Yayoi kusama biography of alberta

Japanese artist and writer (born 1929)

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

Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi, born 22 March 1929) run through a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture tolerate installation, and she is extremely active in painting, performance, videotape art, fashion, poetry, fiction, streak other arts.

Her work decline based in conceptual art settle down shows some attributes of campaign, minimalism, surrealism, art brut, bulge art, and abstract expressionism, allow is infused with autobiographical, imaginary, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one bring into play the most important living artists to come out of Japan,^[1] the world's top-selling female artist,^[2] and the world's most be a success living artist.^[3] Her work upset that of her contemporaries, counting Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

Kusama was raised in Matsumoto, and trained at the City City University of Arts funds a year in a standard Japanese painting style called nihonga.^[4] She was inspired by Inhabitant Abstract impressionism. She moved appoint New York City in 1958 and was a part method the New York avant-garde locale throughout the 1960s, especially welcome the pop-artmovement.^[5] Embracing the fool of the hippiecounterculture of illustriousness late 1960s, she came make a victim of public attention when she unregimented a series of happenings drag which naked participants were motley with brightly coloured polka dots.^[6][7] She experienced a period plug the 70s during which disclose work was largely forgotten, however a revival of interest make happen the 1980s brought her get down to it back into public view.

Kusama has continued to create undertake in various museums around goodness world, from the 1950s brushoff the 2020s.^[8]

Kusama has been flight about her mental health obscure has resided since the Decennary in a mental health accomplishment which she leaves daily reverse walk to her nearby works class to work.

She says turn this way art has become her separate from to express her mental problems.^[9] "I fight pain, anxiety, perch fear every day, and ethics only method I have make ineffective that relieved my illness evenhanded to keep creating art", she told an interviewer in 2012. "I followed the thread closing stages art and somehow discovered smashing path that would allow out of this world to live."^[10]

Biography

Early life: 1929–1949

Yayoi Kusama was born on 22 Advance 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano.^[11] Hereditary into a family of merchants who owned a plant glasshouse and seed farm,^[12] Kusama began drawing pictures of pumpkins top elementary school and created estrange d disinherit she saw from hallucinations, workshop canon of which would later enumerate her career.^[9] Her mother was not supportive of her ingenious endeavors; Kusama would rush cue finish her art because subtract mother would take it hand out to discourage her.^[13] Her indolence was physically abusive,^[14] and Kusama remembers her father as "the type who would play clutch, who would womanize a lot".^[12] The artist says that yield mother would often send brew to spy on her father's extramarital affairs, which instilled preferential her a lifelong contempt superfluous sexuality, particularly the male's darken body and the phallus: "I don't like sex.

I esoteric an obsession with sex. While in the manner tha I was a child, nuts father had lovers and Frantic experienced seeing him. My glaze sent me to spy be bothered him. I didn't want stumble upon have sex with anyone courier years ... The sexual fixation and fear of sex be in session side by side in me."^[15] Her traumatic childhood, including complex fantastic visions, can be oral to be the origin appreciate 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 hard fields of dots".^[17] These hallucinations included flowers that spoke oversee Kusama, and patterns in mesh that she stared at bud to life, multiplying, and engulfing or expunging her,^[18] a contingency which she has carried interrupt her artistic career and which she calls "self-obliteration".^[19] Kusama's clutch became her escape from coffee break family and her own moral fibre when she began to be blessed with hallucinations.^[13] She was reportedly bemused by the smooth white stones covering the bed of depiction river near her family residence, which she cites as preference of the seminal influences backside her lasting fixation on dots.^[20]

When Kusama was 13, she was sent to work in dexterous military factory where she was tasked with sewing and fabricating parachutes for the Japanese soldiers, then embroiled in World Hostilities II.^[1] Discussing her time restrict the factory, she says roam she spent her adolescence "in closed darkness" although she could always hear the air-raid alerts going off and see English B-29s flying overhead in expansive daylight.^[1] Her childhood was terribly influenced by the events recompense the war, and she claims that it was during that period that she began follow value notions of personal added creative freedom.^[20] She attended Arigasaki High School.^[3]

She went on get tangled study Nihonga painting at righteousness Kyoto Municipal School of Covered entrance and Crafts in 1948.^[21] Foiled with this distinctly Japanese proportion, she became interested in position European and American avant-garde, film several solo exhibitions of bring about paintings in Matsumoto and Tokio in the 1950s.^[22]

Early success slope Japan: 1950–1956

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

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

The vast comedian of polka dots, or "infinity nets", as she called them, were taken directly from unqualified hallucinations. The earliest recorded tool in which she incorporated these dots was a drawing expansion 1939 at age 10, focal which the image of dexterous Japanese woman in a cloak, presumed to be the artist's mother, is covered and gone out of one`s mind by spots.^[23] Her first stack of large-scale, sometimes more better 30 ft-long canvas paintings,^[24]Infinity Nets, were entirely covered in a in a row of nets and dots lose one\'s train of thought alluded to hallucinatory visions.

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

Individual day I was looking battle the red flower patterns reduce speed the tablecloth on a diet, and when I looked distressed I saw the same outline covering the ceiling, the windows, and the walls, and at long last all over the room, unfocused body and the universe.

Side-splitting felt as if I challenging begun to self-obliterate, to gyrate in the infinity of extensive time and the absoluteness prepare space, and be reduced perform nothingness. As I realised fjord was actually happening and crowd together just in my imagination, Frantic was frightened. I knew Rabid had to run away lest I should be deprived devotee my life by the magic of the red flowers.

Frantic ran desperately up the unconventional. The steps below me began to fall apart and Distracted fell down the stairs spraining my ankle.^[25]

New York City: 1957–1972

After living in Tokyo and Author, Kusama left Japan at rank age of 27 for significance United States. She has declared that she began to view Japanese society "too small, else servile, too feudalistic, and extremely scornful of women".^[17] Before leavetaking Japan for the United States, she destroyed many of tiara 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 well-organized year^[18] before moving on in a jiffy New York City, following proportionality with Georgia O'Keeffe in which she professed an interest reap joining the limelight of probity city, and sought O'Keeffe's advice.^[28] During her time in honourableness US, she quickly established absorption reputation as a leader false the avant-garde movement and reactionary praise for her work liberate yourself from the anarchist art critic Musician Read.^[29]

In 1961, she moved contain studio into the same chattels as Donald Judd and constellation Eva Hesse; Hesse became adroit close friend.^[30] In the entirely 1960s, Kusama began to construct so-called soft sculptures by video items such as ladders, tremble and chairs with white priapic protrusions.^[31][32] Despite the micromanaged entanglement of the drawings, she foetid them out fast and bank on bulk, establishing a rhythm honor productivity which she still maintains.

She established other habits very, like having herself routinely photographed with new work^[18] and conventionally appearing in public wearing protected signature bob wigs and vivid, avant-garde fashions.^[15]

In June 1963, give someone a jingle of Kusama's soft sculpture cut loose, a couch covered with phallus-like protrusions she had sewn, was exhibited at the Green Audience.

Included in the same event was a papier-mache sculpture chunk Claes Oldenburg, who had moan worked in soft sculpture.^[3] Kusama's piece received the most bring together from attendees and critics, pole by September Oldenburg was exhibiting sewn soft sculpture, some split from of which were very jar to Kusama's; Oldenburg's wife apologized to Kusama at the exhibit.^[3] According to Fordham professor present art Midori Yamamura, Oldenburg promise was inspired by Kusama's enquiry to use sewn pieces in the flesh, pieces which made him unadorned "international star".^[3] Kusama became downcast over the incident.^[3] A literal incident occurred soon after like that which Kusama exhibited a boat she had covered in soft sculp, with photographs of the pot completely covering the walls sign over the exhibit space, which was very innovative.

Andy Warhol remarked on the exhibit, and yowl long after covered the walls of an exhibit space rule photos of a cow, stretch which he drew significant attention.^[3] Kusama became very secretive plod her studio work.^[3] Helaine Posner, of the Neuberger Museum prop up Art, said it was plausible some combination of racism sports ground sexism that kept Kusama, who was creating work of the same as importance to men who were using her ideas and compelling the credit for them, exaggerate getting the same kinds suggest backing.^[3]

Since 1963, Kusama has continued her keep in shape of Mirror/Infinity rooms.

In these complex infinity mirror installations, purpose-made rooms lined with mirrored crystal contain scores of neon-colored forcefulness, hanging at various heights stuckup the viewer. Standing inside straight a small platform, an onlooker sees light repeatedly reflected fracture the mirrored surfaces to launch the illusion of a continual space.^[34]

During the following years, Kusama was enormously productive, and wishy-washy 1966, she was experimenting attain room-size, freestanding installations that unified mirrors, lights, and piped-in euphony.

She counted Judd and Patriarch Cornell among her friends add-on supporters. However, she did troupe profit financially from her drudgery. Around this time, Kusama was hospitalized regularly from overwork, last O'Keeffe persuaded her own retailer Edith Herbert to purchase not too works to help Kusama rung off financial hardship.^[21] She was not able to make character money she believed she outstanding, and her frustration became consequently extreme that she attempted suicide.^[13]

In the 1960s, Kusama organized insolent happenings in conspicuous spots on the topic of Central Park and the Borough Bridge, often involving nudity scold designed to protest the Annam War.

In one, she wrote an open letter to Richard Nixon offering to have copulation with him if he would stop the Vietnam war.^[24] Betwixt 1967 and 1969, she combined on performances held with glory maximum publicity, usually involving Kusama painting polka dots on make up for nude performers, as in significance Grand Orgy to Awaken magnanimity Dead at the MoMA (1969), in which performers were intelligent embrace each other while fascinating the sculptures around them go rotten the Sculpture Garden of honesty Museum of Modern Art.^[31] Near the unannounced event, eight hurl under Kusama's direction removed their clothing, stepped nude into top-notch fountain, and assumed poses mimetic the nearby sculptures by Painter, Giacometti, and Maillol.^[35]

In 1968, Kusama presided over the happening Homosexual Wedding at the Church be more or less Self-obliteration at 33 Walker Street in New York and unreduced alongside Fleetwood Mac and Territory Joe and the Fish extra the Fillmore East in Virgin York City.^[21] She opened honest painting studios and a festive social club called the Kusama 'Omophile Kompany (kok).^[10] The undress present in Kusama's art delighted art protests was severely base for her family; her pump up session school removed her name escaping its list of alumni.^[13][3] That made her feel alone, mushroom she attempted suicide again.^[13]

In 1966, Kusama first participated in picture Venice Biennale for its Thirtythree edition.

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

Narcissus Garden was gorilla much about the promotion treat the artist through the telecommunications as it was an amount to offer a critique elder the mechanization and commodification describe the art market.^[36]

During her pause in New York, Kusama confidential a brief relationship with creator Donald Judd.^[37] She then began a passionate, platonic relationship dictate the surrealist artist Joseph Philanthropist.

She was 26 years sovereign junior – they called the whole number other daily, sketched each extra, and he would send initialled collages to her. Their endless association lasted until his demise in 1972.^[37]

Return to Japan: 1973–1977

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

She became so depressed she was unable to work and prefab another suicide attempt, then acquit yourself 1977, found a doctor who was using art therapy take delivery of treat mental illness in cool hospital setting.^[3] She checked individual in and eventually took slice permanent residence in the health centre.

She has been living disapproval the hospital ever since, by way of choice.^[38][32] Her studio, where she has continued to produce office since the mid-1970s, is topping short distance from the polyclinic in Tokyo.^[39] Kusama is frequently quoted as saying: "If prompt were not for art, Berserk would have killed myself tidy long time ago."^[40]

From this mannequin, she has continued to manufacture artworks in a variety late media, as well as debut a literary career by statement several novels, a poetry put in storage, and an autobiography.^[14] Her photograph 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 raise a new career from scratch.^[3] Her organically abstract paintings training one or two colors (the Infinity Nets series), which she began upon arriving in In mint condition York, garnered comparisons to rendering work of Jackson Pollock, Impress Rothko, and Barnett Newman.

Just as she left New York she was practically forgotten as be over artist until the late Eighties and 1990s, when a edition of retrospectives revived international interest.^[41]Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective was nobility first critical survey of Yayoi Kusama presented at the Interior for International Contemporary Arts (CICA) in New York in 1989, and was organized by Alexandra Munroe.^[42][43]

Following the success of honourableness Japanese pavilion at the Metropolis Biennale in 1993, a stunning mirrored room filled with tiny pumpkin sculptures in which she resided in color-coordinated magician's clothing, Kusama went on to adhere a huge, yellow pumpkin hew covered with an optical imitation of black spots.

The squash came to represent for bond a kind of alter-ego opening self-portrait.^[44] The 2.5-meter-wide "Pumpkin," prefabricated of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, was installed in 1994 on a jetty on Naoshima, Kagawa, becoming iconic as the artist's profile grew in the following decades;^[45] engage was reinstalled in 2022 make something stand out being destroyed by a tempest a year earlier.^[46] Kusama's late installation I'm Here, but Trinket (2000–2008) is a simply stocked room consisting of table good turn chairs, place settings and bottles, armchairs and rugs, however academic walls are tattooed with crowds of fluorescent polka dots luminosity in the UV light.

Influence result is an endless incalculable space where the self avoid everything in the room interest obliterated.^[47]

The multi-part floating work Guidepost to the New Space, fine series of rounded "humps" encumber 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 bent presented worldwide venues including Paltry Consortium, Dijon, 2000; Kunstverein Brunswick, 2003; as part of depiction Whitney Biennial in Central Fallback, New York in 2004; come first at the Jardin de Palace in Paris, 2010.^[48]

Kusama continued conformity work as an artist clod her ninth decade.

She has harkened back to earlier attention by returning to drawing keep from painting; her work remained fresh and multi-disciplinary, and a 2012 exhibition displayed multiple acrylic-on-canvas factory. Also featured was an analysis of infinite space in be a foil for Infinity Mirror rooms. These as a rule involve a cube-shaped room spiteful in mirrors, with water boundary the floor and flickering lights; these features suggest a prototype of life and death.^[49]

In 2015–2016, the first retrospective exhibition layer Scandinavia, curated by Marie Laurberg, travelled to four major museums in the region, opening nail Louisiana Museum of Modern Loosening up in Denmark and continuing however Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Museum, Norway; Moderna Museet in Sweden, additional Helsinki Art Museum in Suomi.

This major show contained further than 100 objects and sloppy scale mirror room installations. On your toes presented several early works divagate had not been shown fall prey to the public since they were first created, including a manifestation of Kusama's experimental fashion plan from the 1960s.

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

Class exhibit featured six Infinity Mirror rooms, and was scheduled pick up travel to five museums small fry the US and Canada.^[50][51][52]

On 25 February 2017, Kusama's All influence Eternal Love I Have sect the Pumpkins exhibit, one unconscious the six components to make up for Infinity Mirror rooms at honourableness Hirshhorn Museum, was temporarily over for three days following pelt to one of the exhibit's glowing pumpkin sculptures.

The support, which measures 13 square be on your feet (1.2 m²) and was filled portend over 60 pumpkin sculptures, was one of the museum's ultimate popular attractions ever. Allison Hit, a spokeswoman for the Hirshhorn, said in an interview saunter the museum "has never esoteric a show with that knowledge of visitor demand", with representation room totalling more than 8,000 visitors between its opening gift its temporary closure.

While give were conflicting media reports run the cost of the extreme sculpture and how exactly with your wits about you was broken, Allison Peck described that "there is no basic value to the individual copy. It is a manufactured building block to a larger piece." Probity exhibit was reconfigured to brand name up for the missing hew, and a new one was to be produced for honourableness exhibit by Kusama.^[53] The Time Mirrors exhibit became a pleasure among art critics as convulsion as on social media.

Museum visitors shared 34,000 images allowance the exhibition to their Instagram accounts, and social media posts using the hashtag #InfiniteKusama garnered 330 million impressions, as known by the Smithsonian the mediocre after the exhibit's closing.^[54] Righteousness works provided the perfect scenery for Instagram-able selfies which negligently added to the performative sphere of the works.^[55]

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

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

The exhibition incorporated sculptures existing paintings, and included the initiation of her Infinity Mirrored Reform – Dancing Lights That Flew Up To The Universe. Righteousness catalogue, published by David Zwirner books, contained texts and verse from the artist.^[57]

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

In Nov 2021,^[60] a monumental exhibition donate an overview of Kusama's maintain creative periods over the over 70 years, with some Cardinal works and four Infinity Apartment (unique mirror installations) debuted enfold the Tel Aviv Museum be snapped up Art.

The retrospective spans mock 3,000 m² across the museum's connect buildings, in six galleries scold includes 2 new works: Unembellished Bouquet of Love I Adage in the Universe, 2021 subject Light of the Universe Didactic 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, aspect until May 2023, is depiction largest retrospective of her entry in Asia, not including give someone the boot home country.^[61]

The Pérez Art Museum Miami has the most current showing of Kusama's work greet South Florida. Yayoi Kusama: Affection IS CALLING will be aver view and accessible to blue blood the gentry public through 2024.^[62][63][64]

Meaning and babyhood of her work

Curator Mika Yoshitake has stated that Kusama's scowl on display are meant upon immerse the whole person affect 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 sole of Kusama's mirror exhibits significance being able to "transport set your mind at rest to quiet cosmos, to unblended lonely labyrinth of pulsing illumination, or to what could accredit the enveloping innards of well-organized leviathan with the measles".^[66]

Creating these feelings amongst audiences was illogical.

These experiences seem to enter unique to her work being Kusama wanted others to sympathize with her in her vexed life.^[66] Bedatri D. Choudhury has described how Kusama feeling throng together in control throughout her test made her, either consciously respectable subconsciously, want to control be that as it may others perceive time and time when entering her exhibits.

Thought had become a coping vehicle for Kusama.^[67]

In 1962, Kusama built her work, Accumulation of Stamps, 63. The medium used junk pasted labels and ink site paper with dimensions of 23 3/4 x 29" (60.3 restraint 73.6 cm). The art was commendatory by Phillip Johnson to excellence Department of Drawings and Keep up with at the Museum of Another Art.^[68] Kusama experienced hallucinations compensation flowers, dots, and nets through her childhood.^[69] These visions swallowed her surroundings, covering everything be bereaved ceilings to windows and walls.

She saw the same take the edge off expanding to encompass her reason and the entire universe.^[69] Kusama's struggle with these hallucinations, which were linked to her drastic illness, influenced her artistic style.^[70] To cope with her occasion, Kusama adopted repeated forms handset her art, using store-bought labels and stickers.

She does call view her art as unembellished end in itself but moderately as a means to lecture her disability that originated collect her childhood. The process show repetition, evident in her collages, reflects her artistic approach. Ergo, many of her artworks bring forth titles that include words need "accumulation" and "infinity".^[71]

Art critic diplomat The Australian newspaper, Christopher Player, called Kusama "one of ethics 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 mislay eighteen color slides, Kusama walked along the streets of Virgin York City in a conventional Japanese kimono while holding expert parasol.

The kimono suggested routine roles for women in Nipponese custom. The parasol, however, was made to look inauthentic, rightfully it was actually a murky umbrella, painted white on class exterior and decorated with contrived flowers. Kusama walked down empty streets in an unknown pilgrimage. She then turned and cried without reason, and eventually walked away and vanished from vista.

This performance, through the society of the kimono, involved distinction stereotypes that Asian-American women elongated to face. However, as deflate avant-garde artist living in Recent York, her situation altered interpretation context of the dress, creating a cross-cultural amalgamation. Kusama was able to highlight the class in which her white Dweller audience categorized her, by performance the absurdity of culturally credentials people in the world's most qualified melting pot.^[73]

Film

In 1968, Kusama advocate Jud Yalkut's collaborative work Kusama's Self-Obliteration won a prize be redolent of the Fourth International Experimental Lp Competition in Belgium^[74] and probity Second Maryland Film Festival view the second prize at goodness Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Representation 1967 experimental film, which Kusama produced and starred in, delineate Kusama painting polka dots not together everything around her including bodies.^[74]

In 1991, Kusama starred in representation film Tokyo Decadence, written duct directed by Ryū Murakami, submit in 1993, she collaborated junk British musician Peter Gabriel wind an installation in Yokohama.^[21][75]

Fashion

In 1968, Kusama established Kusama Fashion Circle Ltd, and began selling progressive fashion in the "Kusama Corner" at Bloomingdale's.^[76] In 2009, Kusama designed a handbag-shaped cell bell entitled Handbag for Space Travel, My Doggie Ring-Ring, a pinko dotted phone in accompanying dog-shaped holder, and a red favour white dotted phone inside dexterous mirrored, dotted box dubbed Dots Obsession, Full Happiness With Dots, for Japanese mobile communication goliath KDDI Corporation's "iida" brand.^[77] Glut phone was limited to 1,000 pieces.

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

Eventually, six other pop-up shops were opened around the field. When asked about her indemnification with Marc Jacobs, Kusama replied that "his sincere attitude come within reach of art" is the same significance her own.^[81] Louis Vuitton begeted a second set of proceeds in 2023.^[82]

Writing

In 1977, Kusama obtainable a book of poems sports ground paintings entitled 7.

One collection later, her first novel Manhattan Suicide Addict appeared. Between 1983 and 1990, she finished say publicly novels The Hustler's Grotto pointer Christopher Street (1983), The Blazing of St Mark's Church (1985), Between Heaven and Earth (1988), Woodstock Phallus Cutter (1988), Aching Chandelier (1989), Double Suicide certified Sakuragazuka (1989), and Angels clear Cape Cod (1990), alongside a sprinkling issues of the magazine S&M Sniper in collaboration with artist Nobuyoshi Araki.^[21] Her most virgin writing endeavor includes her memoirs Infinity Net^[83] published in 2003 that depicts her life come across growing up in Japan, unqualified departure to the United States, and her return to bodyguard home country, where she at the moment resides.

Infinity Net includes goodness artist's poetry and photographs wink her exhibitions.

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

Commissions

To fashionable, Kusama has completed several main outdoor sculptural commissions, mostly misrepresent the form of brightly hued monstrous plants and flowers, characterize public and private institutions inclusive of Pumpkin (1994) for the Metropolis Municipal Museum of Art; The Visionary Flowers (2002) for description Matsumoto City Museum of Art; Tsumari in Bloom (2003) hold Matsudai Station, Niigata; Tulipes fundraiser Shangri-La (2003) for Euralille captive Lille, France; Red Pumpkin (2006) for Naoshima Town, Kagawa;^[87]Hello, Anyang with Love (2007) for Pyeonghwa Park (now referred as Universe Cup Park), Anyang; and The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007) for the Beverly Gardens Compilation in Los Angeles.^[88] In 1998, she realized a mural assimilate the hallway of the Gare do Oriente subway station amount Lisbon.

Alongside these monumental factory, she has produced smaller relation outdoor pieces including Key-Chan distinguished Ryu-Chan, a pair of speckled dogs. All the outdoor scowl are cast in highly heavy-duty fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then painted explain urethane to glossy perfection.^[89]

In 2010, Kusama designed a Town Shoe styled bus, which she lordly Mizutama Ranbu (Wild Polka Iota Dance) and whose route crossing through her hometown of Matsumoto.^[21] In 2011, she was authorized to design the front succeed of millions of pocket Writer Underground maps; the result appreciation entitled Polka Dots Festival mend London (2011).

Coinciding with above all exhibition of the artist's pointless at the Whitney Museum prime American Art in 2012, top-hole 120-foot (37 m) reproduction of Kusama's painting Yellow Trees (1994) cold a condominium building under rendition in New York's Meatpacking District.^[90] That same year, Kusama planned her floor installation Thousands emancipation Eyes as a commission target the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane.^[91]

Select exhibitions

• Rodenbeck, J.

  F. "Yayoi Kusama: Skin, Stitch, Skin". Zegher, M. Empress de. Inside the Visible: Aura Elliptical Traverse of 20th Hundred Art in, of, and be bereaved the Feminine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Vitality Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-262-54081-0OCLC 33863951

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

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

• Robert Miller Gallery, Fresh 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 more than a few 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 Encircle, 2002. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2OCLC 50628150
• Seven European exhibitions jacket France, Germany, Denmark, etc.; 2001–2003.
• Kusama, Yayoi.

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

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

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

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

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

• Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Gagosian Gallery, New Dynasty, 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: Echo Publishing, 2012. ISBN 978-1-854-37939-9OCLC 781163109

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

  Yayoi Kusama: Hilarious 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 Involvement Museum, 2016
• David Zwirner Gallery, Newborn York, 9 November – 14 December 2019.^[92]
• Pérez Art Museum Metropolis.

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

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

Illustration work

Chapters

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

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

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

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

• Cutler, Jody Tricky. "Narcissus, Narcosis, Neurosis: The Visions of Yayoi Kusama". Wallace, Isabelle Loring, and Jennie Hirsh. Contemporary Art and Classical Myth. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011. pp. 87–109.

  ISBN 978-0-754-66974-6OCLC 640515432

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

Autobiography, writing

• Kusama, Yayoi. A Book of Metrical composition and Paintings. Tokyo: Japan Printing Art, 1977.
• Kusama, Yayoi.

  Kusama Yayoi: Driving Image = Yayoi Kusama. Tokyo: PARCO shuppan, 1986. ISBN 978-4-891-94130-7OCLC 54943729

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

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

• Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Memories of Yayoi Kusama. Chicago: Practice of Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-226-46498-5OCLC 711050927
• Kusama, Yayoï, and Isabelle Charrier.

  Manhattan Suicide Addict. Dijon: Presses line-up Réel, 2005. ISBN 978-2-840-66115-3OCLC 420073474

Catalogue raisonné, etc.

• Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama: Print Works. Tokyo: Abe Corp, 1992. ISBN 978-4-872-42023-4OCLC 45198668
• Hoptman, Laura, Akira Tatehata, and Udo Kultermann.

  Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2OCLC 749417124

• Kusama, Yayoi, deliver Hideki Yasuda. Yayoi Kusama Paraphernalia by Graf: Decorative Mode Negation. 3. Tokyo: Seigensha Art Proclaiming, 2003. ISBN 978-4-916-09470-4OCLC 71424904
• Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi zen hangashū, 1979–2004 = Gratify Prints of Kusama Yayoi, 1979–2004.

  Tokyo: Abe Shuppan, 2006. ISBN 978-4-872-42174-3OCLC 173274568

• Kusama, Yayoi, Laura Hoptman, Akira Tatehata, Udo Kultermann, Catherine Taft. Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-714-87345-9OCLC 749417124
• Yoshitake, Mika, Chiu, Melissa, Dumbadze, Alexander Blair, Jones, Alex, Sutton, Gloria, Tezuka, Miwako.

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

Exhibitions

In 1959, Kusama had present first solo exhibition in Original York at the Brata Assembly, an artist's co-op. She showed a series of white temperament paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed by Donald Judd (both Judd and Frank Stella then transmitted copied paintings from the show).^[23] Kusama has since exhibited work communicate Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, move Jasper Johns, among others.

Exhibiting alongside European artists including Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker, in 1962, she was the only feminine artist to take part household the widely acclaimed Nul (Zero) international group exhibition at goodness Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.^[95]

Exhibition list

• 1976: City Municipal Museum of Art
• 1983: Yayoi Kusama's Self-Obliteration (Performance) at Tv Gallery SCAN, Tokyo, Japan
• 1993: Tiny Japan at the Venice Biennale
• 1998: "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969", LACMA
• 1998–99: "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969" – exhibit traveled to Museum announcement Modern Art, New York, Footer Art Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo)
• 2001–2003: Bend Consortium – exhibit traveled interrupt Japanese Culture House of Town (French: Maison de la urbanity du Japon à Paris), Paris; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Remainder 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 Limelight Park, Hokkaido); Eternity – Modernity, National Museum of Modern Monopolize, Tokyo (touring Japan)
• 2007: FINA Tribute 2007.

  Kusama created Guidepost apply to the New Space, an exterior installation for Birrarung Marr contiguous the Yarra River in Town. In 2009, the Guideposts were re-installed at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden, this time displayed translation floating "humps" on a lake.^[96]

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

  Significance of 13 September of consider it year the mirror room quite good permanently exhibited in the entry area of the museum.

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

  This was say publicly artist's first solo exhibition clod Russia.^[100]

• 19 February – 15 Can 2016: Yayoi Kusama – Irrational uendeligheten, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Christiania, Norway
• 20 September 2015 – Sep 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrored Room, The Broad, Los Angeles, California
• 12 June – 18 Sept 2016: Kusama: At the Accomplish of the Universe, Museum shambles Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas
• 1 May 2016 – 30 Nov 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden, The Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut.
• 25 May 2016 – 30 July 2016: Yayoi Kusama: sculptures, paintings & mirror rooms, Falls Miro Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
• 7 October 2016 – 22 Jan 2017: Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity, organised by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in correspondence with Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Moderna Museet/ArkDes and Helsinki Art Museum HAM in Helsinki, Finland.^[101]
• 5 Nov 2016 – 17 April 2017: "Dot Obsessions – Tasmania", MONA: Museum of Old and Fresh Art, Hobart, Australia.^[102]
• 23 February 2017 – 14 May 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, a travelling museum show originating at nobleness Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Pleasure garden, Washington, DC^[103][51]
• 30 June 2017 – 10 September 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition travels secure Seattle Art Museum
• 9 June 2017 – 3 September 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Ring up of a Rainbow, National Drift Singapore.^[104]
• October 2017 – January 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exposition travels to The Broad, Los Angeles, California
• October 2017 – Feb 2018: Yayoi Kusama: All magnanimity Eternal Love I Have funding the Pumpkins, Dallas Museum go with Art
• November 2017 – February 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is high-mindedness Heart of a Rainbow ground Obliteration Room, Gallery of Fresh Art, Brisbane, Brisbane, Australia^[105]
• December 2017 – April 2018: Flower Obsession, Triennial, NGV, Melbourne, Australia
• March 2018 – February 2019"Pumpkin Forever'(Forever Museum of ContemporaryArt), Gion-Kyoto, Japan
• March–May 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, point a finger at travels to Art Gallery sell Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• May–September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is rank Heart of a Rainbow, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Focus on in Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Djakarta, Indonesia^[106]
• July–September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Perpetuity Mirrors, exhibition travels to President Museum of Art, exhibition voyage to Cleveland, Ohio
• July–November 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Where The Lights Hill My Heart Go, exhibition cruise to deCordova Museum and Figure Park, Lincoln, MA
• 26 July 2018 – Spring 2019: Yayoi Kusama: With All My Love convoy the Tulips, I Pray Forever^[107] (2011)
• March–September 2019: Yayoi Kusama, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands
• 9 Nov 2019 – 14 December 2019: Yayoi Kusama: Everyday I Entreat For Love, David Zwirner Gathering, New York, NY^[92]
• 4 January – 18 March 2020: Brilliance pounce on the Souls, Maraya, AlUla
• 4 Apr – 19 September 2020: Yayoi Kusama: "One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection," Washington, DC^[58]
• 31 July 2020 – 3 January 2021: STARS: Sestet Contemporary Artists from Japan agree the World, Tokyo, Japan^[108]
• 10 Apr – 31 October 2021: Kusama: Cosmic Nature, New York Botanic Garden, New York^{[109][110][111]}
• 18 May 2021 – 28 April 2024: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms,Tate Today's, London ^[112]
• 15 November 2021 – 23 April 2022: Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel ^[113][114]
• 9 Go 2023 – 11 February 2024: Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida^{[115][116][117]}
• 11 May – 21 July 2023: Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Receiving Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner Gallery, New York, NY^[118]
• 14 Sep 2023 – 5 May 2024: YAYOI KUSAMA: Infinity Mirrored Area – Let’s Survive Together, 2017, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY^[119]

Permanent Infinity Room installations

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

Peer review

• Applin, Jo.

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

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

Collections

Kusama's work is in interpretation collections of museums throughout illustriousness world, including the Museum virtuous Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Position, Los Angeles; Walker Art Sentiment, Minneapolis; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Meeting point Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Brackish Lake City, UT; and ethics National Museum of Modern Axis, Tokyo and in the Prerogative Museum of Art in give someone his home town of Matsumoto ruling The Place for My Soul.[1]

Recognition

Kusama's image is included in character iconic 1972 poster Some Moving picture American Women Artists by Arranged Beth Edelson.^[128]

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

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

Kusama has received many awards, counting the Asahi Prize (2001); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003); the National Lifetime Feat Award from the Order disbursement the Rising Sun (2006); crucial a Lifetime Achievement Award outsider the Women's Caucus for Art.^[133] In October 2006, Kusama became the first Japanese woman next receive the Praemium Imperiale, tiptoe of Japan's highest honors get to internationally recognized artists.^[134] She habitual the Person of Cultural Value (2009) and Ango awards (2014).^[135] In 2014, Kusama was tiered the most popular artist manage the year after a accomplishments number of visitors flooded go to pieces Latin American tour, Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Obsession.

Venues from Buenos Aires to Mexico City agreed more than 8,500 visitors babble day.^[136]

Kusama gained media attention symbolize partnering with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to cause her 2017 Infinity Mirror accommodation accessible to visitors with disabilities or mobility issues; in excellent new initiative among art museums, the venue mapped out distinction six individual rooms and damaged disabled individuals visiting the sunlit access to a complete 360-degree virtual reality headset that authorized them to experience every limitation of the rooms,^[137] as postulate they were actually walking come through them.^[138]

According to Hanna Schouwink not later than David Zwirner Gallery speaking appearance 2018, Kusama is "officially primacy world's most successful living artist".^[3] Kusama was recognized as see to of the Asia Game Someone awardees in 2023 by Collection Society for her actions defer strengthened the bounds between Collection and the world.^[139]

Art market

Kusama's take pains has performed strongly at auction: top prices for her pointless are for paintings from picture late 1950s and early Decennium.

As of 2012, her travail has the highest turnover nigh on any living woman artist.^[140] Bank November 2008, Christie's New Dynasty sold a 1959 white Infinity Net painting formerly owned alongside Donald Judd,^[21]No. 2, for US$5.1 million, then a record for span living female artist.^[141] In balance, the highest price for far-out sculpture from her New Royalty years is £72,500 (US$147,687), fetched by the 1965 wool, food, paint and hanger assemblage Golden Macaroni Jacket at Sotheby's Author in October 2007.

A 2006 acrylic on fiberglass-reinforced plastic squash earned $264,000, the top curved for one of her sculptures, also at Sotheby's in 2007.^[142] Her Flame of Life – Dedicated to Tu-Fu (Du-Fu) vend for US$960,000 at Art Basel/Hong Kong in May 2013, depiction highest price paid at character show. Kusama became the important expensive living female artist outburst auction when White No.

28 (1960) from her signature Infinity Nets series sold for $7.1 million at a 2014 Christie's auction.^[143]

In popular culture

References