YAYOI KUSAMA

Born 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan. Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan.

Yayoi Kusama, Film Images with Kusama Singing, 2004 (video still), video installation, 3 mins. Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo Copyright © the artist, Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc.

Yayoi Kusama is a pioneering artist whose work includes painting, objects, installations, happenings, performances, collages, fashion and furniture design, as well as literature and film. Troubled by mental illness, Kusama first became aware of the polka dots and ‘infinity net’ motifs that characterise much of her work at only ten years of age. These motifs lay the foundation for her artistic philosophy in adult life: ‘Red, green and yellow polka dots can be the circles representing the earth, the sun, or the moon. Their shapes and what they signify do not really matter. I paint polka dots on the bodies of people, and with those polka dots, the people will self-obliterate and return to the nature of the universe.

Moving from Japan to the United States in 1957, Kusama began exhibiting large net paintings, soft sculptures and environmental installations throughout the early 1960s, showing works alongside her friends Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Donald Judd. Staging numerous happenings – known simply as a ‘Kusama Happening’ – she embarked upon body painting festivals, fashion shows and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, increasingly showing a strong social consciousness.

Her practice commonly features pattern, accumulation and repetition by exploring different themes of obsession: Macaroni Dress (1963), a tutu-like dress sculpted out of macaroni, references food obsession; narcissism is clearly seen in the Narcissus Garden, 1966, an installation made with 1500 mirror balls, first shown at the Venice Biennale; love and sexuality were evident in the Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead, a staged happening performed by young, nude participants, held uninvited in the front garden of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1969.

Kusama returned to Japan in 1973, living voluntarily in care while working in a studio off-site. More recently, she has produced multiple large-scale open-air sculptures, such as Pumpkin (1994) and The Visionary Flowers (2002). As part of a group exhibition, ‘Walking in My Mind’ (2009), at the Hayward Gallery in London, she has revisited her installations of the 1960s with Dots Obsession (2009), an immersive and lurid red space festooned with white polka dots and filled with large-scale inflatable sculptures, the visual effect made increasingly disorientating by the deployment of mirrors. For the 17th Biennale of Sydney, Kusama presents Song of Manhattan Suicide Addict (2010), a new video piece.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2009 ‘Yayoi Kusama. I Want To Live Forever’, Paddiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
2008–09 ‘Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years’, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (travelling exhibition)
2007 ‘Yayoi Kusama:Dots Obsession – Love Transformed into Dots’, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
2004 ‘Yayoi Kusama: Eternity-Modernity’, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
2004 ‘Kusamatrix’, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Selected Group Exhibitions

2009 ‘Twist and Shout: Contemporary Art from Japan’, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, Thailand
2009 ‘WALKING IN MY MIND’, The Hayward Gallery, London, UK
2008 ‘Art of our time PRAEMIUM IMPERIALE 20’, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2008 ‘MADE UP’, 5th Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK
2008 ‘JAPAN! culture + hyperculture’, The Kennedy Center, Washington DC, USA

Selected Bibliography

Jo Applin, ‘Resisting Infinity’, Yayoi Kusama, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, 2008
L. Hoptman, A. Munroe and L. Zelebansky, Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1998
David Elliott, ‘Kusama: A Modern Alice in Wonderland’, Kusama Yayoi Kusamatrix, Tokyo, Tankosha, 2004
L. Hoptman, A. Tatehata and U. Kulterman, Yayoi Kusama, Phaidon Press, London, 2000
T. Matsumoto, K. Hosaka, H. Dehara, H. Minamishima and A. Shibutami, Yayoi Kusama: Eternity-Modernity, Bijutsu Shupppan-Sha Co.,Ltd, 2004
L. Neri, M. Yamamura and R. Nickas, Yayoi Kusama, exhibition catalogue, Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2009