Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama
Kusama in 2016
Born Yayoi Kusama
(1929-03-22) March 22, 1929
Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan
Nationality Japanese
Known for
Movement
Awards Praemium Imperiale
Website www.yayoi-kusama.jp

Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi, born March 22, 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan.[1]

Raised in Matsumoto, Kusama trained at the Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts in a traditional Japanese painting style called nihonga.[2] Kusama was inspired, however, by American Abstract Impressionism. She moved to New York City in 1958 and was a part of the New York avant-garde scene throughout the 1960s, especially in the pop-art movement.[3] Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, she came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots.[4][5] Since the 1970s, Kusama has continued to create art, most notably installations in various museums around the world.[6]

Biography

Early life: 1929-1949

Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano into an affluent family of merchants who owned a plant nursery and seed farm,[7] Kusama started creating art at an early age and began writing poetry at age 18. Her mother was apparently physically abusive,[8] and Kusama remembers her father as "the type who would play around, who would womanize a lot".[7] The artist says that her mother would often send her to spy on her father's extramarital affairs, which instilled within her a lifelong contempt for sexuality, particularly the male body and the phallus: "I don’t like sex. I had an obsession with sex. When I was a child, my father had lovers and I experienced seeing him. My mother sent me to spy on him. I didn’t want to have sex with anyone for years [...] The sexual obsession and fear of sex sit side by side in me."[9]

When she was ten years old, she began to experience vivid hallucinations which she has described as "flashes of light, auras, or dense fields of dots".[10] These hallucinations also included flowers that spoke to Kusama, and patterns in fabric that she stared at coming to life, multiplying, and engulfing or expunging her,[11] a process which she has carried into her artistic career and which she calls "self-obliteration".[12] She was reportedly fascinated by the smooth white stones covering the bed of the river near her family home, which she cites as another of the seminal influences behind her lasting fixation on dots.[13]

When Kusama was 13, she was sent to work in a military factory where she was tasked with sewing and fabricating parachutes for the Japanese army, then embroiled in World War II.[1] Discussing her time in the factory, she says that she spent her adolescence "in closed darkness" although she could always hear the air-raid alerts going off and see American B-29s flying overhead in broad daylight.[1] Her childhood was greatly influenced by the events of the war, and she claims that it was during this period that she began to value notions of personal and creative freedom.[13]

She went on to study Nihonga painting at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in 1948.[14] Frustrated with this distinctly Japanese style, she became interested in the European and American avant-garde, staging several solo exhibitions of her paintings in Matsumoto and Tokyo in the 1950s.[15]

Early success in Japan: 1950–1956

By 1950, Kusama was depicting abstracted natural forms in watercolor, gouache, and oil, primarily on paper. She began covering surfaces—walls, floors, canvases, and later, household objects, and naked assistants—with the polka dots that would become a trademark of her work.

The vast fields of polka dots, or "infinity nets", as she called them, were taken directly from her hallucinations. The earliest recorded work in which she incorporated these dots was a drawing in 1939 at age 10, in which the image of a Japanese woman in a kimono, presumed to be the artist's mother, is covered and obliterated by spots.[16] Her first series of large-scale, sometimes more than 30 ft-long canvas paintings,[17] Infinity Nets, were entirely covered in a sequence of nets and dots that alluded to hallucinatory visions.

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

One day I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows, and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness. As I realized it was actually happening and not just in my imagination, I was frightened. I knew I had to run away lest I should be deprived of my life by the spell of the red flowers. I ran desperately up the stairs. The steps below me began to fall apart and I fell down the stairs straining my ankle.[18]

New York City: 1957–1972

After living in Tokyo and France, Kusama left Japan at the age of 27 for the United States. She has stated that she began to consider Japanese society "too small, too servile, too feudalistic, and too scornful of women."[10] In 1957, she moved to Seattle, where she had an exhibition of paintings at the Zoe Dusanne Gallery.[19] She stayed there for a year[20] before moving on to New York City, following correspondence with Georgia O'Keeffe in which she professed an interest in joining the limelight of the city, and sought O'Keeffe's advice.[21] During her time in the US, she quickly established her reputation as a leader in the avant-garde movement and received praise for her work from the anarchist art critic Herbert Read.[22] In 1961 she moved her studio into the same building as Donald Judd and sculptor Eva Hesse; Hesse became a close friend.[23] In the early 1960s Kusama began to cover items such as ladders, shoes and chairs with white phallic protrusions.[24] Despite the micromanaged intricacy of the drawings, she turned them out fast and in bulk, establishing a rhythm of productivity which she still maintains. She established other habits too, like having herself routinely photographed with new work[20] and regularly appearing in public wearing her signature bobbed wigs and colorful, avant-garde fashions.[9]

A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement ... Polka dots are a way to infinity.

—Yayoi Kusuma, in Manhattan Suicide Addict [25]

Since 1963, Kusama has continued her series of Mirror/Infinity rooms. In these complex infinity mirror installations, purpose-built rooms lined with mirrored glass contain scores of neon-colored balls, hanging at various heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a small platform, an observer sees light repeatedly reflected off the mirrored surfaces to create the illusion of a never-ending space.[26] During the following years, Kusama was enormously productive, and by 1966 she was experimenting with room-size, freestanding installations that incorporated mirrors, lights, and piped-in music. She counted Judd and Joseph Cornell among her friends and supporters. However, she did not profit financially from her work. Around this time, Kusama was hospitalized regularly from overwork, and O'Keeffe convinced her own dealer Edith Herbert to purchase several works in order to help Kusama stave off financial hardship.[14]

In the 1960s, Kusama organized outlandish happenings in conspicuous spots like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, often involving nudity and designed to protest the Vietnam War. In one, she wrote an open letter to Richard Nixon offering to have sex with him if he would stop the Vietnam war.[17] Between 1967 and 1969 she concentrated on performances held with the maximum publicity, usually involving Kusama painting polka dots on her naked performers, as in the Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at the MoMA (1969), which took place at the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art.[24] During the unannounced event, eight performers under Kusama's direction removed their clothing, stepped nude into a fountain, and assumed poses mimicking the nearby sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti, and Maillol.[27]

In 1968, Kusama presided over the happening Homosexual Wedding at the Church of Self-obliteration at 33 Walker Street in New York and performed alongside Fleetwood Mac and Country Joe and the Fish at the Fillmore East in New York City.[14] She opened naked painting studios and a gay social club called the Kusama 'Omophile Kompany (kok).[28]

In 1966, Kusama first participated in the Venice Biennale for its 33rd edition. Her Narcissus Garden comprised hundreds of mirrored spheres outdoors in what she called a "kinetic carpet". As soon as the piece was installed on a lawn outside the Italian pavilion, Kusama, dressed in a golden kimono,[17] began selling each individual sphere for 1,200 lire (US$2), until the Biennale organizers put an end to her enterprise. Narcissus Garden was as much about the promotion of the artist through the media as it was an opportunity to offer a critique of the mechanization and commodification of the art market.[29]

During her time in New York, Kusama had a brief relationship with artist Donald Judd. She then began a passionate, but platonic, relationship with the surrealist artist Joseph Cornell. She was twenty-six years his junior—they would call each other daily, sketch each other, and he would send personalized collages to her. Their lengthy association would last until his death in 1972.[30]

Return to Japan: 1973–1977

Yayoi Kusama's Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees at the Singapore Biennale 2006 on Orchard Road, Singapore

In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan in ill health, where she began writing shockingly visceral and surrealistic novels, short stories, and poetry. She became an art dealer, but her business folded after several years and in 1977 Kusama checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill, where she eventually took up permanent residence. She has been living at the hospital since, by choice.[31] Her studio, where she has continued to produce work since the mid-1970s, is a short distance from the hospital in Shinjuku, Tokyo.[32] Kusama is often quoted as saying: "If it were not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago."[33]

From this base, she has continued to produce artworks in a variety of media, as well as launching a literary career by publishing several novels, a poetry collection, and an autobiography.[8] Her painting style shifted to high-colored acrylics on canvas, on an amped-up scale.[34]

Revival: 1980s–present

Her organically abstract paintings of one or two colors (the Infinity Nets series), which she began upon arriving in New York, garnered comparisons to the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman. When she left New York she was practically forgotten as an artist until the late 1980s and 1990s, when a number of retrospectives revived international interest.[35]

Following the success of the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993, a dazzling mirrored room filled with small pumpkin sculptures in which she resided in color-coordinated magician's attire, Kusama went on to produce a huge, yellow pumpkin sculpture covered with an optical pattern of black spots. The pumpkin came to represent for her a kind of alter-ego or self-portrait.[36] Kusama's later installation I'm Here, but Nothing (2000–2008) is a simply furnished room consisting of table and chairs, place settings and bottles, armchairs and rugs, however its walls are tattooed with hundreds of fluorescent polka dots glowing in the UV light. The result is an endless infinite space where the self and everything in the room is obliterated.[37]

Narcissus Garden (2009), Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho, Brazil

The multi-part floating work Guidepost to the New Space, a series of rounded "humps" in fire-engine red with white polka dots, was displayed in Pandanus Lake. Perhaps one of Kusama's most notorious works, various versions of Narcissus Garden have been presented worldwide venues including Le Consortium, Dijon, 2000; Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2003; as part of the Whitney Biennial in Central Park, New York in 2004; and at the Jardin de Tuileries in Paris, 2010.[38]

In her ninth decade, Kusama has continued to work as an artist. She has harkened back to earlier work by returning to drawing and painting; her work remained innovative and multi-disciplinary, and a 2012 exhibition displayed multiple acrylic-on-canvas works. Also featured was an exploration of infinite space in her Infinity Mirror rooms. These typically involve a cube-shaped room lined in mirrors, with water on the floor and flickering lights; these features suggest a pattern of life and death.[39]

Yellow Pumpkin, Naoshima (Japan)

In 2017, a 50-year retrospective of her work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. The exhibit featured six Infinity Mirror rooms, and is scheduled to travel to five museums in the US and Canada.[40][41] On February 25, 2017, Kusama's All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins exhibit, one of the six components to her Infinity Mirror rooms at the Hirshhorn Museum, was temporarily closed for three days following damage to one of the exhibit's glowing pumpkin sculptures. The room, which measures 13 square feet (1.2 m2) and is filled with over 60 pumpkin sculptures, is one of the museum's most popular attractions ever. Allison Peck, a spokeswoman for the Hirshhorn, said in an interview that the museum "has never had a show with that kind of visitor demand", with the room averaging over 8,000 visitors between its opening and the date of its temporary closing. While there were conflicting media reports about the cost of the damaged sculpture and how exactly it was broken, Allison Peck stated that "there is no intrinsic value to the individual piece. It is a manufactured component to a larger piece." The exhibit was reconfigured to make up for the missing sculpture, and a new one was to be produced for the exhibit by Kusama.[42]

Also in 2017, the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened; it is in Tokyo and features her works.[43]

Works and publications

Performance

In Yayoi Kusama’s Walking Piece (1966), a performance that was documented in a series of eighteen color slides, Kusama walks along the streets of New York City in a traditional Japanese kimono with a parasol. The kimono suggests traditional roles for women in Japanese custom. The parasol, however, is made to look inauthentic as it is really a black umbrella painted white on the exterior and decorated with fake flowers. Kusama walks down unoccupied streets in an unknown quest. She then turns and cries without reason, and eventually walks away and vanishes from view. This performance, through the association of the kimono, involves the stereotypes that Asian American women continue to face. However, as an avant-garde artist living in New York, her situation alters the context of the dress, creating a cross-cultural amalgamation. Kusama is able to point out the stereotype in which her white American audience categorizes her, by showing the absurdity of culturally categorizing people in the world’s largest melting pot.[44]

Film

In 1968, the film Kusama's Self-Obliteration which Kusama produced and starred in won a prize at the Fourth International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium and the Second Maryland Film Festival and the second prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. In 1991, Kusama starred in the film Tokyo Decadence, written and directed by Ryu Murakami, and in 1993, she collaborated with British musician Peter Gabriel on an installation in Yokohama.[14]

Fashion

In 1968, Kusama established Kusama Fashion Company Ltd, and began selling avantgarde fashion in the "Kusama Corner" at Bloomingdales.[45] In 2009, Kusama designed a handbag-shaped cell phone entitled Handbag for Space Travel, My Doggie Ring-Ring, a pink dotted phone in accompanying dog-shaped holder, and a red and white dotted phone inside a mirrored, dotted box dubbed Dots Obsession, Full Happiness With Dots, for Japanese mobile communication giant KDDI Corporation's "iida" brand.[46] Each phone was limited to 1000 pieces.

In 2011, Kusama created artwork for six limited-edition lipglosses from Lancôme.[47] That same year, she worked with Marc Jacobs (who visited her studio in Japan in 2006) on a line of Louis Vuitton products,[48] including leather goods, ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes, watches, and jewelry.[49] The products became available in 2012 at a SoHo pop-up shop, which was decorated with Kusama's trademark tentacle-like protrusions and polka-dots. Eventually, six other pop-up shops were opened around the world. When asked about her collaboration with Marc Jacobs, Kusama replied that "his sincere attitude toward art" is the same as her own.[50]

Writing

In 1977, Kusama published a book of poems and paintings entitled 7. One year later, her first novel Manhattan Suicide Addict appeared. Between 1983 and 1990, she finished the novels The Hustler's Grotto of Christopher Street (1983), The Burning of St Mark's Church (1985), Between Heaven and Earth (1988), Woodstock Phallus Cutter (1988), Aching Chandelier (1989), Double Suicide at Sakuragazuka (1989), and Angels in Cape Cod (1990), alongside several issues of the magazine S&M Sniper in collaboration with photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.[14] Her most recent writing endeavor includes her autobiography Infinity Net[51] published in 2003 that depicts her life from growing up in Japan, her departure to the United States, and her return to her home country, where she now resides. Infinity Net also includes some of the artist's poetry and photos of her exhibitions.

Commissions

Red Pumpkin (2006), Naoshima

To date, Kusama has completed several major outdoor sculptural commissions, mostly in the form of brightly hued monstrous plants and flowers, for public and private institutions including Pumpkin (1994) for the Fukuoka Municipal Museum of Art; The Visionary Flowers (2002) for the Matsumoto City Museum of Art; Tsumari in Bloom (2003) for Matsudai Station, Niigata; Tulipes de Shangri-La (2003) for Euralille in Lille, France; Pumpkin (2006) at Bunka-mura on Benesse Island of Naoshima; Hello, Anyang with Love (2007) for Pyeonghwa Park, Anyang; and The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007) for the Beverly Gardens Park in Los Angeles.[52] In 1998, she realized a mural for the hallway of the Gare do Oriente subway station in Lisbon. Alongside these monumental works, she has produced smaller scale outdoor pieces including Key-Chan and Ryu-Chan, a pair of dotted dogs. All the outdoor works are cast in highly durable fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then painted in urethane to glossy perfection.[53]

In 2010, Kusama designed a Town Sneaker styled bus, which she titled Mizutama Ranbu (Wild Polka Dot Dance) and whose route travels through her hometown of Matsumoto.[14] In 2011, she was commissioned to design the front cover of millions of pocket London Underground maps; the result is entitled Polka Dots Festival in London (2011). Coinciding with an exhibition of the artist's work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2012, a 120-foot reproduction of Kusama's painting Yellow Trees (1994) covered a condominium building under construction in New York's Meatpacking District.[54] That same year, Kusama conceived her floor installation Thousands of Eyes as a commission for the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane.[55]

Exhibition catalogs

  • Rodenbeck, J.F. "Yayoi Kusama: Surface, Stitch, Skin." Zegher, M. Catherine de. Inside the Visible: An Elliptical Traverse of 20th Century Art in, of, and from the Feminine. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-262-54081-0 OCLC 33863951
  • Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Jan. 30–May 12, 1996.
  • Kusama, Yayoi, and Damien Hirst. Yayoi Kusama Now. New York, N.Y.: Robert Miller Gallery, 1998. ISBN 978-0-944-68058-2 OCLC 42448762
  • Robert Miller Gallery, New York, June 11–Aug. 7, 1998.
  • Kusama, Yayoi, and Lynn Zelevansky. Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1998. ISBN 978-0-875-87181-3 OCLC 39030076
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mar. 8–June 8, 1998; three other locations through July 4, 1999.
  • Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Wien: Kunsthalle Wien, 2002. ISBN 978-3-852-47034-4 OCLC 602369060
  • Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Paris: Les Presses du Reel, 2002. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2 OCLC 50628150
  • Seven European exhibitions in France, Germany, Denmark, etc.; 2001–2003.
  • Kusama, Yayoi. Kusamatorikkusu = Kusamatrix. Tōkyō: Kadokawa Shoten, 2004. ISBN 978-4-048-53741-4 OCLC 169879689
  • Mori Art Museum, 7 Feb.–9 May 2004; Mori Geijutsu Bijutsukan, Sapporo, 5 June–22 Aug. 2004.
  • Kusama, Yayoi, and Tōru Matsumoto. Kusama Yayoi eien no genzai = Yayoi Kusama: eternity-modernity. Tōkyō: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 2005. ISBN 978-4-568-10353-3 OCLC 63197423
  • Tōkyō Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, Oct. 26–Dec. 19, 2004; Kyōto Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, Jan. 6–Feb. 13, 2005; Hiroshima-shi Gendai Bijutsukan, Feb. 22–Apr. 17, 2005; Kumamoto-shi Gendai Bijutsukan, Apr. 29–July 3, 2005; at Matsumoto-shi Bijutsukan, July 30–Oct. 10, 2005.
  • Applin, Jo, and Yayoi Kusama. Yayoi Kusama. London: Victoria Miro Gallery, 2007. ISBN 978-0-955-45644-2 OCLC 501970783
  • Victoria Miro Gallery, London, 10 Oct.–17 Nov. 2007.
  • Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2009. ISBN 978-1-932-59894-0 OCLC 320277816
  • Gagosian Gallery, New York, Apr. 16–Jun. 27, 2009; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, May 30–Jul. 17, 2009.
  • Morris, Frances, and Jo Applin. Yayoi Kusama. London: Tate Publishing, 2012. ISBN 978-1-854-37939-9 OCLC 781163109
  • Reina Sofia, Madrid, 10 May–12 Sept. 2011; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 10 Oct. 2011–9 Jan. 2012; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 12 July–30 Sept. 2012; Tate Modern (London), 9 Feb.–5 June 2012.
  • Kusama, Yayoi, and Akira Tatehata. Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived in Heaven. New York: David Zwirner, 2014. ISBN 978-0-989-98093-7 OCLC 879584489
  • David Zwirner Gallery, New York, Nov. 8–Dec. 21, 2013.

Illustration work

  • Carroll, Lewis and Yayoi Kusama. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Penguin Classics, 2012. ISBN 978-0-141-19730-2 OCLC 54167867

Chapters

  • Nakajima, Izumi. "Yayoi Kusama between abstraction and pathology." Pollock, Griselda. Psychoanalysis and the Image: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2006. pp. 127–160. ISBN 978-1-405-13460-6 OCLC 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 978-3-835-30423-9 OCLC 429664716
  • Cutler, Jody B. "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 978-0-754-66974-6 OCLC 640515432

Autobiography, writing

  • Kusama, Yayoi. A Book of Poems and Paintings. Tokyo: Japan Edition Art, 1977.
  • Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi: Driving Image = Yayoi Kusama. Tōkyō: PARCO shuppan, 1986. ISBN 978-4-891-94130-7 OCLC 54943729
  • Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F. McCarthy, Hisako Ifshin, and Yayoi Kusama. Violet Obsession: Poems. Berkeley: Wandering Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33043-5 OCLC 82910478
  • Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F. McCarthy, Yayoi Kusama, and Yayoi Kusama. Hustlers Grotto: Three Novellas. Berkeley, Calif: Wandering Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33042-8 OCLC 45665616
  • Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-226-46498-5 OCLC 711050927
  • Kusama, Yayoï, and Isabelle Charrier. Manhattan Suicide Addict. Dijon: Presses du Réel, 2005. ISBN 978-2-840-66115-3 OCLC 420073474

Catalogue raisonné, etc.

  • Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama: Print Works. Tokyo: Abe Corp, 1992. ISBN 978-4-872-42023-4 OCLC 45198668
  • Hoptman, Laura, Akira Tatehata, and Udo Kultermann. Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2 OCLC 749417124
  • Kusama, Yayoi, and Hideki Yasuda. Yayoi Kusama Furniture by Graf: Decorative Mode No. 3. Tōkyō: Seigensha Art Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-4-916-09470-4 OCLC 71424904
  • Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi zen hangashū, 1979–2004 = All Prints of Kusama Yayoi, 1979-2004. Tōkyō: Abe Shuppan, 2006. ISBN 978-4-872-42174-3 OCLC 173274568
  • Kusama, Yayoi, Laura Hoptman, Akira Tatehata, Udo Kultermann, Catherine Taft. Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-714-87345-9 OCLC 749417124

Exhibitions

In 1959, Kusama had her first solo exhibition in New York at the Brata Gallery, an artist's co-op. She showed a series of white net paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed by Donald Judd (both Judd and Frank Stella then acquired paintings from the show).[16] Kusama has since exhibited work with, among others, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns. Exhibiting alongside European artists including Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury, Otto Piene, and Gunther Uecker, in 1962 she was the only female artist to take part in the widely acclaimed Nul (Zero) international group exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.[56]

Exhibition list

Yayoi Kusama's retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern, London in early 2012
Yayoi Kusama's Obliteration Room (2015) was inspired by the earlier Infinity Mirror Room
An exhibition for the HAM art company (October 2016)
  • 1976: Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art
  • 1987: Fukuoka, Japan
  • 1989: Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York
  • 1993: Represented Japan at the Venice Biennale
  • 1996: Recent Works at Robert Miller Gallery
  • 1998–1999: Retrospective exhibition of work toured the US and Japan
  • 1998: "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969", LACMA
  • 1998–99: "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969" - exhibit traveled to Museum of Modern Art, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo)
  • 2000: Le Consortium, Dijon
  • 2001–2003: Le Consortium - exhibit traveled to Maison de la Culture du Japon, Paris; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Les 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 Art Park, Hokkaido); Eternity – Modernity, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (touring Japan)
  • 2007: FINA Festival 2007. Kusama created Guidepost to the New Space, a vibrant outdoor installation for Birrarung Marr beside the Yarra River in Melbourne. In 2009, the Guideposts were re-installed at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, this time displayed as floating "humps" on a lake.[57]
  • 2008: The Mirrored Years, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
  • 2009: The Mirrored Years traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
  • August 2010: Aichi Triennale 2010, Nagoya. Works were exhibited inside the Aichi Arts Center, out of the center and Toyota car polka dot project.
  • 2010: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen purchased the work Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli's Field. As of September 13 of that year the mirror room is permanently exhibited in the entrance area of the museum.
  • July 2011: Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
  • 2012: Tate Modern, London.[58] Described as "akin to being suspended in a beautiful cosmos gazing at infinite worlds, or like a tiny dot of fluoresecent plankton in an ocean of glowing microscopic life",[59] the exhibition features a retrospective spanning Kusama's entire career.
  • July 15, 2013 – November 3, 2013: Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, Korea
  • June 30, 2013 – September 16, 2013: MALBA, the Latinamerican Art Museum of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • May 22, 2014 – June 27, 2014: Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
  • September 17, 2015 – January 24, 2016: In Infinity, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark[60]
  • June 12 – August 9, 2015: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Theory, The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia. This was the artist's first solo exhibition in Russia.[61]
  • February 19 – May 15, 2016: Yayoi Kusama - I uendeligheten, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway
  • September 20, 2015 – September, 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrored Room, The Broad, Los Angeles, California
  • June 12 – September 18, 2016: Kusama: At the End of the Universe, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas
  • May 1, 2016 - November 30, 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden, The Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut.
  • May 25, 2016 – July 30, 2016: Yayoi Kusama: sculptures, paintings & mirror rooms, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
  • October 7, 2016 - January 22, 2017: Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity, organised by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in cooperation with Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Moderna Museet/ArkDes and Helsinki Art Museum HAM in Helsinki, Finland.[62]
  • November 5, 2016 - April 17, 2017: "Dot Obsessions - Tasmania," MONA: Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Australia.[63]
  • February 23, 2017 – May 14, 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, a traveling museum show originating at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC [64][41]
  • June 30, 2017 – September 10, 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition travels to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
  • June 9, 2017 - September 3, 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow, National Gallery Singapore.[65]
  • October 2017 – January 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition travels to The Broad, Los Angeles, California
  • October 2017 - February 2018: Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
  • March 2018 – May 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition travels to Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • March 2018 – July 2018: Yayoi Kusama: All About My Love, Matsumoto City Museum of Art, Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan
  • May 2018 – September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Jakarta, Indonesia[66]
  • July 2018 – October 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition travels to Cleveland Museum of Art, exhibition travels to Cleveland, Ohio
  • July 2018 — November 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Where The Lights In My Heart Go, exhibition travels to deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA

Permanent Infinity Room installations

Collections

Kusama's work is in the collections of museums throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT; and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Recognition

In 2017, a fifty-year retrospective of Kusama's work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. That same year, the Yayoi Kusama Museum was inaugurated in Tokyo. Other major retrospectives of her work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art (1998), the Whitney Museum (2012), and the Tate Modern (2012).[69][70][71] In 2015, the website Artsy named Kusama one of its top 10 living artists of the year.[72]

Kusama has received many awards, including the Asahi Prize (2001); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003); the National Lifetime Achievement Award from the Order of the Rising Sun (2006); and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art.[73] In October 2006, Kusama became the first Japanese woman to receive the Praemium Imperiale, one of Japan's highest honors for internationally recognized artists.[74] She also received the Person of Cultural Merit (2009) and Ango awards (2014).[75] In 2014, Kusama was ranked the most popular artist of the year after a record-breaking number of visitors flooded her Latin American tour, Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Obsession. Venues from Buenos Aires to Mexico City received over 8,500 visitors each day.[76]

The octogenarian also gained media attention for partnering with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to make her 2017 Infinity Mirror rooms accessible to visitors with disabilities or mobility issues; in a new initiative among art museums, the venue mapped out the six individual rooms and provided handicapped individuals visiting the exhibition access to a complete 360-degree virtual reality headset that allowed them to experience every aspect of the rooms,[77] as if they were actually walking through them.[78]

Art market

In the 1960s, Beatrice Perry's Gres Gallery played an important role in establishing Kusama's career in the United States. Ota Fine Arts, Kusama's longtime Tokyo dealer, has worked with the artist since the 1980s.[79] Kusama left Gagosian Gallery in late 2012; before moving to Gagosian, she had been with Robert Miller Gallery, New York.[80][81] Kusama has been represented by Victoria Miro Gallery since the early 2000s, and joined David Zwirner in 2013. The artist is currently represented by David Zwirner, Ota Fine Arts, and Victoria Miro Gallery.

Kusama's work has performed strongly at auction: top prices for her work are for paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s. As of 2012, her work has the highest turnover of any living woman artist.[82] In November 2008, Christie's New York sold a 1959 white Infinity Net painting formerly owned by Donald Judd,[14] No. 2, for US$5.1 million, then a record for a living female artist.[83] In comparison, the highest price for a sculpture from her New York years is £72,500 (US$147,687), fetched by the 1965 wool, pasta, paint and hanger assemblage Golden Macaroni Jacket at Sotheby's London in October 2007. A 2006 acrylic on fiberglass-reinforced plastic pumpkin earned $264,000, the top price for one of her sculptures, also at Sotheby's in 2007[84] Her Flame of Life - Dedicated to Tu-Fu (Du-Fu) sold for US$960,000 at Art Basel/Hong Kong in May 2013, the highest price paid at the show. Kusama became the most expensive living female artist at auction when White No. 28 (1960) from her signature Infinity Nets series sold for $7.1 million at a 2014 Christie's auction.[85]

Anti-graffiti art inspired by Kusama's polka dot motif serves as (from a distance) camouflage in Idaho (2015)
  • Superchunk, an American indie band, included a song called "Art Class (Song for Yayoi Kusama)" on its Here's to Shutting Up album.
  • Yoko Ono cites Kusama as an influence.
  • The 2004 Matsumoto Performing Art Center in Kusama's hometown Matsumoto, designed by Toyo Ito, has an entirely dotted façade.[86]
  • She is mentioned in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song "Hot Topic".
  • In 2013 the British indie pop duo The Boy Least Likely To made song tribute to Yayoi Kusama, writing a song specially about her.[87] They wrote on their blog that they admire Kusama's work because she puts her fears into it, something that they themselves often do.[88]
  • The Nels Cline Singers dedicated one track, "Macroscopic (for Kusama-san)" of their 2014 album, Macroscope to Kusama.[89]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Yamamura, Midori (2015) Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262029476 OCLC 945718733
  2. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama". www.guggenheim.org. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  3. ↑ Griselda., Pollock, (2006). Psychoanalysis and the image : transdisciplinary perspectives. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. ISBN 1405134615. OCLC 62755557.
  4. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama, Harry Shunk, János Kender. The Anatomic Explosion, New York. 1968 | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  5. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama, Harry Shunk, János Kender. Mirror Performance, New York. 1968 | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  6. ↑ "How Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrors pushed pop art into the new age". Retrieved 2018-03-04.
  7. 1 2 Farah Nayeri (February 14, 2012), Man-Hating Artist Kusama Covers Tate Modern in Dots: Interview Bloomberg.
  8. 1 2 Butler, Cornelia (2007). WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. MIT Press. p. 257.
  9. 1 2 "The world according to Yayoi Kusama". Financial Times. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  10. 1 2 Frank, Priscilla (2017-02-09). "Japanese Artist Yayoi Kusama Is About To Make 2017 Infinitely Better". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  11. ↑ Cotter, Holland (2012-07-12). "Yayoi Kusama at Whitney Museum of American Art". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  12. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama Self-Obliteration Analysis | The Dissolve of Identity". 2014-05-26. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  13. 1 2 Furman, Anna. "Yayoi Kusama Made the Ultimate Instagram Exhibit". The Cut. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Yayoi Kusama Timeline Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.
  15. ↑ Taylor, Rachel (6 March 2012). "Yayoi Kusama's early years". Tate.
  16. 1 2 Yayoi Kusama, November 18, 1998 – January 8, 1999 Victoria Miro Gallery, London.
  17. 1 2 3 David Pilling (January 20, 2012), The world according to Yayoi Kusama Financial Times Weekend Magazine.
  18. ↑ Bayly, Zac (2012), "Yayoi Kusama", Zac-Attack (interview), retrieved Sep 21, 2013
  19. ↑ Zoë Dusanne: An Art Dealer Who Made a Difference, p99, by Jo Ann Ridley; Fithian Press, 2011
  20. 1 2 Holland Cotter (July 12, 2012), Vivid Hallucinations From a Fragile Life - Yayoi Kusama at Whitney Museum of American Art New York Times.
  21. ↑ Liu, Belin (February 26, 2009), Yayoi Kusama, Bitch magazine, retrieved November 30, 2010
  22. ↑ Midori Yoshimoto, Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005) p.68
  23. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama Art - 100+ Works, Bio, News | Artsy". www.artsy.net. Retrieved 2016-07-17.
  24. 1 2 Yayoi Kusama MoMA Collection, New York.
  25. ↑ Kusama, Yayoi (1978), Manhattan jisatsu misui joshuhan [Manhattan Suicide Addict], Tokyo: Kosakusha , (extract) reproduced in Hoptman, Yayoi Kusama, et al., p. 124
  26. ↑ Yayoi Kusama: Soul under the moon (2002) Queensland Art Gallery, Queensland.
  27. ↑ Midori, Yoshimoto (2005). Into performance: Japanese women artists in New York. Rutgers University Press. pp. 75–76. ISBN 0813541050. OCLC 133159483.
  28. ↑ Carl Swanson (July 8, 2012), The Art of the Flame-Out New York Magazine.
  29. ↑ Sullivan, Marin R. “Reflective Acts and Mirrored Images: Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden.” History of Photography 39.4 (2015): 405-423. Taylor & Francis Online. Web. 20 February 2018.
  30. ↑ Kusama's relationship with Joseph Cornell | Tate
  31. ↑ Chappo, Ashley. "The Stunning Story of the Woman Who Is the World's Most Popular Artist". Observer. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  32. ↑ McDonald, John (February 12, 2005), "Points of no return", Sydney Morning Herald, retrieved November 30, 2010
  33. ↑ Art Review (interview), 2007
  34. ↑ Cotter, Holland (July 12, 2012), "Vivid Hallucinations From a Fragile Life – Yayoi Kusama at Whitney Museum of American Art", The New York Times
  35. ↑ Yayoi Kusama (collection), New York: MoMA
  36. ↑ Yayoi Kusama, New York/Los Angeles: Gagosian Gallery, April 16 – June 27, 2009, archived from the original on November 5, 2011
  37. ↑ Yayoi Kusama, London: Victoria Miro Gallery, February 7 – March 20, 2008, archived from the original on 2012-01-19
  38. ↑ Yayoi Kusama: Flowers That Bloom Tomorrow, October 7, – November 13, 2010 Victoria Miro Gallery, London.
  39. ↑ Taylor, Rachel (2012). Yayoi Kusama: Recent Work 2009-2012. London: Tate. ISBN 9781 85437 939 9.
  40. ↑ Dingfelder, Sadie (21 February 2017). "This exhibit is going to blow up your Instagram feed — and rewrite art history".
  41. 1 2 3 "The Broad to Host Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors Exhibition in Fall 2017" (PDF). The Broad: News. August 16, 2016. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  42. ↑ Hauser, Christine (2017-02-28). "Kusama Infinity Room Reopens at Hirshhorn Exhibition After Sculpture Damage". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  43. ↑ 0:00/-:. "Yayoi Kusama Museum opens, sells out". The Japan News. Archived from the original on October 19, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  44. ↑ Schultz, Stacy E. (2012). "Asian American Women Artists: Performative Strategies Redefined". Journal of Asian American Studies. 15.1: 105–27.
  45. ↑ Midori Matsui, Interview: Yayoi Kusama, 1998 Index Magazine.
  46. ↑ Art Editions: Yayoi Kusama KDDI Corporation.
  47. ↑ Emili Vesilind (May 24, 2011), Lancôme collaborates with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama on new Juicy Tubes Los Angeles Times.
  48. ↑ "Vuitton And Kusama". British Vogue. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  49. ↑ Ann Binlot (January 9, 2012), Marc Jacobs Recruits Yayoi Kusama for Latest Louis Vuitton Collaboration BLOUINARTINFO.
  50. ↑ "Exclusive: Yayoi Kusama Talks Louis Vuitton, Plus a First Look at the Collection". The Cut. 2012-07-09. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  51. ↑ Kusama, Yayoi (2003). Infinity Net. Tate.
  52. ↑ Kusama, April 16 – June 27, 2009 Gagosian Gallery, New York/Los Angeles.
  53. ↑ Yayoi Kusama: Outdoor Sculptures, June 23, – July 25, 2009 Victoria Miro Gallery, London.
  54. ↑ Laura Kusisto (August 2, 2012), 'Yellow Trees' Growing Wall Street Journal.
  55. ↑ Des Houghton (June 08, 2012), Justice Minister Jarrod Bleijie condemns Yayoi Kusama artwork at new Supreme Court and District Court building in Brisbane The Courier-Mail.
  56. ↑ Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years, 23 August – 19 October 2008 Archived May 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
  57. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild", December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
  58. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama". What's On. Tate Modern. Retrieved 2012-06-03.
  59. ↑ Trebuchet Magazine http://www.trebuchet-magazine.com/index.php/site/article/tate_modern_yayoi_kusama/
  60. ↑ Rogers, Sam (September 25, 2015). "In infinity: Yayoi Kusama's dots take over the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art". Wallpaper. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
  61. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Theory [exhibition website]". Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. 2015. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
  62. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity". Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  63. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama's new installation comes to MONA Tasmania". Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  64. ↑ Finkel, Jori (2016-08-16). "Yayoi Kusama to Be the Focus of a Touring Museum Show". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  65. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama heads to Singapore, while Southeast Asian art travels the globe". 2016.
  66. ↑ Post, The Jakarta. "Yayoi Kusama's works finally arrive in Jakarta". The Jakarta Post. Retrieved 2018-05-09.
  67. ↑ "Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room, Phoenix Art Museum, Firefly Room". Retrieved 22 October 2017.
  68. ↑ "Kusama Installation". Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 9 October 2017.
  69. ↑ Love Forever : Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968, July 9 - September 22, 1998, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
  70. ↑ YAYOI KUSAMA, July 12 – Sept 30, 2012, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
  71. ↑ Yayoi Kusama, 9 February – 5 June 2012, Tate Modern, London.
  72. ↑ "The Top 10 Living Artists of 2015". Artsy. December 16, 2015. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
  73. ↑ "WCA Past Honorees".
  74. ↑ Blouinartinfo (January 23, 2007). "Art News: Kusama First Japanese Woman to Win Coveted Art Award". BLOUINARTINFO. Retrieved April 23, 2008.
  75. ↑ "安吾賞-第9回 受賞者". Ango awards. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  76. ↑ Pes, Javier. "Visitor Figures 2014: The World Goes Dotty Over Yayoi Kusama". The Art Newspaper. Archived from the original on March 12, 2017.
  77. ↑ Lesser, Casey (2017-02-17). "Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Rooms Made Accessible to People with Disabilities for First Time". Artsy. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  78. ↑ "People in wheelchairs couldn't see Yayoi Kusama's 'Infinity Mirrors'. The museum found an innovative fix". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  79. ↑ Bridget Moriarity (March 5, 2009), Artist Dossier: Yayoi Kusama ARTINFO.
  80. ↑ Claudia Bodin (May 5, 2009), Kusama bleibt Kusama Archived October 23, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. art – Das Kunstmagazin.
  81. ↑ Charlotte Burns (14 December 2012), Yayoi Kusama also leaves Gagosian The Art Newspaper.
  82. ↑ Sarah Thornton (May 20, 2012), The price of being female The Economist.
  83. ↑ Cross-Cultural Journeys: Yayoi Kusama and Kenzo Okada Christie's.
  84. ↑ Bridget Moriarity (March 5, 2009), Artist Dossier: Yayoi Kusama ARTINFO.
  85. ↑ Kelly Crow (November 12, 2014), Christie’s Makes History With $853 Million Sale of Contemporary Art – Andy Warhol’s ‘Triple Elvis [Ferus Type]’ Sells for $82 Million Wall Street Journal.
  86. ↑ open buildings.com. Retrieved 2015-01-30.
  87. ↑ band camp.com
  88. ↑ blog spirit.com Archived August 23, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
  89. ↑ phawker.com
  • Smith, Roberta. "Yayoi Kusama and the Amazing Polka dotted selfie made journey to greatness". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
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