INFINITY
YAYOI KUSAMA
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity
A Tribute to Yayoi Kusama And her Work
CONTENTS
TABLE OF
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Introduction
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Early Life
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New York Years
023
Return to Japan
027
Long awaited Success
033
Notable Works
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YAYOI KUSAMA Yayoi Kusama’s life is a poignant testament to the healing power of art as well as the study in human resilience. Sometimes referred to as the ‘princess of polka dots’, Yayoi Kusama is widely recognised as one of the best-selling female artists of the 21st century. Yayoi Kusama’s artwork has often referred to repetition of form as offering her solace from the traumas she has battled with since her youth.
Today, Kusama reigns as one of the most unique and famous contemporary female artists, operating from her self-imposed home in a mental hospital. In addition to being an installation artist, she is a painter, a poet, a writer, and a designer.
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01 EARLY LIFE 11
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Yayoi Kusama was born in the provincial Matsumoto City, Japan, to a well to do family of seed merchants, who owned the largest seed distributor in the region. She was the youngest of the four children. Early childhood traumas (being made to spy on her father’s extra-marital affairs)cemented in her a deep skepticism of human sexuality and have had lasting impact on her art.
The artist describes early memories of being enveloped by flowers in a field on their farm as a young child, as well as hallucinations of dots covering everything around her. These dots, which are now a Kusama signature, have been a consistent motif in her work from a very young age. This feeling of obliteration of the self by repetition, in addition to anxiety about sex and male sexuality in particular, are themes that appear throughout her oeuvre.
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Kusama began painting when she was ten, though her mother disapproved of the hobby. She did, however, allow her to go to art school, with the ultimate intention of getting her to marry and live the life of a housewife, not an artist. Kusama, however, refused the many proposals of marriage she received and instead committed herself to the life of a painter.
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In 1952, when she was 23 years old, Kusama showed her watercolors in a small gallery space in Matsumoto City, though the show was largely ignored. In the mid-1950s, Kusama discovered the work of painter Georgia O’Keeffe, and in her enthusiasm for the artist’s work, wrote to the American, sending along a few of her watercolors.
O’Keeffe eventually wrote back, encouraging Kusama’s career, though not without cautioning her to the difficulties of the artistic life. With the knowledge that a sympathetic (female) painter was living in the United States, She left for America, but not before burning many of her paintings in a rage.
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02 NEWYORK YEARS 17
Kusama arrived in New York City in 1958, one of the first post-war Japanese artists to take up residence in New York. As both a woman and a Japanese person, she received little attention for her work, though her output was prolific. It was during this period that she began painting her now iconic “Infinity Nets� series, which took inspiration from the vastness of the ocean, an image that was particularly resplendent to her. 18
In these works she would obsessively paint small loops onto a monochrome white canvas, covering the entire surface from edge to edge.
Though she enjoyed little attention from the established art world, she was known to be savvy in the ways of the art world, often strategically meeting patrons she knew could help her and even once telling collectors her work was represented by galleries that had never heard of her. Her work was finally shown in 1959 at the Brata Gallery, an artist-run space, and was praised in a review by the minimalist sculptor and critic Donald Judd, who eventually became friends with Kusama. 19
In the mid 1960s, Kusama met the surrealist sculptor Joseph Cornell, who became obsessed with her, incessantly calling to speak on the telephone and writing her poems and letters.
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The two were involved in a romantic relationship for a short period, but Kusama eventually broke it off with him, overwhelmed by his intensity (as well as his close relationship to his mother, with whom he lived), though they maintained contact.
In the 1960s, Yayoi underwent psychoanalysis as a way of understanding her past and her difficult relationship to sex, a confusion that probably resulted from an early trauma, and her obsessive fixation on the male phallus, which she incorporated into her art. Her “penis chairs” (and eventually, penis couches, shoes, ironing boards, boats and other commonplace objects), which she called “accumulations,” were a reflection of this obsessive panic. Though these works did not sell, they did cause a stir, bringing more attention to the artist and her eccentric persona.
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03 RETURN
TO JAPAN 23
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Many in New York criticized Kusama as an attention seeker, who would stop at nothing for publicity. Increasingly dejected, she returned to Japan in 1973, where she was forced to start her career over. However, she found that her depression prevented her from painting. Following one more suicide attempt, Kusama decided to check herself into the Seiwa Mental Hospital, where she has lived ever since. There she was able to begin making art again. She embarked on a series of collages, which center on birth and death, with names such as Soul going back to its home. 25
04 LONG
AWAITED SUCCESS 27
In 1989, the Center for International Contemporary Arts (New York) staged a retrospective of Yayoi’s work, including early watercolors from the 1950s. This would prove to be the beginning of her “rediscovery,” as the international art world began to take note of the her impressive decades of work.
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In 1993, Kusama represented Japan in a solo pavilion at the Venice Biennale, where she finally received the attention she had been seeking, which she has enjoyed ever since. Based on museum admissions, she is the most successful living artist, as well as the most successful female artist of all time. Kusama has won numerous prizes for her art, including the Asahi Prize (in 2001), the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (in 2003), and 18th Praemium Imperiale award for painting (in 2006).
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She is jointly represented by David Zwirner Gallery (New York) and Victoria Miro Gallery (London). Her work can be permanently seen at the Yayoi Kusama Museum, which opened in Tokyo in 2017, as well as in her hometown in Matsumoto, Japan. 31
05 Notable
Works
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Infinity Net (1979) By the time Kusama left her native Japan for the United States in 1956, she’d already begun her practice of dotmaking. Covering papers with miniscule, repetitive marks not only fed her love of art, but also helped her cope with the stress-induced hallucinations she’d experienced from a young age Kusama made all-over compositions of a different, more restrained sort. She called these increasingly large, white-onwhite canvases painted with tight-knit pattern of dots, “Infinity Nets.”
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In 1959, they became the subject of her first New York solo exhibition and created a sensation, inspiring a rare rave review from thencritic Donald Judd, who’d later be crowned the king of Minimalist art.It was these paintings that created a bridge between Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism. As writer Grady T. Turner has pointed out, a balance of “avant-garde aesthetics” and the “hallucinatory images” that consumed her mind.
In a 1961 article titled “Under the Spell of Accumulation,” Kusama described the impulses behind these canvases: “I gradually feel myself under the spell of the accumulation and repetition in my ‘nets’ which expand beyond myself, and all over the limited space of canvas covering the floor, desk and everywhere,” she wrote. Over the course of her life, Kusama has continued to make “Infinity Nets.” While they range in color and scale, they all retain the repetitive marks of what she refers to as her “obsessional” practice. 35
Self-Obliteration (1967) “By obliterating one’s individual self, one returns to the infinite universe,” Kusama explained in 1999. In other words, obliteration offered the artist an access point into more fantastical, unrestrained world. She explored this idea in this 1967 film (her only one), made with Jud Yalkut. Wherein, psychological and sexual liberation is delivered via unfettered, proliferating circles. In 2002, for the installation The Obliteration Room, she put polka dots into the hands of visitors. Using colorful stickers, they collectively transformed a vapid white room into a warm, colorful sanctuary. As with many of Kusama’s installations, the work is disarmingly simple in its composition; however, it brilliantly exploits the framework of its presentation. The white room is gradually obliterated over the course of the exhibition, the space changing measurably with the passage of time as the dots accumulate as a result of thousands of collaborators.
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Walking Piece (1966) Kusama staged large number of Happenings during the 1960s and early ’70s. One of the first—and least conspicuous—was Walking Piece. In it, Kusama asserted her identity as a Japanese immigrant and an artist by walking New York’s grey, empty streets wearing a hot-pink floral kimono and holding a faux-flower-adorned parasol. “In Japan, Kusama’s preferred mode of dress had been consistently modern.
In New York, she would sometimes wear traditional Japanese clothing as a means of declaring her outsider status,” the Whitney Museum has explained. The kimono highlights as well as contrasts with the cruel, commercial, alienating side of New York city.
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Pumpkin (2010) While polka dots are Kusama’s most recognizable works, pumpkins are the second most popular. They have cropped up in the drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations throughout her career. The first of these oddly shaped squashes appeared in a work Kusama made in 1946, a full 10 years before she relocated to the United States of America and began making the work that would catapult her to her fame.
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It wasn’t until the 1970s, though, that pumpkins reappeared in her work, as a means of fusing abstraction and representation. They filled her canvases with an almost “anthropomorphic presence,” as curator One of the largest and most striking versions sits in her native Japan, in Naoshima— an island covered in art.
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Dots Obsession (2003) ‘Dots Obsession’ reconfigures Yayoi’s trademark polka dots and mirrors — along with huge, amorphous inflatable objects — in response to specific sites. Dots Obsession visually approximates the hallucinations that Kusama reportedly suffered as a child, in which the entirety of her surrounding was covered with repeating patterns.
The installation also reveals the artist’s careful attention to the construction of space through colour and form, and to the play of light and perspective accomplished by repeating a few simple devices — creating an immersive experience from red paint, white dots, giant balloons and mirrors.
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Infinity Mirror Rooms (1965- Present) Yayoi had a breakthrough in 1965 when she produced Infinity Mirror Room— Phalli’s Field. Using mirrors, she transformed the intense repetition of her earlier paintings and works on paper into a perceptual experience. Over the course of her career, the artist has produced more than twenty distinct Infinity Mirror Rooms, and the Hirshhorn’s exhibition — the first to focus on this pioneering body of work—is presenting six of them, the most ever shown together. Ranging from chambers to multimedia installations, each of the kaleidoscopic rooms offers the chance to step into an illusion of infinite space. The rooms also provide an opportunity to examine the artist’s central themes, such as the celebration of life.
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By tracing the development of these iconic installations alongside a selection of her other key artworks, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors aims to reveal the significance of the Infinity Mirror Rooms amidst today’s renewed interest in virtual spaces and experiential practices. 45
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Shine Of Life (2019) Rising from the water inlet of the mill, this work’s swirling tentacles are a monumental example of Yayoi Kusama’s obsession with pattern and color. The sculpture is named Shine of Life and is the largest sculpture by Kusama in the Nordic countries. The process of realizing this major sitespecific work began in 2012 and is finally materialized on May 26th, 2019. “My eternal soul is now rising up to the universe.Together with people from all over the world, I want to sing the hymn of humanity for superlative peace and hope for the future. My prayers for the world to be filled with love and hope is wished upon Shine of Life.It is my great hope that this thought is conveyed to everyone, through sharing Shine of Life with you” - Yayoi Kusama about Shine of Life.
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Narcissus Garden (1979) During the opening week, Kusama placed two signs at the installation: “Narcissus Garden, Kusama” and “Your Narcissism for Sale” on the lawn. Acting like a street peddler, she was selling the mirror balls to passers-by for two dollars each, while distributing flyers with Herbert Read’s complimentary remarks about her work on them. She consciously drew attention to the her exotic heritage by wearing a gold kimono with a silver sash.
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The monetary exchange between Kusama and her customers underscored the economic system embedded in art production, exhibition and circulation. The Biennale officials eventually stepped in and put an end to her “peddling.” But the installation remained.Her interactive performance and eyecatching installation garnered international press coverage. This original installation of Narcissus Garden from 1966 has been frequently interpreted by many as both Kusama’s self-promotion and her protest of the commercialization of art.
Since then, Kusama’s oeuvre has become integrated into the canon of art history, and popular with art institutions around the world. In 1993, Kusama was officially invited to represent Japan at the 45th Venice Biennale. Narcissus Garden continues to live on. It has been commissioned and reinstalled at various settings The re-creation of Narcissus Garden has erased the notion of political cynicism and social critique; instead, those shiny balls, now made of stainless steel and carrying hefty price tags, have become a trophy of prestige and self-importance. 49
References https://play.qagoma.qld.gov.au/looknowseeforever/works/dots/ https://www.kistefosmuseum.com/sculptur/shine-of-life https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernityap/a/yayoi-kusama-narcissus-garden https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-6-works-explain-yayoi-kusamas-rise-art-stardom https://ocula.com/artists/yayoi-kusama/ https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kusama-yayoi/ https://www.thoughtco.com/biography-of-yayoi-kusama-4842524: https://florencegriswoldmuseum.org/calendar/day-trip-yayoi-kusama-at-the-new-york-botanicalgarden/ https://artlistr.com/yayoi-kusama-6-interesting-facts/yayoi-kusama-pumpkin-2010-stainlesssteel-installation/ https://theldndiaries.com/yayoi-kusama-the-moving-moment-when-i-went-to-the-universe/ https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/yayoi-kusama-japan-b-1929-nets-blue-6081075-details. aspx http://thehuntr.com/mag/yayoi-kusama-sharjah/ https://guyhepner.com/product/flowers-2-by-yayoi-kusama/ https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/yayoi-kusama-artist/index.html https://unsplash.com/photos/OY6blBb9uNc https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05/04/yayoi-kusama-narcissus-garden-installation-philip-johnsonglass-house-connecticut-floating-steel-balls/ https://www.pakocampo.com/dots-obsession/ https://medium.com/women-and-hollywood/sundance-2018-women-directors-meet-heather-lenzkusama-infinity-9cf3d0dfa436 https://subversivesweetheartfatp.wordpress.com/feminist-artist/ https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/artsandculture/article/30789/1/new-tate-modern-directorvows-to-celebrate-women-artists https://www.artsy.net/artwork/yayoi-kusama-infinity-nets-xaz https://www.flickr.com/photos/claritoneve/28410256549 https://www.japlanning.com/blog/japlanning-art-finding-kusama https://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-city-life/2010/11/business-group-raising-funds-for-eyman https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kusama-infinity-mirrored-room-filled-with-the-brilliance-oflife-t15206 https://xiahpop.com/yayoi-kusama-breve-biografia-de-la-artista/obliteration-room-yayoi-kusama/ https://www.davidzwirner.com/news/kusama-cosmic-nature https://www.keramogranit.ru/pressa/bryzgi-tsveta-yaponskoy-khudozhnitsy-yayoi-kusama/ 51
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Yayoi Kusama: Infinity, offers an overview of Kusama’s entire career, including works from her youth, when she indulged in drawing in order to escape from her hallucinations; paintings made when she was based in New York, including “Infinity Nets” and “Polka Dots,” and her happenings in places such as Central Park; her immersive mirrored infinity rooms from the 1980s and 1990s, when she participated in the Venice Biennale; and last but not least, the ongoing large-scale series “My Eternal Soul.” Kusama has continuously innovated and reinvented her style; well-known for her repeating dot patterns, her art encompasses an astonishing variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance, and immersive installation.
KS
Biography
Cover designed by Khushi Sharma