草間彌生

Kusama Yayoi

Born March 22, 1929 in Motsumoto City, Nagano PrefectureYoungest of four children of Kamon and Shigeru Kusama.

What led Kusama in becoming an artist?

Her parents:Dad was a womanizer, always having a mistress.Mom was highly abusive, physically and mentally.

In 1941, her freshman year of high school, she began experiencing regular visual & aural hallucinations.

Asthma was triggered by friction between self and external world.

Tormented by obsessive anxiety and fear, and struggled then with arrhythmia and tachycardia.

Art was her escape…

God of the wind 1955

Early Works

Corpses 1950 Accumulation of the corpses 1950

Earth of Accumulation1950

In 1948, Kusama entered a four-year course of study at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts.

Studied Nihonga, which is _____-_____ _____.

Japanese-Style PaintingShe hated classes. They were too

oppressive and tainted by hierarchy. Needed freedom

Had to get to America

Nihonga

Lingering Dream 1949

Bud Chinese ink on paper 1952

The Germ 1952

Face No.5 watercolor,Chinese ink, pastel on paper 1953

Flower Bud No.61952

Pumpkins?

Linksplodge 2009

Pumpkin 1982Pumpkin 2008

Pumpkin watercolor 1979

Georgia O’Keefe was Kusama’s first and greatest benefactor.

Greatest asset of getting Kusama to America.

She sent her fourteen watercolors.

In 1956, Kusama secures a solo exhibition at Seattle’s Dusanne Gallery.

OFF TO AMERICA! Untitled 1954

Dots… Infinity nets… Dots!

Kusama moves to New York to really get her new life going.

She accomplishes this through psychological patterns of dots.

In 1961, her art spread beyond the canvas to an environmental sculptor.

What’s the fascination?

“The monotony produced by repetitive patterns bewildered

the viewer, while hypnotic serenity drew the spirit into a

vertigo of nothingness.” (23)

It was by this method that she explored the unbounded universe and the infinite

infinities beyond.

Psychosomatic art… any ideas?

Working through internal conflict or stress by…

…creating hundreds of thousands of penises and macaroni coats.

Obliteration – a process in which one buries themselves in their fear

Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show

1965

999 pictures of the boat line a room with the original.

1000

Hundreds of Thousands

Phallus Field 1965

Aggression: One Thousand Boats Show 1965

Accumulation 1964

Narcissus Garden 1966

Became “Queen of the Hippies”

Kusama began her Happenings in the late 1960s.Childhood experience with sex brought about

her mindset.She herself had no sex.Like a true hippie, believed war was wrong.Also believed that sex and drugs were awesome.

Accumulation of Nets 1961

Kusama’s thoughts on war

“Behind the impulse to fight is the simple fact that men have

penises.” (45)

Kusama’s Peep Show 1966

And flashing lights and mirrors and drugs all go so well together

National Identity

“America is really the country that raised me, and I owe what I have become to her.” (61)

Felt ostracized by her home country, Japan.

All over the world!Returned to Japan in 1970 for a

few months.Throughout 1971, explored Europe with Rome as her base.

Back to New York in 1972, where she was first listed in Who’s Who. (She has been listed in Who’s Who ever since.)

Finally, returned to Japan in February 1975 due to illness.

Man Catching the Insect, 1971

Kusama’s works all over the world

Fireflies on the Water 2002 – Located at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Tate Modern, London

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Centre Pompidou, Paris

National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Obliteration 2011

New York City – Present Day

Works CitedKusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Autobiography of

Yayoi Kusama. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2011.

Kusama, Yayoi, Jaap Guldemond, Franck Gautherot, Seung-Duk Kim, Diedrich Diederichsen, Midori Yamamura, and Lily Van Der Stokker. Yayoi Kusama, Mirrored Years. [Dijon]: Leses Du Réel, 2009.

Kusama, Yayoi. "Yayoi Kusama Official Site." Yayoi Kusama Official Site. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. <http://www.yayoi-kusama.jp/>.

Morris, Frances, and Yayoi Kusama. Yayoi Kusama. New York: Distributed Art, 2012.

Dots Obsession 1999