biography yayoi kusama

Yayoi Kusama

Japanese-American Painter, Sculptor, Photographer, Installation, Performance, and Conceptual Artist

Summary of Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama's life is a poignant testament to the healing power of art as well as a study in human resilience. Plagued by mental illness as a child, and thoroughly abused by a callous mother, the young artist persevered by using her hallucinations and personal obsessions as fodder for prolific artistic output in various disciplines. This has informed a lifelong commitment to creativity at all costs despite the artist's birth into a traditional, female-effacing Japanese culture and her career's coming of age in the male-dominated New York art scene. Today, Kusama reigns as one of the most unique and famous contemporary female artists, operating from her self-imposed home in a mental hospital.

Accomplishments

• When Kusama began to see hallucinations as a child, her way of coping with the bizarre phenomena was to paint what she saw. She says that art became her way to express her mental disease, as most notably is seen in her Infinity Net paintings based on repetitive patterns and her installations in which she creates elaborate environments overrun with polka dots or tiny points of light.
• In much the same fashion as Kusama uses art to process hallucinations, she also uses her work to confront personal phobias, especially a fear of sex stemming from a witnessing of her father's womanizing. This reveals itself through her "compulsion" soft sculptures and furniture pieces covered in myriad phallic forms.
• Her familiarity with fighting for her life, and her compassion for others involved in causes against injustice, led Kusama to briefly associate with many subcultural movements of her time such as the hippie culture of the 1960s and the feminist movement.
• For Kusama, artmaking became an essential survival mechanism. It was her sole tool for making sense of a world in which she dwelt on the periphery of normative experience, and as a result became the very thing that allowed her to assimilate successfully into society.

The Life of Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama’s installation and sculptural works are inspired and informed by her memories of childhood abuse, repression, and trauma, and her ongoing experiences with mental disorder and sexual anxiety.

Important Art by Yayoi Kusama

When Kusama moved to the United States, the first works she exhibited were her watercolors. These works on paper showed the artist breaking free from the traditional Japanese artistic practices she was taught as a child and embracing Western artistic influences, especially in regards to abstraction. The Woman is one of these earlier abstract works. The watercolor depicts a singular biomorphic form with subtle dots in the center floating in a seemingly black abyss. The form is reminiscent of female genitalia with red spikes surrounding it. The overall effect of the work is aggressive and bizarre, showing signs of Kusama's struggles with mental illness and anxiety towards sex. From a very young age, Kusama experienced hallucinations in which a single pattern would engulf everything in her field of vision. As Kusama explains, "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." These themes of self-obliteration and representation of the infinite would become an obsession for Kusama as she attempted to represent what she believed to be her alternate reality. Her use of dots became the manifestation of this effort and has become the defining motif in her work.

Tempera and acrylic on paper - The Blanton Museum (Texas)

Kusama's Infinity Net series marks the beginning of a radical shift in her work from the singular abstract, biomorphic forms she painted during her youth to the more obsessive, repetitive works that would define her career. They also showcase the way she used art to process her mental illness. We can see through her own words, a sense of what these paintings accomplished for the artist: "With just one polka dot, nothing can be achieved. In the universe, there is the sun, the moon, the earth, and hundreds of millions of stars. All of us live in the unfathomable mystery and infinitude of the universe. Pursuing philosophy of the universe through art under such circumstances has led me to what I call stereotypical repetition." No. F is one of Kusama's first works from the celebrated series. From a distance the subtle painting looks delicate and monochromatic, but when viewed up close, the complexities of the canvas's surface become apparent. The bluish-grey underlay is almost completely obscured by small, white semi-circles, which consume the entire canvas and only allow the gray underlay to be visible in the form of tiny dots. The organic arched shapes all curve in the same direction, creating an undulating net that would continue on indefinitely if not for the edge of the canvas. As Kusama explains, "without beginning, end, or center. The entire canvas would be occupied by [a] monochromatic net. This endless repetition caused a kind of dizzy, empty, hypnotic feeling." This hypnotic feeling is furthermore translated to the viewer, as they are invited into the artist's mind. The thick build-up of the top layer of white paint also adds texture to the work, while the repetitive crescent shapes create an optically mesmerizing pattern that is neither random nor systematic, but instead reminiscent of things found in the natural world, such as atoms and cells. Although the obsessive and time-consuming Nets were painstaking to create, they proved therapeutic for the artist. Begun in the late 1950s, the series coincided with Kusama's move from her oppressive homeland to New York, where she found the artistic freedom she needed to expand her art practice. Created when Abstract Expressionism was still the popular contemporary art form and Minimalism was still in its infancy, the Infinity Nets were avant-garde for their time. As a result, the Nets are both expressive and minimal, bridging the two opposing movements. For Kusama personally, her Infinity Nets have become central to her practice, and continue to influence her work.

Oil on canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Accumulation No.1

Accumulation No.1 is the first in Kusama's iconic Accumulations series, in which she transforms found furniture into sexualized objects. The work consists of a single abandoned armchair painted white and completely covered with soft, stuffed phallic protrusions, while fringe encircles the base of the sculpture. No longer limited by the pictorial plane of the two-dimensional canvas as with Infinity Nets , the stuffed sculpture continues Kusama's repetition compulsion in three-dimensional form. The menacing piece is both aggressive and humorous, and also works to confront Kusama's sexual phobias. As Asia scholar, Alexandra Munroe explains, "her ambition for supremacy over men and over sexuality is relentlessly expressed in her repetitive and aggregate use of the phallus form, which can be interpreted as an aggressive will and fantasy to defy oppressive male power by possessing it symbolically herself." In doing so Kusama also abandons the typically passive role of the female. More than just making a statement against patriarchal authority, these "compulsion furniture" pieces, as she called them, were deeply personal for Kusama as they were her way of coping with her own innate sexual anxieties. "The armchair thickly covered in phalluses was my psychosomatic work done when I had a fear of sexual vision." These anxiety-ridden pieces would become included in a new form of art which art critic and historian, Lucy R. Lippard, called 'Eccentric Abstraction'. "The makers of what I am calling...eccentric abstraction, refuse to eschew imagination and the extension of sensuous experience while they also refuse to sacrifice the solid formal basis demanded of the best in current non-objective art." As a result, Kusama's psychosexual works became a significant precursor to post-Minimalist art.

Sewn stuffed fabric, paint, and chair fringe - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Sex Obsession Food Obsession Macaroni Infinity Nets & Kusama

In this piece, we see the artist splayed naked on one of her famous soft sculpture furniture pieces laden with phallic accumulations and surrounded with macaroni pasta which forms her familiar, patterns of repetition. By inserting herself into the piece, literally on top of an object that represents a manifestation of her sexual aversion, Kusama attempts to subvert her own discomfort and - in effect - to conquer it. It becomes a visual juxtaposition of her direct confrontation of a lifelong sexual aversion with the recognition of her nude self as an unmistakable, even if unwilling, object of sexual desire. This brave presentation of herself in physical dialogue with her fears positions Kusama as a participant in the burgeoning Feminist art movement of the time and also foreshadows her work in the late 1960s in which she would use her body and the body of others in public performances. Although she is slim and stylish and positioned amongst a groovy psychedelic scene with strong, provocative visual impact, the rendering of her signature polka dots across her skin reminds the viewer that she is most comfortable when allowed to be seen as an intrinsic part of the artwork, and merely one polka dot in the universe of many.

Narcissus Garden

Narcissus Garden was Kusama's first successful experimentation with Performance art. Although officially not invited to represent Japan at the 33 rd Venice Biennale nor given permission to participate by Biennale officials, Kusama nevertheless placed 1,500 plastic silver globes on the lawn near the Italian Pavilion. The twelve-inch in diameter mirrored balls were tightly arranged, creating an infinite reflective field that distorted images of reality on the surface of the balls. As in the original Greek myth in which Narcissus's admiration for his own reflection eventually causes him to drown, the viewer is forced to confront their own vanity when looking at their distorted reflection on the surface of the balls. Kusama also placed two signs at the installation that read: "NARCISSUS GARDEN, KUSAMA" and "YOUR NARCISSIUM FOR SALE". During the opening week of the Biennale the artist acted like a street peddler selling the balls for two dollars, while also distributing flyers with Herbert Read's flattering remarks about her work. While she hawked her wares, Kusama wore a gold kimono blatantly drawing attention to her "otherness" as foreigner, and highlighting the desire for fame that Kusama would seek throughout her life. And while angry Biennale officials immediately put a stop to her panhandling, the installation remained for the duration of the Biennale. As art historian Danielle Shang explains, the work has been "interpreted by many as both Kusama's self-promotion and her protest of the commercialization of art" creating a sense of duality, which is present in all of Kusama's work. Since its creation fifty years ago, Narcissus Garden has been commissioned and re-installed in various settings, however now the balls float on water further referencing the Greek myth.

Plastic silver balls, gold kimono, signs - 33 rd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

Anatomic Explosion on Wall Street

Starting in 1967 until her return to Japan, Kusama made fewer art objects and instead began experimenting with the performance art of the moment, "happenings". Her first Anatomic Explosion took place on October 15 th , 1968 opposite the New York Stock Exchange. The work featured nude performers dancing to the rhythm of bongo drums while Kusama, who called herself 'Priestess', painted blue dots on their naked bodies and presided over the event. The performance was in opposition of the Vietnam War and was prefaced by a press release that stated, "The money made with this stock is enabling the war to continue. We protest this cruel, greedy instrument of the war establishment." After 15 minutes the police came, putting an end to the spectacle. To coincide with the happening, Kusama also sent An Open Letter to My Hero, Richard M. Nixon in which she wrote, "Our earth is like one little polka dot, among millions of other celestial bodies, one orb full of hatred and strife amid the peaceful, silent spheres. Let's you and I change all that and make this world a new Garden of Eden.... You can't eradicate violence by using more violence." Growing up in militaristic Japan during the trauma of World War II led Kusama to vehemently oppose war and social injustice. Her absurdly theatrical happenings, which were always overtly political, were an expression of this opposition. For Kusama, nudity represented peace and love and was used to counter the horrors and tragedies of war. And while her happenings were inherently about political and social protest, they were also another outlet for self-promotion. Kusama fully embraced Warhol's idea of the artist as celebrity, claiming, "publicity is critical to my work because it offers the best way of communicating with a large number of people... avant-garde artists should use mass communication as traditional painters use paints and brushes."

Bongo drums, blue paint, four naked dancers - Yayoi Kusama Studio

Pumpkin is one of Kusama's first forays into outdoor sculpture. Made specifically for the Benesse Art Site on Naoshima Island in Japan, the giant, yellow pumpkin sculpture is painted with rows of black dots fanning out from large to small around the gourd. The pumpkin's bulbous, organic form and grand scale gives the work a cartoonish appearance, highlighting how strange the natural world appears in modern culture. Created when she was living in Japan, the work also reflects a shift in Kusama's artistic practice from her earlier aggressive and politically charged works to the more kitsch works that consume her art later in life. This shift can be attributed to the transition in Japanese culture from rigid and militaristic to a full on embrace of the ridiculous and tacky, as seen in the Hello Kitty cuteness of Kawaii culture. Kusama has also described the pumpkin motif as an alter ego, once again emphasizing how her work and identity are intrinsically intertwined. The lifelong obsession with the fruit derives from her youth and her family's nursery. "The first time I ever saw a pumpkin was when I was in elementary school and went with my grandfather to visit a big seed-harvesting ground... It immediately began speaking to me in a most animated manner. It seems that pumpkins do not inspire much respect, but I was enchanted by their charming and winsome form." Kusama has spent her whole life disassembling her identity and liberating the self through her various artistic practices, and the polka-dotted pumpkin is yet another expression of this endeavor.

Acrylic on ceramic - Benesse Art Site, Naoshima Island

Obliteration Room

Obliteration Room starts out as a blank canvas. Set up to resemble the interior of a domestic environment, the walls, ceiling, floor, furniture, and little knick knacks are all painted sterile white. Visitors to the room are handed a sheet of round stickers of various shape and size determined by Kusama, and invited to affix them to any surface in the room. Eventually the pristine room along with the furniture is obliterated by an explosion of colorful dots. As Munroe explains, "Kusama's art is fundamentally about obsession and the need, born of anxiety, to repeat certain acts in an attempt to free herself from that obsession. Since childhood, her art-making has been a private, atavistic ritual, a necessary inducement to repetition that leads to catharsis." In response to the trauma Kusama experienced as a child, the first iteration of the room was created specifically for children and to be an idealization of childhood. In the space, children are encouraged to violate the "look, but don't touch" policy of art museums, which for Kusama represents parental restrictions. The act of placing the dot stickers on a work of art allows the children to indirectly disobey their parents. The interactive installation was the first time Kusama moved away from creating a passive environment to creating an environment in which its realization required participation from visitors.

Furniture, white paint, colored dot stickers - First staged at the Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, Australia

Infinity Mirrored Room- The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away

Kusama began her Infinity Mirror Room series in the 1960s, and so far has created over twenty distinct rooms. They are the culmination of her repetitive paintings, soft sculptures, and installations into an immersive environment. Each Infinity Mirror Room consists of a dark chamber-like space completely lined in mirrors. In the past, Kusama has filled these rooms with pumpkins, phalluses, and lanterns. This particular room consists of small LED lights hung from the ceiling and flickering in a rhythmic pattern creating pulsing electronic polka dots. The lights reflect off the mirrors in the intimate room creating the illusion of endless space. Only one visitor at a time can experience the installation with that singular visitor becoming integral to the work, as his or her body activates the environment once in the room. The quiet, meditative space is a reflection on life and the inevitability of death- subjects that have fascinated Kusama since she was a child. She explains that her work "does battle at the boundary between life and death, questioning what we are and what it means to live and die." By encouraging visitors to contemplate their existence, Kusama's ethereal work emphasizes the interconnectedness we have to each other and the universe. "By using light, their reflection, and so on, I wanted to show the cosmic image beyond the world where we live." Now in her ninth decade and accepting of her own mortality, the work represents more harmonious aspirations by the artist for inner and outer peace, and is seen as a progression from her early work, which sought to fight and disrupt rather than reconcile.

Mirrors, Plexiglas LED lights - Collection of the artist, The Broad Foundation, Los Angeles

Biography of Yayoi Kusama

Childhood/education.

Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama grew up as the youngest of four children in an affluent family. However, her childhood was less than idyllic. Her parents were the product of a loveless, arranged marriage. Her absent father, emasculated by the fact that he had to take his wife's surname as a condition of marrying into the wealthy family, spent most of his time away from home womanizing, leaving his angry wife to physically abuse and emotionally torment her youngest child. She would often send her daughter to spy on her father's sexual exploits, the mental trauma of which caused Kusama to have a permanent aversion to sex and the male body.

At the age of ten Kusama began experiencing vivid hallucinations in which flowers would speak to her and patterns in fabric would come to life and consume her. She began to draw these visions as a therapeutic outlet, providing her with solace and control over the anxiety that tormented her. When Kusama was 13 years old she was sent to work in a military factory sewing parachutes for Japan's World War II efforts. Her adolescent years were spent in the darkness of the factory listening to air-raid sirens and the sounds of army planes flying overhead. The horrors of war would have a lasting effect on her, leading Kusama to create numerous anti-war works, and to also value individual and creative freedom. Her experience at the factory also provided her with the utilitarian ability to sew, which would prove useful when she began creating her soft sculptures in the 1960s.

Early Training

Disobeying her mother, who wanted her to simply be an obedient housewife, Kusama studied art in Masumoto and Kyoto. During this time in Japan, there was a movement to reject the influences of Western culture so Kusama was forced to only study Nihonga, which consisted of creating paintings using 1000 years old traditional Japanese techniques and materials. Her artistic talent was apparent at even a young age, and Kusama's work was shown in exhibitions all over Japan.

However, the stifling conservative Japanese culture and her abusive mother proved too much for Kusama, and in 1957 she moved to the United States, settling in New York City in 1958. Before she left, Kusama's mother handed her some money and told her "to never set foot in her house again." In response, Kusama angrily destroyed hundreds of her works.

Mature Period

Once in the United States, Kusama was free to explore her artistic expression that was censored while living in Japan. "For art like mine, [Japan] was too small, too servile, too feudalistic, and too scornful of women. My art needed a more unlimited freedom, and a wider world." With the help of Georgia O'Keeffe , with whom Kusama had started a correspondence and friendship with while still in Japan, she was able to secure exhibitions and some sales, leading to interest in her work right from the start. But there was also a fascination with the foreign artist herself, and she struck up a deep relationship with fellow Minimalist artist, Donald Judd , who admired her work so much that he purchased one of her first Infinity Net paintings. The middle-aged assemblage artist, Joseph Cornell was also infatuated with Kusama, often writing her love letters and sketching her in the nude. Because of her anxieties and fear of sex, both relationships, while very close, were strictly platonic. Cornell shared her sexual aversion and Kusama once remarked that "(Cornell) hated sex. That's why we got along so well." Kusama and Cornell developed such a close bond that when he died in 1972 she began creating collages to both honor his work and cope with his passing.

During this time Kusama worked feverishly, fully embracing the hedonist, free-spirited hippie culture of the 1960s, which also included protesting war, patriarchy, and capitalist society. Combining these themes with her own intimate anxieties, she created art that was deeply personal, but also spoke to the injustices of the times. Critics didn't know what to make of this innovative art, and soon the struggling artist went from obscurity to notoriety. Her fame rivaled that of some of the most famous Pop artists , and Kusama enjoyed the attention. Judd once recalled that while at a friend's house, Kusama grabbed a pregnant cat and sucked one of its nipples in order to draw attention to herself. Yet, this unapologetic and admitted quest for fame might also be seen as an effort to boldly self-validate her existence and to claim her identity in opposition to the obstacles placed upon her by her family's early denial of her career and her battle with mental illness.

Kusama's artistic output during this 15-year period was prolific and diverse, experimenting with various mediums such as drawing, painting, sculpture, performance, fashion, writing, and installation. She would sometimes work up to 50 hours without rest. Eventually the workload coupled with a lack of financial security and Cornell's death took its toll, and in 1973 she moved back to Japan to seek treatment for her mental exhaustion and declining physical health. She began focusing on her surreal writing and avant-garde clothing line. In 1977, after being diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive neurosis, Kusama checked herself in to the Seiwa Mental Hospital and has been living and working there by choice ever since.

Late Period

When Kusama moved back to Japan in the early 1970s she was all but forgotten by the Western art world. Even in Japan she was mostly known for her violence-soaked writings. That changed in 1993 when she was invited to represent Japan at the 45 th Venice Biennale. The acclaimed installation of one of her Infinity Mirror Rooms containing dotted pumpkins, coupled with the artist's performances alongside the exhibition, renewed the interest and appreciation for her work, along with the interest in the quirky artist herself. Kusama still seeks the limelight and continues to insist on being photographed with her work. Wearing her signature red wig and polka dot garments of her own making, Kusama's personality has become just as infatuating as her art.

In 2008, one of Kusama's Infinity Nets , the same one once owned by Judd, set new art auction price records for a living female artist and led to collaborations with luxury fashion retailers, like Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton. The woman, whose art once protested capitalism and materialism, now fully embraces it.

The Legacy of Yayoi Kusama

More important than the impact her diverse work has on the art market is its influence on other artists and movements, which spans generations. Her work inspired Pop artists like Andy Warhol , Feminist artists like Carolee Schneemann , Performance artists like Yoko Ono , and contemporary artists like Damien Hirst . Her far-reaching influence can be attributed to the fact that Kusama has always been a step ahead of her time, with her art being at the forefront of major artistic movements. And yet because her art making is so personal, and both a symptom and cure for her mental illness, it doesn't fit neatly into any of these defined movements. As fellow Pop artist, Claes Oldenburg states, "(Kusama) didn't have the kind of mind that identified with movements. She just went her own way." To this day, she represents herself as a lone wolf most comfortable with being known as independently avant-garde.

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Yayoi Kusama

• Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular Our Pick By Midori Yamamura
• Yayoi Kusama By Midori Yamamura
• Yayoi Kusama Our Pick By Frances Morris
• Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968 By Lynn Zelevansky and Laura Hoptman
• Infinity Nets: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama Our Pick By Yayoi Kusama
• Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray for Love By Yayoi Kusama
• Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived in Heaven By Akira Tatehata
• Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors By Mika Yoshitake and Alexander Dumbadze
• Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity Our Pick By Marie Laurberg and Jo Applin
• Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective Our Pick By Stephanie Rosenthal
• Kusama: Cosmic Nature By Mika Yoshitake and Joanna L. Groarke
• Yayoi Kusama (Phaidon Contemporary Artist Series) By Laura Hoptman and Udo Kultermann
• Kusama's Self Obliteration Film created by Kusama from 1967 when she was experimenting with performance art
• Yayoi Kusama- Obsessed with Dots Our Pick Tate Modern's short film, created to coincide with their Kusama retrospective, in which the artist discuss her life and art
• Yayoi Kusama Interview: Earth is a Polka Dot Our Pick Interview with Kusama in which she discusses her early struggles and childhood in the context of her Infinity Mirror Rooms
• Yayoi Kusama: Let's Fight Together Short interview in which Kusama discusses her fashion, current work, and desire for peace
• BBC Newsnight Yayoi Kusama Interview BBC News interview with Kusama that also discuss her work in relation to her Tate Modern retrospective
• Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors Our Pick NPR quickly takes the viewer into six of Kusama's Infinity Mirror Rooms
• How Yayoi Kusama Made it in America - Sotheby’s Our Pick
• Why Yayoi Kusama Matters Now More Than Ever - ARTiculations
• An Icon of Modernist Architecture - Covered in Polka Dots By Alexandria Symonds / The New York Times / Sept 1, 2016 / One of the various collaborative projects that Kusama has done in her expansive career
• How Yayoi Kusama, the 'Infinity Mirrors' visionary, channels mental illness into art By Anna Fifield / Washington Post / Feb 15, 2017 / Overview the origins of Kusama's work style and aesthetic
• The Unstoppable Yayoi Kusama $$ By Darryl Wee / Wall Street Journal / Feb 6, 2017 /
• The Art and Politics of Artists’ Personas: The Case of Yayoi Kusama Our Pick By SooJin Lee / Persona Studies / 2015
• Ace and Aro Lesbian Art and Theory with Agnes Martin and Yayoi Kusama By Ela Przybyło / Journal of Lesbian Studies / 2021
• 'The Beautiful Stars at Night': The Glittering Artistic World of Yayoi Kusama Our Pick By David Bell / New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies / December 2010
• Yayoi Kusama: The World's Favourite Artist? Our Pick By Tim Adams / The Guardian / September 23, 2018

Similar Art

Up to and Including Her Limits (1973-76)

Cut Piece (1964)

Cassiopeia 1 (1960)

Sky above Clouds, IV (1965)

Related artists.

Related Movements & Topics

Content compiled and written by Katelyn Davis

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Kimberly Nichols

Biography of Yayoi Kusama, Japanese Artist

• Art History
• Architecture

• M.A., History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art
• B.A. History of Art, Yale University

Yayoi Kusama (born March 22, 1929 in Matsumoto City, Japan) is a contemporary Japanese artist, best known for her Infinity Mirror Rooms, as well as her obsessive use of colorful dots. In addition to being an installation artist, she is a painter, poet, writer, and designer. 

Fast Facts: Yayoi Kusama

• Known For: Considered one of the most important living Japanese artists and the most successful female artist of all time
• Born: March 22, 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan
• Education: Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts
• Mediums: Sculpture, installation, painting, performance art, fashion
• Art Movement: Contemporary, pop art
• Selected Works: Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field (1965), Narcissus Garden (1966), Self Obliteration (1967), Infinity Net (1979), Pumpkin (2010)
• Notable Quote: "Every time I have had a problem, I have confronted it with the ax of art."

Early Life 

Yayoi Kusama was born in the provincial Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, to a well to do family of seed merchants, who owned the largest wholesale seed distributor in the region. She was the youngest of four children. Early childhood traumas (such as 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 endless 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 of a pattern, in addition to anxiety about sex and male sexuality in particular, are themes that appear throughout her oeuvre. 

Kusama began painting when she was ten, though her mother disapproved of the hobby. She did, however, allow her young daughter 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. 

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 American painter Georgia O’Keeffe , and in her enthusiasm for the artist’s work, wrote to the American in New Mexico, 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, Kusama left for America, but not before burning many paintings in a rage.

The New York Years (1958-1973)  

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, as she had grown up in an inland Japanese city. 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 would become friends with Kusama. 

In the mid 1960s, Kusama met the surrealist sculptor Joseph Cornell , who immediately became obsessed with her, incessantly calling to speak on the telephone and writing her poems and letters. 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, Kusama 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. 

Influence on American Art 

In 1963, Kusama showed Aggregation: 1000 Boats Show at the Gertrude Stein Gallery, where she exhibited a boat and a set of oars covered in her protrusions, surrounded by wall paper printed with a repeating image of the boat. Though this show was not commercially successful, it did make an impression on many artists of the time. 

Kusama’s influence on post-war American art cannot be underestimated. Her use of soft materials may have influenced sculptor Claes Oldenburg, who showed work with Kusama, to begin working with the material, as her working in plush predates his. Andy Warhol, who praised Kusama’s work, covered the walls of his gallery show in a repeated pattern, much the way Kusama did in her One Thousand Boats show. As she began to realize how little credit she received in the face of her influence on far more successful (male) artists, Kusama became increasingly depressed. 

This depression was at its worst in 1966, when she showed the groundbreaking Peep Show at Castellane Gallery. Peep Show , an octagonal room constructed of inwardly-facing mirrors into which the viewer could stick her head, was the first immersive art installation of its kind, and a construction the artist has continued to explore to widespread acclaim. 

And yet, later that year the artist Lucas Samaras exhibited a similar mirrored work at the far larger Pace Gallery, the similarities of which she could not ignore. Kusama’s deeping depression lead her to attempt suicide by jumping out a window, though her fall was broken, and she survived. 

With little luck in the United States, she began showing in Europe in 1966. Not formally invited to the Venice Biennale, Kusama showed Narcissus Garden in front of the Italian Pavilion. Composed of numerous mirrored balls laid on the ground, she invited passers-by to “buy their narcissism,” for two dollars a piece. Though she received attention for her intervention, she was formally asked to leave. 

When Kusama returned to New York, her works became more political. She staged a Happening (an organic performance intervention in a space) in MoMA’s Sculpture Garden and conducted many gay weddings, and when America entered the war in Vietnam, Kusama’s Happenings turned to anti-war demonstrations, in many of which she participated naked. The documentation of these protests, which were covered in New York papers, made its way back to Japan, where her hometown community was horrified and her parents deeply embarrassed. 

Return to Japan (1973-1989) 

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 another 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 (1975). 

Long Awaited Success (1989-Present) 

In 1989, the Center for International Contemporary Arts in New York staged a retrospective of Kusama’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 artist’s impressive four decades of work. 

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. Her work is held in the collections of the world’s largest museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate Modern in London, and her Infinity Mirrored Rooms are extremely popular, drawing lines of visitors with hour-long waits. 

Other notable works of art include the Obliteration Room (2002), in which visitors are invited to cover an all white room with colorful polka dot stickers, Pumpkin (1994), an oversized pumpkin sculpture located on the Japanese island of Naoshima, and the Anatomic Explosion series (begun 1968), Happenings in which Kusama acts as the “priestess,” painted dots on naked participants in significant locales. (The first Anatomic Explosion was held in Wall Street.) 

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 museum in Matsumoto, Japan. 

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). 

• Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: the Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama . Translated by Ralph F. McCarthy, Tate Publishing, 2018.
• Lenz, Heather, director. Kusama: Infinity . Magnolia Pictures, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8mdIB1WxHI.
• Life and Work of Nancy Spero, Feminist Printmaker
• Life and Work of Eva Hesse, Pioneer of Postmodern Sculpture
• Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe, Modernist American Artist
• The Life and Art of Jenny Holzer, Artist of Text-Based Truisms
• The Life and Works of Lee Bontecou, Sculptor of the Void
• Anne Truitt, Sculptor of Minimalist Form and Color
• 5 Female Artists of Surrealism
• Biography of Rosa Bonheur, French Artist
• Life and Art of Louise Nevelson, American Sculptor
• Biography of Kathe Kollwitz, German Printmaker
• Life and Work of Leonora Carrington, Activist and Artist
• Artist Spotlight: Jennifer Bartlett
• Grace Hartigan: Her Life and Work
• Biography of Joseph Cornell, Creator of Surrealist Shadow Boxes
• Biography of Remedios Varo, Spanish Surrealist Artist
• Biography of Alma Thomas, American Painter of Joyful Abstraction

Started to paint using polka dots and nets as motifs at around age ten ,and created fantastic paintings in watercolors, pastels and oils.

Went to the United States in 1957. Showed large paintings, soft sculptures, and environmental sculptures using mirrors and electric lights. In the latter 1960s, staged many happenings such as body painting festivals, fashion shows and anti-war demonstrations. Launched media-related activities such as film production and newspaper publication. 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. Held exhibitions and staged happenings also in various countries in Europe.

Returned to Japan in 1973. While continuing to produce and show art works, Kusama issued a number of novels and anthologies. In 1983, the novel “The Hustlers Grotto of Christopher Street" won the Tenth Literary Award for New Writers from the monthly magazine Yasei Jidai.

In 1986, held solo exhibitions at the Musee Municipal, Dole and the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Calais, France, in 1989, solo exhibitions at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England. In 1993, participated in the 45th Venice Biennale.

Began to create open-air sculptures in 1994. Produced open-air pieces for the Fukuoka Kenko Center, the Fukuoka Municipal Museum of Art, the Bunka-mura on Benesse Island of Naoshima, Kirishima Open-Air Museum and Matsumoto City Museum of Art, , in front of Matsudai Station, Niigata,TGV's Lille-Europe Station in France, Beverly Gardens Park, Beverly hills, Pyeonghwa Park, Anyang and a mural for the hallway at subway station in Lisbon.

Began to show works mainly at galleries in New York in 1996. A solo show held in New York in the same year won the Best Gallery Show in 1995/96 and the Best Gallery Show in 1996/97 from the International Association of Art Critics in 1996.

From1998 to 1999, a major retrospective of Kusama's works which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art traveled to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Walker Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

In 2000, Kusama won The Education Minister's Art Encouragement Prize and Foreign-Minister's Commendations. Her solo exhibition that started at Le Consortium in France in the same year traveled to Maison de la culture du Japon, Paris, KUNSTHALLEN BRANDTS ÆDEFABRIK, Denmark, Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, KUNSTHALLE Wien, Art Sonje Center, Seoul.

Received the Asahi Prize in 2001, the Medal with Dark Navy Blue Ribbon in 2002, the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Officier), and the Nagano Governor Prize (for the contribution in encouragement of art and culture) in 2003

In 2004, Her solo exhibition “KUSAMATRIX" started at Mori Museum in Tokyo. This exhibition drew visitors totaling 520,000 people. In the same year, another solo exhibition started at The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo  In 2005, it traveled to The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Matsumoto City Museum of Art.

Received the 2006 National Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Losette and The Praemium Imperiale -Painting- in 2006.

In 2008, Documentary film : “Yayoi Kusama, I adore myself" released in Japan and also screened at international film festival and museum. Exhibition tour started at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney in Australia in 2009, City Gallery Wellington in New Zealand. Conferred the honorary citizen of Matsumoto city.

Solo exhibition at Gagosian Gallery NY and LA, Victora Miro Gallery in London and Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea in Milan. Honored as Person of Cultural Merits in Japan 2009.

In 2010, solo exhibition and permanent outdoor sculpture at Towada Art Center in Japan.?Participation to Sydney Biennale and Aichi Triennale. Solo exhibition at Victoria Miro Gallery in London, fiac in Paris.

2011, solo exhibition at Gagosian gallery (Roma), Victoria Miro gallery (London). Europe and North America retrospective tour started at Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid traveling to Centre Pompidou

(Paris), TATE MODERN (London) and Whitney Museum (New York). Solo exhibition at Watari Art Museum (Tokyo). In September, participate in the 2011 Chengdu Biennale (China). Programmed solo exhibition at Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane) in November.

2012, “Eternity of Eternal Eternity", recent works solo national traveling show started at National Museum of Art, Osaka traveled to The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Matsumoto City Museum of Art, Nagano, Niigata City Art Museum. In the next year, it travel to Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Oita Art Museum and Museum of Art, Koch. Solo exhibition at Victoria Miro gallery (London). Shinjuku Honorary Citizen Award. The American Academy Of Arts and Letters Foreign Honorary Membership. Collaborated with Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs on collaborative collection “LOUIS VUITTON × YAYOI KUSAMA Collection".

2013, “Yayoi Kusama. Obsesión infinita [Infinite Obsession]", South America retrospective tour started at Malba - Fundacacion Constantini. It will travel to Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultutal Banco do Brasil, Brasília, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo and Mexico City. “KUSAMA YAYOI, A Dream I Dreamed", recent works exhibition tour started at Daegu Art Museum, Korea. It will travel to Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, Seoul Arts Centre, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Yayoi Kusama

Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. –Yayoi Kusama

Guided by her unique vision and unparalleled creativity, critically acclaimed artist Yayoi Kusama has been breaking new ground for more than six decades. In 1993, she became the first woman to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale, and last year, Time magazine named her one of the world’s most influential people.

Born in 1929, Kusama grew up near her family’s plant nursery in Matsumoto, Japan. At nineteen, following World War II, she went to Kyoto to study the traditional Japanese style of painting known as Nihonga . During this time, she began experimenting with abstraction, but it was not until she arrived in the United States, in 1957, that her career took off. Living in New York from 1958 to 1973, Kusama moved in avant-garde circles with such figures as Andy Warhol and Allan Kaprow while honing her signature dot and net motifs, developing soft sculpture, creating installation-based works, and staging Happenings (performance-based events). She first used mirrors as a multireflective device in Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field , 1965, transforming the intense repetition that marked some of her earlier works into an immersive experience. Kusama returned to Japan in 1973 but has continued to develop her mirrored installations, and over the years, she has attained cult status, not only as an artist, but as a novelist.

Works on Paper

Kusama’s works on paper first garnered attention in the United States in 1957, when she was the subject of a solo exhibition at Zoë Dusanne Gallery in Seattle. Produced on a small scale in rapid succession while the artist was still living in her hometown of Matsumoto, these drawings consist of abstract forms that evoke orbs, eggs, amoebae, and columns. In Infinity , black watery dots hover in a dense mass reminiscent of cells in a petri dish. In other works, such as Flower QQ2 , the dots may suggest a red light emerging from a distant haze. Hidden Flames, The Island in the Sea No. 1, Inward Vision No. 4 , and Long Island employ decalcomania , a Surrealist technique of blotting the surface of a sheet of paper with wet gouache paint and pressing another sheet against it to spread the pigment around. These early drawings are intimate, organic microcosms that the artist later expanded on in her Infinity Mirror Rooms.

Infinity Nets

Kusama created her Infinity Net paintings during her first years in New York, a time when she faced tremendous financial and emotional hardship. The repetitious motion of inscribing tiny arcs on a solid black background served as a meditation through which she made works “without composition—without beginning, end, or center.” Though stemming from a very personal experience, Kusama’s “interminable nets,” later called Infinity Nets, were remarkably prescient to the formal questions of art in the 1960s. Embodying the painterly qualities and the emphasis on process that are characteristic of Abstract Expressionism, these works also echo the restraint and monochromatic palettes of Minimalism.

Accumulations

Kusama began making the Accumulations or “soft sculptures” in the early 1960s. Through creating countless soft phallic tubers and attaching them to furniture, the artist hoped to conquer her fear of sex and the phallus through a kind of self-therapy. Artworks made from sofas, chairs, step ladders, dressers, and a large table were presented together in Kusama: Driving Image Show , a 1964 installation that functioned as a “total environment.” Blue Spots and Red Stripes , both Accumulations, serve as important precursors to Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field . In Phalli’s Field , however, the tubers emerge from the floor rather than from panels on the wall and are multiplied ad infinitum by surrounding mirrors.

After focusing on performances for a few years, Kusama returned to making sculptures in the mid-1970s, continuing to use phallic forms. She often coated these works with silver paint, evoking the reflective surfaces of her Infinity Mirror Rooms. The results are less organic than the early Accumulations, their sheen frozen and ethereal. A Snake , is an example of one of these sculptures, and it was included in the monumental exhibition Women’s Work: American Art ’74 , held at the Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center.

My Eternal Soul

Begun in 2009, My Eternal Soul currently comprises over five hundred works. Kusama has said that through this series, she hopes to trace the “beauty of colors and space in the silence of death’s footsteps and the ‘nothingness’ it promises.” Within these paintings, which embody both the radiance of life and the sublimity of death, motifs from Kusama’s earliest works are often echoed, giving evidence to the singular vision that has driven her over the course of her long career. The effects of color vibration and exuberant patterning, for instance, are reminiscent of Kusama’s works on paper from the 1950s and 1960s. And, like her Infinity Mirror Rooms, which are simultaneously enclosed and expansive, colors and patterns pulsate within the bordered spaces of these canvases. The pattern of peering eyes is consistent with her tendency toward obsessive, endlesslly proliferating images, and the voyeuristic pattern transforms flat color fields into shadowy depths. Other biomorphic forms, some resembling microorganisms, populate Kusama’s strange landscapes, and titles such as Aggregation of Spirits suggest that these paintings may be surrogates for human souls.

Exhibition Catalogue

Yayoi kusama: infinity mirrors.

The first publication to focus on Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, t his richly illustrated volume includes insightful essays by Mika Yoshitake, Alexander Dumbadze, and Gloria Sutton, as well as an interview with the artist by Melissa Chiu, the Hirshhorn’s director.

Exhibitions

Artist news, selected press.

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama’s (b. 1929) work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. Her highly influential career encompasses paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.

I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers , 2023

Stainless steel and urethane paint

98 x 111 x 106 inches (248.9 x 281.9 x 269.2 cm)

Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart , 2023

Bronze and urethane paint

132 x 328 x 163 inches (335.3 x 833.1 x 414 cm)

Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love , 2023

Wood, stainless steel, aluminum, tile, acrylic, metal, and paint

158 3/4 x 201 1/8 x 201 1/8 inches (403.2 x 510.8 x 510.8 cm)

Dancing Pumpkin , 2020

193 x 306 x 293 inches (490.2 x 777.2 x 744.2 cm)

Installation view, KUSAMA: COSMIC NATURE , New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York, 2021

I Want to Fly to the Universe , 2020

Cast aluminum and urethane paint

157 1/2 x 169 1/4 x 140 1/8 inches (400 x 430 x 356 cm)

INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM - DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE , 2019

Mirrored glass, wood, LED lighting system, metal, and acrylic panel

113 5/8 x 163 1/2 x 163 5/8 inches (288.6 x 415.3 x 415.6 cm)

INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM - LET'S SURVIVE FOREVER , 2017

Wood, metal, glass mirrors, LED lighting system, monofilament, stainless steel balls, and carpet

123 x 246 x 245 1/4 inches (312.4 x 624.8 x 622.9 cm)

Stainless steel and red urethane paint

68 3/8 x 71 3/4 x 66 inches (173.7 x 182.2 x 167.6 cm)

46 1/2 x 45 3/4 x 46 3/4 inches (118.1 x 116.2 x 118.7 cm)

I WHO CRY IN THE FLOWERING SEASON

Acrylic on canvas

76 3/8 x 76 3/8 inches (194 x 194 cm)

GIVE ME LOVE

63 3/4 x 51 5/16 inches (162 x 130.3 cm)

Explore Exhibitions

Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now

Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal

Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)

Celebrating 10 Years of Yayoi Kusama at Art Basel

Yayoi Kusama: You, Me and the Balloons

Factory International, Manchester

Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain

Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers

Coming May 2023

Creating Infinity: The Worlds of Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama

January 2023

Yayoi Kusama's Grand Central Madison Mosaic

New York City

November 2022

Yayoi Kusama: My Soul Blooms Forever

Museum of Islamic Art, Doha

Yayoi Kusama, 2021. Photo by Yusuke Miyazaki

View Artist Website

Download Full CV

Yayoi Kusama ’s (b. 1929) work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. Her highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.

Born in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama has been the subject of both solo and group presentations worldwide. She presented her first solo show in her native Japan in 1952. In the mid-1960s, she established herself in New York as an important avant-garde artist by staging groundbreaking and influential happenings, events, and exhibitions. Her work gained renewed widespread recognition in the late 1980s following a number of international solo exhibitions, including shows at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, both of which took place in 1989. She represented Japan in 1993 at the 45th Venice Biennale, to much critical acclaim. In 1998, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, co-organized Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968 , which toured to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1998-1999), and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (1999).

In 2011 to 2012, her work was the subject of a large-scale retrospective that traveled to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. From 2012 through 2015, three major museum solo presentations of the artist’s work simultaneously traveled to major museums throughout Japan, Asia, and Central and South America. In 2015, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, organized a comprehensive overview of Kusama’s practice that traveled to Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Helsinki Art Museum. In 2017-2019, a major survey of the artist’s work, Infinity Mirrors , was presented at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Seattle Art Museum; The Broad, Los Angeles; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Yayoi Kusama: Life Is the Heart of the Rainbow , which marked the first large-scale exhibition of Kusama’s work presented in Southeast Asia, opened at the National Gallery of Singapore in 2017 and traveled to the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta. In 2019, All About Love Speaks Forever, an exhibition tailor-made specifically for the Fosun Foundation, Shanghai, included more than forty works by the artist.

A comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s work was on view at Gropius Bau, Berlin, in 2021, and traveled to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2022. KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature was on view at The New York Botanical Garden in 2021. In 2022, several major exhibitions of the artist’s work opened, including Yayoi Kusama: DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE, PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art; Yayoi Kusama: My Soul Blooms Forever, Qatar Museums, Doha; and One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. A major retrospective of the artist’s oeuvre, Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now, was on view from 2022 to 2023 at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong, traveled to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain in June 2023, and is currently on view at the Serralves Museum, Portugal until September 2024. Also in 2023, Yayoi Kusama - You, Me and the Balloons , was on view at Aviva Studios, Manchester, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami presented the exhibition Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING. The solo exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love is on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art until May 2024.

In 2023, a commissioned mosaic by Kusama, A Message of Love, Directly from My Heart unto the Universe (2022) was unveiled at the new Madison Concourse at Grand Central Station, New York, and will remain on permanent view.

Kusama has been represented by David Zwirner since 2013. The gallery’s inaugural exhibition in 2013 with the artist, titled I Who Have Arrived in Heaven , spanned all three spaces at West 19th Street in New York. Her second gallery solo show, Give Me Love , was held at David Zwirner, New York, in 2015. Subsequent solo shows of the artist’s work at David Zwirner, New York include Festival of Life , concurrently presented with Infinity Nets , in 2017; and EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE in 2019. In 2021, David Zwirner, Victoria Miro, and Ota Fine Arts jointly presented I WANT YOUR TEARS TO FLOW WITH THE WORDS I WROTE in London, Tokyo, and New York. In 2023 at the gallery’s 19th Street location, the artist’s sixth solo exhibition with David Zwirner, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers , was on view.

Yayoi Kusama Museum, a museum dedicated to the artist’s work, opened October 1, 2017, in Tokyo with the inaugural exhibition Creation is a Solitary Pursuit, Love is What Brings You Closer to Art . The museum’s twelfth exhibition devoted to her work, Yayoi Kusama: Portraying the Figurative , is currently on view.

Work by the artist is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate, United Kingdom; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among numerous others. Kusama lives and works in Tokyo.

Now Arriving: Yayoi Kusama and Kiki Smith’s Grand Central Madison Mosaics

The New York TImes, announcement by Ted Loos

Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Cosmic Nature’ Dots a Bronx Garden

The New York TImes, feature by Will Heinrich

Kusama Arrives. Is It Worth Your Time to Wait in Line?

The New York TImes, feature by Jason Farago

An explosion of joy — Yayoi Kusama at New York Botanical Garden

Financial Times, by Ariella Budick

Artist Yayoi Kusama adds colorful shapes and patterns to the New York Botanical Garden

The Washington Post

Yayoi Kusama is bringing a new Infinity Mirror Room to NYC this fall

Selected Titles

Yayoi Kusama: The Journal

David Zwirner Books

Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray for Love

Yayoi Kusama: All About My Love

Thames & Hudson

Yayoi Kusama: Festival of Life

Yayoi Kusama: From Here to Infinity

The Museum of Modern Art

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors

Revised and Expanded Edition

Yayoi Kusama: Give Me Love

Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular

The MIT Press

Yayoi Kusama: Hi Konnichiwa

Kodansha USA

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: With Artwork by Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama (Book and Journal)

Request More Information

Yayoi Kusama

1929, Matsumoto, Japan

Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s most iconic and celebrated artists working today. With connections to Pop Art, Minimalism, psychedelia and popular culture, Kusama’s multidisciplinary career transcends categories as the artist continues to innovate over a career spanning more than 70 years. Kusama’s artistic practice encompasses paintings, sculpture, installations, works on paper, performances, films, fashion, design, and literary works. Her work across this wide breadth of media alludes to both microscopic and macroscopic universes.

Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama began her artistic education at the Kyoto City Senior High School of Art. Early in her artistic career, she had several solo exhibitions in Japan before moving to New York in 1958. She developed a style that embraced repetitive mark-making and organic patterns and forms on canvas, expanding to environmental creations after 1962. In the mid-1960s in New York, she established herself as a pioneering avant-garde artist by staging groundbreaking performances, events and exhibitions. She moved back to Japan in 1973 where she lives and works in Tokyo. Her work gained renewed widespread recognition in the late 1980s following several notable international solo exhibitions. She created her first mirrored environment in 1965, her first darkened Infinity Mirror Room in 2000, and has since constructed over 20 such installations that have become audience favorites worldwide. In 1993, Kusama represented Japan at the 45th Venice Biennale, receiving much critical acclaim, and she began to create open-air sculptures in 1994.

Over the past 25 years, Kusama’s work has been featured in numerous major museum exhibitions around the world, including presentations at the ICA Boston; Pérez Art Museum Miami; The Broad, Los Angeles; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; National Gallery of Singapore; Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Qatar Museums, Doha; M+ Museum in Hong Kong and Guggenheim Bilbao Museum.

Works in the Collection

Please note that artwork locations are subject to change, and not all works are on view at all times. If you are planning a visit to SFMOMA to see a specific work of art, we suggest you contact us at [email protected] to confirm it will be on view.

Only a portion of SFMOMA's collection is currently online, and the information presented here is subject to revision. Please contact us at [email protected] to verify collection holdings and artwork information. If you are interested in receiving a high resolution image of an artwork for educational, scholarly, or publication purposes, please contact us at [email protected].

This resource is for educational use and its contents may not be reproduced without permission. Please review our Terms of Use for more information.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Celebrating the eternal legacy of artist yayoi kusama.

An upcoming Hirshhorn collection exhibition will honor the artist’s seven-decade career

Nadine Daher

At first glance, the work of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is visually dazzling. Her constructed boxed rooms with millions of reflections from strategically placed mirrors astonish all those who enter into them. Her brightly colored pumpkin sculptures loom larger-than-life in exhibitions and on Instagram feeds across the world. Packed with countless miniscule polka dots, her paintings create a sense of endlessness that challenges the borders of her canvas.

As if walking into a hallucination, it’s difficult to make sense of the repetitive motifs and endless spaces that feel so different from daily life. Self-described as the “modern Alice in Wonderland,” Kusama enthralls with these infinite visions; she generously welcomes museumgoers into a visualization of the world as she sees it.

Now 90 years old, Kusama was an active participant in the art world of the 1960s when she arrived in New York City from Kyoto in 1958. Growing up in an abusive household, Kusama, at the age of 10, began experiencing hallucinations. Dots, pumpkins and flashes of light occupied her vision. She later began to recreate these motifs through her art as a form of therapy.

Mental health issues prompted her to return to Tokyo and in 1977, she voluntarily checked herself into a mental institution. Today Kusama still lives in the institution, which is just down the street from her art studio. She travels back and forth between both locations and continues to create her signature pieces.

The idea that everything in our world is obliterated and comprised of infinite dots, from the human cell to the stars that make up the cosmic universe, is the theme of her art. As Kusama describes herself, “with just one polka dot, nothing can be achieved. In the universe, there is the sun, the moon, the earth, and hundreds of millions of stars. All of us live in the unfathomable mystery and infinitude of the universe.”

Attendees of the Hirshhorn’s immensely popular 2017 survey, “ Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors ” exhibiting six of Kusama’s Infinity Rooms, were able to experience this phenomenon for themselves.

It was a highly-anticipated moment in Kusama’s journey as an artist, and visitors responded, queuing up and waiting for hours to enter the museum to experience the otherworldly realms for themselves. The museum reports that nearly 160,000 people experienced the show, bumping its annual visitor record to 475,000.

Kusama channels recent cultural trends and technological advancements through her Infinity Rooms. This has allowed her to become one of the most famous artists of her generation and has kept her art relevant for decades. The spark in popularity of photography in the social media age aligns well with the self-reflection element of the Infinity Rooms.

“The self-envisioning that we see happening through social media today and through other forms of photography,” explains Betsy Johnson, a curator at the Hirshhorn, “is something that was a part of Kusama's practice the whole way through, but it just so happens that today that has become something that is at the forefront of our collective consciousness. It’s just the perfect fusion of cultural currents with something that was always a part of her practice.”

Now, the Hirshhorn announces yet another Kusama exhibition, “ One with Eternity: Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection,” which opens in April. The show promises a tribute to the artist, rooting her otherworldly art within her life experiences. Kusama’s art is tied to overarching events she was experiencing at the time of their creation.

“She's become bigger than life, people look at artists and they think they're just special or different,” explains Johnson, who is organizing the upcoming exhibition. “One of the really wonderful things about working your way through a person's biography is understanding all of the little steps along the way that created what we see today.”

The objects on display will draw from different parts of her career, helping humanize the artist and deepen viewers’ appreciation of her work. While pumpkins, patterns and polka dots have been Kusama’s signature motifs, the artist has also experimented with other art forms that were influenced by her childhood. Among the five objects on display in this collection are some of her earliest paintings and photographs, as well as her 2016 signature sculpture titled Pumpkin and now held in the museum’s collections.

One piece from the collection, the 1964 Flowers—Overcoat is a gold coat covered with flowers. The sculpture reveals details of Kusama’s early life. “She wasn't always just focused on polka dots; she has this history where her family had acreage and grew plants,” Johnson says of the origin of Kusama’s interest in fashion. “This experience with organic forms is very much a part of her early practice and continues throughout her career.”

The exhibition will introduce the museum’s most recent acquisitions—two Infinity Mirror Rooms. A breakthrough moment in Kusama’s career was when she began constructing these experiential displays in 1965. No bigger than the size of small sheds , the interior of these rooms is lined with mirrored panels that create the illusion of endless repetition. Each room carries a distinct theme, with objects, sculptures, lights or even water reflected onto its mirrored walls.

The artist has constructed about 20 of these rooms, and has continued to release renditions up to this day. The evolution of these rooms demonstrates how her understanding of the immersive environment has shifted throughout the decades. On display at the upcoming exhibition will be Kusama’s first installation, Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field (Floor Show) (1965/2017) as well as one of her most recent rooms. The title and theme of the new room, newly acquired by the museum, is yet to be announced.

Johnson won’t say much about the museum’s newest Infinity Room acquisition but she did hint that in true Kusama fashion, the room feels otherworldly, seeming to exist outside of space and time.

The Discovery of the Lost Kusama Watercolors

Even at the beginning of her career, Kusama’s desire to understand her hallucinations and mediate her interaction with the world was expressed through her practice. Before transforming her visions into unique renditions of eternal repetition and perceptual experiences, Kusama expressed them through early paintings and works on paper.

The visual elements that Kusama audiences admire took Smithsonian archivist Anna Rimel quite by surprise late last year, when she was going through archived materials at the Joseph Cornell Study Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Rimel was conducting a preliminary survey of the Joseph Cornell papers when she found the paintings. Gathered in a worn manila envelope with Cornell’s writing on the outside were four previously undiscovered Kusama watercolors . The paintings were stored with their original receipts and given titles and signed by Kusama herself, making them an exciting discovery for Rimel and the museum staff.

“They're very ethereal looking. The images themselves seem to be emerging out of a murky background, they give off a very oceanic kind of quality,” says Rimel. “They're really visceral, you can't help but react to them when you see them.”

These watercolor works date back to the mid-50s, bordering Kusama’s transition from Japan and into the United States. They were purchased by artist Joseph Cornell, a friend and supporter of Kusama’s art.

Although different from the vibrant nature of her more recent pieces, these watercolor paintings share the cosmological nature Kusama would later expand on with the Infinity Rooms and other pieces. The watercolor paintings have been transferred to the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum .

As this recent discovery indicates, Kusama’s career is continuing to surprise art enthusiasts by offering up new gifts to admire. A tribute to her legacy, the upcoming Hirshhorn exhibition will celebrate the artist whose work has now become a part of the Institution's history.

“The Kusama show was huge for us in so many ways and really helped draw a larger audience, and we really recognize that,” Johnson says. “As a result of that, we really want to continue her legacy in D.C., and in our museum,”

In 1968, in an open letter to then-president Richard Nixon, Kusama wrote , “let’s forget ourselves, dearest Richard, and become one with the absolute, all together in the alltogether.” Loosely derived from these words, Johnson named the exhibition, “One with Eternity” in reference to the museum's effort to ensure that the artist’s legacy, like her art, becomes eternal.

“That's what museums are in the practice of doing—making sure that an artist's legacy lasts for as long as it possibly can,” explains Johnson. “It’s about making sure that this legacy that she has created is sustained into the future.”

Currently, to support the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19, all Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C. and in New York City, as well as the National Zoo, are temporarily closed. Check listings for updates. The the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has postponed the opening of “One with Eternity: Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection ” until later in the year. Free same-day timed passes will be required for this experience and will be distributed daily at the museum throughout the run of the exhibition.

Get the latest on what's happening At the Smithsonian in your inbox.

Nadine Daher | | READ MORE

Nadine Daher is a digital intern at Smithsonian magazine. She is a senior at Northwestern, where she studies journalism and international studies.

Yayoi Kusama (Tate)

The nine decades of Yayoi Kusama’s (草間彌生) life have taken her from rural Japan to the New York art scene to contemporary Tokyo, in a career in which she has continuously innovated and re-invented her style. Video from Tate

Cite this page

Your donations help make art history free and accessible to everyone!

Who are they?

Who is Yayoi Kusama?

Don’t adjust your screens or rub your eyes…the dots you are about to experience are art! Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Yayoi Kusama

Part of UNIQLO Tate Play in partnership with UNIQLO. Please visit the Tate website with an adult

Who is she?

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who is sometimes called ‘the princess of polka dots'. Although she makes lots of different types of art – paintings, sculptures, performances and installations – they have one thing in common, DOTS!

What's with all the dots?

Yayoi Kusama tells the story of how when she was a little girl she had a hallucination that freaked her out. She was in a field of flowers when they all started talking to her! The heads of flowers were like dots that went on as far as she could see, and she felt as if she was disappearing or as she calls it ‘self-obliterating’ – into this field of endless dots. This weird experience influenced most of her later work.

By adding all-over marks and dots to her paintings, drawings, objects and clothes she feels as if she is making them (and herself) melt into, and become part of, the bigger universe. She said:

‘Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment’.

1965: Infinity Mirror Rooms, Phallis Field, installation view in the exhibition floor show , Richard Castellane Gallery, New York © YAYOI KUSAMA

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room ® Filled with the Brilliance of Life , 2011 © YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro

She also creates environments of dots so that we can experience this feeling of self-obliteration too. She calls these rooms her 'Infinity Rooms', and creates them by installing hundreds of flashing coloured LED lights into mirrored rooms. The pinpricks of light in the dark room reflect endlessly in the mirrors, making you feel like you are in an apparently endless space. The dots surround and engulf you…it's very hard to tell where you end and where the rest of the room begins!

How did she start?

Yayoi was born in Japan in 1929. She loved drawing and painting and although her parents didn't want her to be an artist, she was determined. When her mum tore up her drawings, she made more. When she could not afford to buy art materials, she used mud and old sacks to make art. This is a drawing she made of her mum when she was 10-years-old.

Yayoi Kusama, Untitled 1939 , Pencil on paper, 25 × 22 cm

Eventually Yayoi Kusama persuaded her parents to let her go to art school and study painting.

In the late 1950s she moved to New York as lots of the most exciting art seemed to be happening there. It must have been a bit frightening arriving in a big city with such a different culture from what she knew. But she was determined to conquer New York. She later wrote about her feisty attitude: ‘I would stand up to them all with a single polka dot’.

1965 Lying on the base of My Flower Bed (1962) Photo: Peter Moore © Northwestern University © YAYOI KUSAMA

She had the first of many exhibitions there in 1959. She met and inspired important artists including Donald Judd, Andy Warhol and Joseph Cornell, and her art was a part of exciting art developments such as pop art and minimalism. She was also one of the first artists to experiment with performance and action art.

As well as being an art pioneer, Yayoi Kusama put her creativity into other things including music, design, writing and fashion.

You might like

Create Dots Like Kusama

Can Geometry Be Art?

Quiz: Which Artist Should Design Your Bedroom?

An expert’s guide to Yayoi Kusama: six must-read books on the Japanese artist

All you ever wanted to know about kusama, from a detailed study of her infinity mirror room to illustrations for alice in wonderland—selected by the gropius bau director stephanie rosenthal.

Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (1965) © Yayoi Kusama, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro, David Zwirner

The Art Newspaper’ s Book Club shines a light on art books in their myriad forms and brings you exclusive extracts, interviews and recommendations from leading art world figures. Sign up to our monthly newsletter

“The artist’s work is unthinkable without her autobiography”

• Click here for more reading lists on the world's greatest artists

The 91-year-old Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is one of the biggest stars in the art world, famed for her signature spot motifs and bold colours used across multiple media. Although Kusama left her conservative Japanese upbringing in her late 20s to immerse herself in the 1960s underground New York art scene—gaining some notoriety—it was not until much later in life that she achieved widespread recognition.

Kusama will be the subject of several exhibitions this year, including a show of outdoor works at the New York Botanical Garden in April, and two separate exhibitions of Infinity Mirror Rooms—one at London's Tate Modern, scheduled for this spring, and another at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, due to open in September. But the biggest exhibition will be a sweeping retrospective opening next month at the Gropius Bau in Berlin before travelling to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in November. The Gropius Bau’s director Stephanie Rosenthal, who has curated the exhibition and edited its comprehensive catalogue, has chosen six books for anyone wanting to delve deeper into the dotty world of Yayoi Kusama.

Kusama’s Body Festival in 60s

Kusama’s Body Festival in 60s (2011) by Yayoi Kusama

“This is my Kusama bible: an extremely informative book, even if it has only Japanese text, but the illustrations of her performances, happenings, fashion shows and other socially critical activities over 290 pages are fantastic.”

Yayoi Kusama: a Retrospective

Yayoi Kusama: a Retrospective (1989) edited by Bhupendra Karia

“[Years] after its creation, this important exhibition catalogue provides information about Kusama‘s first retrospective [at the Center for International Contemporary Arts] and the first critical overview ever presented. After [Kusama was] nearly forgotten in the 1980s, this New York exhibition brought her back to the attention of the art world.”

Infinity Net: the Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

Infinity Net: the Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama (2003) by Yayoi Kusama

“The artist‘s work is unthinkable without her autobiography, which Kusama wrote at the age of 73. It provides very interesting insights into her artistic work, biographical background as well as social and political discourses in Japan and the US over the last nine decades.”

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field (2012) by Jo Applin

“In this monograph, focused on one work, Jo Applin looks at Kusama‘s first Infinity Mirror Room , from 1965, in detail and places it in the context of subsequent art practice and theory as well as Kusama‘s own ‘obsessional art’, as she calls it.”

The Burning of St. Mark’s Church (1985) by Yayoi Kusama

“Kusama wrote a bunch of poems, novels and fiction with links to her biography. She finished this book, her favourite, in 1985. It [contains] a mix of sex, death and hallucinations. Kusama started to write very early in her life and when she returned from New York to Tokyo [in the 1970s] she focused on it for a couple of years.”

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: with Artwork by Yayoi Kusama

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: with Artwork by Yayoi Kusama (2012) by Lewis Carroll

“With this children’s book you can dive into the worlds of Alice in Wonderland and Yayoi Kusama at the same time and see that both are similar. It not only delights my five-year-old son, but also me.”

• Yayoi Kusama: a Retrospective , Gropius Bau, Berlin, 23 April-1 August

• Yayoi Kusama: a Retrospective, Stephanie Rosenthal, (ed), Prestel , 352pp, $60/£45 (hb)

• For extracts from a graphic novel about Kusama, see In Pictures | Yayoi Kusama’s colourful life gets the graphic novel treatment

Sign up to our monthly Book Club newsletter and follow us on social media using #TANbookclub

Start › Exhibitions › Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama, Kusama with Dots Obsession, 2012 Installation View: Kusama's solo exhibition "YAYOI KUSAMA ETERNITY OF ETERNAL ETERNITY” at Matsumoto City Museum of Art, Nagano, Japan © Yayoi Kusama, courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, David Zwirner, New York

Yayoi Kusama

In infinity, 11.6 2016 – 11.9 2016.

In 1957, Yayoi Kusama left Japan for New York. Here, at the heart of the vibrant 1960s art scene, she created many of her most important works.  She later staged anti-Vietnam war protests, marches surrounded by hippie followers, political performances and orgies where she painted the naked bodies of the participants with dots. As a non-Western woman in the excluding, male-dominated art world of the time, Kusama was a rare bird, but she soon gained fame and recognition.

Admission to the exhibition: 150 SEK Reduced admission to the exhibition: 130 SEK (for pensioners and students)

Free admission to the rest of the museum. Free admission to all exhibitions for those 18 and under and the Friends of Moderna Museet (MMV) .

Avoid having to queue at the ticket desk – book your tickets in advance and go straight to the exhibition!

Kusama’s unique imagery spring from the recurring hallucinations that have haunted her since childhood. In her hallucinations the world appeared as covered by dots and repetitive shapes, like an infinite starry sky. Art, for Kusama became a method of giving form to these inner landscapes. In an effort to put words to her experiences, Kusama talks about the concept of self-obliteration – the idea of becoming one with the surroundings, dissolving the boundaries of the Self, and disappearing into an all-embracing emptiness. To share her experiences, Kusama creates works of art that invite visitors to lose themselves in the infinite nets, mirror rooms and thousands of polka dots with which she covers the world.

In the late 1970s, Kusama left New York. Some years later she resumed her artistic practice in Tokyo, making monumental paintings and sculptures. Yayoi Kusama still works in her studio every day and now, she is one of the world’s most beloved artists.

Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity is the first major retrospective presentation of Kusama’s oeuvre in Scandinavia, spanning her entire artistic career from the early 1950s until today. The exhibition features a rich selection of paintings, drawings and sculptures, including spatial installations and performance-related material, paying particular attention to works from the late 1980s, after Kusama’s return to Japan. It is also the first comprehensive exhibition featuring Kusama’s interest in fashion and design. On view are works never shown previously, as well as a series of paintings made especially for Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity.

Conservation

The exhibition In Infinity displays works by Yayoi Kusama from 1948 to the present. The artwork Suit (1962) from Moderna Museet’s collection has been conserved and has travelled on loan with the exhibition’s whole tour throughout Denmark, Norway, Sweden and will travel to Finland. Displayed together with Kusama’s private archival material are also exciting discoveries from Moderna Museet’s own archive.

Read the full article on the conservation work:  Archival material, impasto painting, pasta, and textiles

Curator: Jo Widoff Assistant curator: Olga Krzeszowiec Malmsten

Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity was organised by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, in association with Heine-Onstad Center, Norway, the Helsinki Art Museum, Finland, and Moderna Museet/ArkDes, Sweden. Curator: Marie Laurberg, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition is on the 4th floor

More about this exhibition

Biography Yayoi Kusama

1929–1944 Yayoi Kusama is born, the youngest of four children, in the small provincial city of Matsumoto about 200 km west of Tokyo. Her upbringing …

About the artworks

About the artworks in the exhibition

Yayoi Kusama’s remarkable artistic practice has fascinated the public for nearly six decades. Like few other artists, she moves freely between …

For Families

Take your children to the exhibition!

There are lots of exciting, dotty things going on in the Workshop and ArkDes Studio all summer, and visitors to the exhibition can help the ladybug …

Concerts in the Garden

Music+Arts=Garden Stage

Patti Smith, José González and Lina Nyberg are just a few of the artists who will be on stage in the Garden this summer, in the midst of a unique …

Talks: Art and fashion

Art and fashion

Welcome to an evening about fashion with discussions and conversations in the Auditorium on 30 August 2016. …

Yayoi Kusama Biography

Yayoi Kusama    is one of the most well-known contemporary Japanese artists around the world today. Born in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan, on March 22nd, 1929, she mainly works in sculpture and installation. Based mostly in conceptual art, Kusama explores themes of feminism, pop art, abstract expressionism, minimalism, Art Brut, and surrealism.

Born in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan, on March 22nd, 1929, Yayoi Kusama is one of the most well-known contemporary Japanese artists around the world today. Kusama’s art spans many mediums, including painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, but she mainly works in sculpture and installation. Based mostly in conceptual art, Kusama explores themes of feminism, pop art, abstract expressionism, minimalism, Art Brut, and surrealism. Much of her work delves into her world view, exploring psychological and sexual subjects as well as her mental illness.

Yayoi Kusama describes seeing vivid hallucinations of light flashes, auras or fields of dots as early as ten years old. She also describes seeing flowers that would speak to her, patterns in fabrics that she stared at would come to life, multiply and engulf her. This process of engulfing she calls “self-obliteration,” and would become an important influence on her art throughout her life. Kusama cites smooth white stones that covered the riverbed near her family home as a cause for her fascination with polka dots which became an integral part of her artwork.

Kusama moved to New York City in 1958 after studying nihonga, traditional Japanese painting, at the Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts. She was frustrated with the experience of being a woman in Japan, stating she considered Japanese society “too small, too servile, too feudalistic, and too scornful of women” (Frank, HuffPost). She was interested in the American Abstract impressionism and she became part of the pop-art movement and the hippie counterculture that dominated the art scene in New York throughout the 1960s. In the later years of the decade, Kusama gained notoriety for her series of “happenings” that featured naked people who were painted with brightly colored polka dots.

In 1963, Kusama began creating her series of Mirror/Infinity rooms. The rooms are created through the use of walls lined with mirrored glass and scores of various illuminated hanging objects, from neon-colored balls and little colored lights to larger hanging lanterns and glowing pumpkins. The viewer stands on a small platform and the effect creates a feeling of infinity as the objects are reflected a million times over in the mirrors. Throughout the rest of the 1960s, Kusama was extremely productive, landing in the hospital multiple times from overworking herself. Her work was plagiarized by many male artists in New York City during this time, who gained fame while she remained relatively unknown. This combined with financial stress and insecurity led her to attempt suicide. Kusama would later attempt again after facing severe shame from her family for her nudity in her art and lifestyle.

Kusama returned to Japan in 1973, where she voluntarily checked herself into a hospital for the mentally ill in Tokyo. She still lives there today by choice. Her studio is a short distance from the hospital and this is where she continues to work in a variety of artistic mediums, as well as exploring her literary career through novels, poetry and an autobiography. Kusama has long been considered one of Japan’s most important living artists and it is clear when looking at Kusama’s monumental and influential oeuvre why. She is an artist who is unapologetically original and exploratory who creates larger than life installations that immerse the viewer in her fantastic creative vision. 

Kusama’s work has been exhibited in museums and private institutions around the world, including the Venice Biennale, a major retrospective in four museums Scandinavia, the Broad Museum, the Whitney, the Museum of Modern Art New York, and in 2017 the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo, Japan.

Bibliography:

Frank, Priscilla (9 February 2017). " Japanese Artist Yayoi Kusama Is About To Make 2017 Infinitely Better ". HuffPost. Retrieved 11 March 2017.