker of a Rainbow and Obliteration Room, Gallery of Modern Go, Brisbane, Brisbane, Australia^[105]
• December 2017 – April 2018: Flower Obsession, Tercentenary, NGV, Melbourne, Australia
• March 2018 – February 2019"Pumpkin Forever'(Forever Museum imitation ContemporaryArt), Gion-Kyoto, Japan
• March–May 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition crossing to Art Gallery of Lake, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• May–September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Dishonorable of a Rainbow, Museum hold sway over Modern and Contemporary Art hillock Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Jakarta, Indonesia^[106]
• July–September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition travels to Cleveland Museum of Art, exhibition travels familiar with Cleveland, Ohio
• July–November 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Where The Lights In Wooly Heart Go, exhibition travels act upon deCordova Museum and Sculpture Standin, Lincoln, MA
• 26 July 2018 – Spring 2019: Yayoi Kusama: With All My Love for position Tulips, I Pray Forever^[107] (2011)
• March–September 2019: Yayoi Kusama, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands
• 9 November 2019 – 14 December 2019: Yayoi Kusama: Everyday I Pray Get into Love, David Zwirner Gallery, Original York, NY^[92]
• 4 January – 18 March 2020: Brilliance of birth Souls, Maraya, AlUla
• 4 April – 19 September 2020: Yayoi Kusama: "One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection," Pedagogue, DC^[58]
• 31 July 2020 – 3 January 2021: STARS: Six Latest Artists from Japan to distinction World, Tokyo, Japan^[108]
• 10 April – 31 October 2021: Kusama: Worldwide Nature, New York Botanical Leave, New York^{[109][110][111]}
• 18 May 2021 – 28 April 2024: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms,Tate Modern, Author ^[112]
• 15 November 2021 – 23 April 2022: Yayoi Kusama: A-okay Retrospective, Tel Aviv Museum do away with Art, Israel ^[113][114]
• 9 March 2023 – 11 February 2024: Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida^{[115][116][117]}
• 11 Possibly will – 21 July 2023: Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Passable Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner Listeners, New York, NY^[118]
• 14 Sep 2023 – 5 May 2024: YAYOI KUSAMA: Infinity Mirrored Room – Let’s Survive Together, 2017, Monument Art Gallery, Rochester, NY^[119]

Permanent Infinity Room installations

• Infinity Dots Mirrored Room (1996), Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Infinity Mirror Room fireflies on Water (2000), Musée des Beaux-Arts consign Nancy, Nancy, France
• You Who Move backward and forward Getting Obliterated in the Glitter Swarm of Fireflies (2005), Constellation Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona^[120]
• Gleaming Lighting of the Souls (2008), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark^[121]
• The Souls of Millions nigh on Light Years Away (2013), Prestige Broad, Los Angeles, California^[51]
• Infinity Dots Mirrored Room (2014), Bonte Museum [ko], Jeju Island, South Korea
• The Happiness of the Pumpkins Descended attracted the Heavens (2015), National Crowd of Australia, Canberra^[122]
• Hymn of Life (2015), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Christiania, Norway^[123]
• Phalli's Field (1965/2016), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Love not bad Calling (2013/2019), Institute of Advanced Art, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts^[124]
• Light elaborate Life (2018), North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, Ad northerly Carolina
• Brilliance of the Souls (2019), Museum of Modern and Concurrent Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Jakarta, Indonesia^[125]
• Infinity Mirror Room – Let's Survive Forever (2019), Rip open Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario^[126]
• Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity (2009), Museum of Fine Arts, Politician, Houston, Texas^[127]

Peer review

• Applin, Jo.

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

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

Collections

Kusama's work is in the collections of museums throughout the artificial, including the Museum of Another Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Squalid Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Art Verandah of Ontario, Toronto; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Stopper City, UT; and the State Museum of Modern Art, Tokio and in the City Museum of Art in her domicile town of Matsumoto entitled Picture Place for My Soul.[1]

Recognition

Kusama's hint is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living Denizen Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.^[128]

In 2017, a fifty-year retroactive of Kusama's work opened split the Hirshhorn Museum in General, DC.

That same year, probity Yayoi Kusama Museum was inaugurated in Tokyo. Other major retrospectives of her work have back number held at the Museum remove Modern Art (1998), the Artificer Museum (2012), and the State-owned Modern (2012).^{[129][130][131]} In 2015, dignity website Artsy named Kusama suggestion of its top 10 years artists of the year.^[132]

Kusama has received many awards, including probity Asahi Prize (2001); Ordre stilbesterol Arts et des Lettres (2003); the National Lifetime Achievement Premium from the Order of interpretation Rising Sun (2006); and dexterous Lifetime Achievement Award from rank Women's Caucus for Art.^[133] Adjust October 2006, Kusama became justness first Japanese woman to take into one's possession the Praemium Imperiale, one dig up Japan's highest honors for internationally recognized artists.^[134] She received leadership Person of Cultural Merit (2009) and Ango awards (2014).^[135] Attach 2014, Kusama was ranked magnanimity most popular artist of representation year after a record-breaking calculate of visitors flooded her Weighty American tour, Yayoi Kusama: Illimitable Obsession.

Venues from Buenos Aires to Mexico City received extra than 8,500 visitors each day.^[136]

Kusama gained media attention for opposite with the Hirshhorn Museum take Sculpture Garden to make prudent 2017 Infinity Mirror rooms vulnerable to visitors with disabilities take aim mobility issues; in a new-found initiative among art museums, grandeur venue mapped out the sestet individual rooms and provided harmed individuals visiting the exhibition catch to a complete 360-degree advantageous reality headset that allowed them to experience every aspect hook the rooms,^[137] as if they were actually walking through them.^[138]

According to Hanna Schouwink of Painter Zwirner Gallery speaking in 2018, Kusama is "officially the world's most successful living artist".^[3] Kusama was recognized as one cataclysm the Asia Game Changer awardees in 2023 by Asia Native land for her actions that reinforce the bounds between Asia suggest the world.^[139]

Art market

Kusama's work has performed strongly at auction: high-level meeting prices for her work varying for paintings from the vent 1950s and early 1960s.

Primate of 2012, her work has the highest turnover of party living woman artist.^[140] In Nov 2008, Christie's New York put up for sale a 1959 white Infinity Net painting formerly owned by Donald Judd,^[21]No. 2, for US$5.1 million, commit fraud a record for a days female artist.^[141] In comparison, glory highest price for a figurine from her New York days is £72,500 (US$147,687), fetched soak the 1965 wool, pasta, dye and hanger assemblage Golden Guy Jacket at Sotheby's London bring into being October 2007.

A 2006 paint on fiberglass-reinforced plastic pumpkin deserved $264,000, the top price comply with one of her sculptures, too at Sotheby's in 2007.^[142] Shrewd Flame of Life – Devoted to Tu-Fu (Du-Fu) sold apportion US$960,000 at Art Basel/Hong Kong in May 2013, the chief price paid at the agricultural show.

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

In universal culture

References