A Brief Study of Yayoi Kusama

A Brief Study of Yayoi Kusama (Full name of student) (Student ID) General Studies 1 Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore School of Arts and Design 8 September 2017

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DECLARATION I, (student of this report), declare the following report A Brief Study of Yayoi Kusama has neither in whole or part been submitted for a diploma to any other institution.

Unless indicated, all images without citations are taken by (student of this report).

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LIST OF FIGURES

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Fig 1a : Portrait of Yayoi Kusama, 18 February 2014 ………………………….. 5 Source: https://www.facebook.com/36938059200/photos/ a.447491549200.229209.36938059200/10152240795914201/?type=3&theater Fig 1b: My Bleeding Heart, 1994 ………………………………………………... 7 Fig 1c : Woman’s Castle, 1994 ……………………………………………….….. 7 Fig 1d : No. A, 1959 ………………………………………………………….……. 8 Fig 1e: Anti-war Happening at Brooklyn Bridge, New York, 1968 …………… 9

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CONTENT PAGE

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List of Figures …..…………………………………………………………………… 4 1.

Introduction to Yayoi Kusama …………………………………….............. 5

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Influences of Yayoi Kusama’s art works i) Dislike and Fear of Men ………………………………………………... 6 ii) Self-Obliteration …………………………………………….…………… 8

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Yayoi Kusama’s Involvement in Art Movements ………………….……... 9

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Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….. 10

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Bibliography ......................................................................................... 11

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Introduction to Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama (Fig 1a), born in March 22, 1929, is a renowned Japanese artist. She is recognized as one of the most influential artists who hails from Japan, and plays a significant role in the avant-garde. Along with a career as an artist, Kusama has published works as an author and a poet, and produced remarkable works in the film and fashion industry. The purpose of this report is to raise awareness about Yayoi Kusama, taking into account the reasons and explanations behind some of her art work, and touching on the influences she has made regarding art movement in the 1950s.

Fig 1a: Portrait of Yayoi Kusama, 18 February 2014

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Yayoi Kusama is proficient in multiple mediums, and throughout her career, has produced works of a wide variety of mediums such as paintings, collages, sculptures, installations, and even performing arts. Yayoi Kusama is well known for works that frequently display the use of repetitive patterns and psychedelic colours, which is likely to have been influenced by her mental illnesses.

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Influences of Yayoi Kusama’s art works i) Dislike and Fear of Men

One might notice that Yayoi Kusama has many art pieces portraying sexual themes.

Not only that, most of these art works have a common aspect, which is her distaste of the male sexual organ, for example, ‘My Bleeding Heart’ (Fig 1b). There is a legitimate reason behind her obsession with sex, and that is due to her troubled childhood. Yayoi Kusama clearly did not have a very pleasant childhood, despite being born into a wealthy merchant family. Her long struggle with mental illnesses, combined with her mother’s physical and verbal abuse, and father’s constant marital affairs has greatly influenced her art style. (Nayeri, 2012) For instance, Kusama mentioned that “My father was the type who would play around, who would womanize a lot. I saw this a lot, all the time, during my wretched childhood, and that probably affected me to develop these views against men.” (Nayeri, 2012) These events have resulted in Kusama having a deep fear and dislike in the opposite sex, thus inspiring many of her art pieces having relation to sex, and the male and female sexual organs. For instance, the art piece named ‘Woman’s Castle’(Fig 1c) was made using sewn stuffed fabric, and fluorescent lights to portray the women genitalia.

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Fig 1b: My Bleeding Heart, 1994

Fig 1c: Woman’s Castle, 1994

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ii) Self-Obliteration Kusama’s infatuation with polka dots, psychedelic colours and repeating patterns are due to her experiences of vivid hallucinations which were described as “bright flashes of light, auras or dense fields of dots”. The Infinity Nets (Fig 1d), which have been a constant aspect of Kusama’s works and notably her defining creation, are made of small consistent and repetitive loops painted “infinitely” over a monochrome background. This repetitive approach is regarded as her method of incorporating and uniting herself with the world. She refers to this process as “self-obliteration”.

Kusama feels that ‘self-obliteration’ is the process of ‘obliterating’ her anxieties through repetition, and she buries herself in this process willingly. (Pilling, 2012)

Fig 1d: No. A, 1959

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Yayoi Kusama’s involvement in Art Movements

Yayoi Kusama was one of the forerunners of various art movements; for instance, pop art, minimalism and feminism. (Nayeri, 2012) She was influential enough to have had contemporaries such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and George Segal exhibit her works alongside them. Yayoi Kusama was the most involved in art movements during 1957, when she first moved to the United States and settled in New York. It started when she painted a series of pieces that were influenced by the abstract expressionist art movement. In the 1960s, she was involved in the pop art movement, and thus became a fixture of the New York avant-garde. Kusama then fully immersed herself in the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, where she had painted nude participants with bright polka dots and had them appear in public in New York (Fig 1e), with the message, as quoted “Please stop war and live out the brilliance of life.” (Pilling, 2012)

Fig 1e: Anti-war Happening at Brooklyn Bridge, New York, 1968, reprinted 2017

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Conclusion

Yayoi Kusama is undoubtedly a pioneering artist who played a crucial role in the art movements during the 1950s. Her strong influence as an avant-garde leader has raised awareness of many social issues during that time. Individuals interested in Yayoi Kusama may have read her biography ‘Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama’, and would have changed their opinions on her ideals and motives, and the art that she uses to spread her messages. What truly is inspiring is the fact that she struggled with mental health issues, and used art as more of a coping method, rather than curing and healing. Yayoi Kusama mentioned in a meeting, with David Pilling from Financial Times, that she once told an interviewer “I don’t want to cure my mental problems, rather I want to utilize them as a generating force for my art.” (Pilling, 2012) Many people, whether artist or not, surely sympathize with Yayoi Kusama, and see her as a source of inspiration both for art and for life.

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Bibliography

Frank, P. (2017, September 2). Japanese Artist Yayoi Kusama Is About To Make 2017 Infinitely Better. Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/yayoikusama-retrospective_us_589c8b55e4b0c1284f2af521 Kusama, Y. (2012). Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama. Tate Publishing. https://books.google.com.sg/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MhZAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT3&dq=yayoi+kusama&ots=UxaNHsSrhE&sig=DcljbfxVF M2PZpF5RZifHa45elE#v=onepage&q=yayoi%20kusama&f=false Nayeri, F. (2012, February 14). Man-Hating Artist Kusama Covers Tate Modern in Dots: Interview. Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-14/manhating-artist-kusama-covers-tate-modern-in-dots-interview.html Pilling, D. (2017, September 16). The world according to Yayoi Kusama. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/52ab168a-4188-11e1-8c33-00144feab49a