Yayoi Kusama | MoMA

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Yayoi Kusama. Violet Obsession. 1994. Sewn and stuffed fabric over rowboat and oars, 43 1/4" × 12' 6 3/8" × 70 7/8" (109.8 × 381.9 × 180 cm). Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Duke

“I am an obsessional artist.”

Yayoi Kusama

A vital part of New York’s avant-garde art scene from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, Yayoi Kusama developed a distinctive style utilizing approaches associated with Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Pop art, Feminist art, and Institutional Critique—but she always defined herself in her own terms. “I am an obsessional artist,” she once said. “People may call me otherwise, but…I consider myself a heretic of the art world.”1

Kusama was born in 1929 into a well-off but dysfunctional family in Nagano, Japan. Largely shielded from the horrors of World War II, she was, as she has claimed, nevertheless scarred by her mother’s cruelty, her father’s infidelities, and her family’s discouragement of her interest in art making. She started painting at the age of 10 when she began experiencing the visual and aural hallucinations that would plague her, while also fueling her creativity, for the rest of her life. She has maintained that her “artwork is an expression of my life, particularly of my mental disease.”2

After a stint studying traditional Japanese painting in Kyoto, Kusama left school and moved to New York in 1958. There she felt she could pursue her art unfettered—and make waves. “When I arrived in New York, action painting was the rage…” she reflected. “I wanted to be completely detached from that and start a new art movement.”3 She began by making large-scale monochromatic paintings, for which she quickly gained critical attention. By the 1960s, the prolific artist was producing paintings, drawings, sculpture, Happenings, installation, fashion, and film. In 1969, she founded Kusama Enterprises, a commercial outlet selling clothing, bags, and even cars. These products feature her singular aesthetic, characterized by her liberal use of polka dots and dense, repeating patterns to create a sense of infinity.

In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan. Two years later, seeking treatment for her obsessive-compulsive neurosis, she entered a facility where she lives and works to this day. She continues to produce paintings and sculpture, and, in the 1980s, added poetry and fiction to her range of creative pursuits.

Karen Kedmey, independent art historian and writer, 2017

The research for this text was supported by a generous grant from The Modern Women's Fund.

  1. Grady T. Turner, "Yayoi Kusama." BOMB 66, Winter 1999, http://bombmagazine.org/article/2192/yayoi-kusama.

  2. Grady T. Turner, "Yayoi Kusama." BOMB 66, Winter 1999, http://bombmagazine.org/article/2192/yayoi-kusama.

  3. Grady T. Turner, "Yayoi Kusama." BOMB 66, Winter 1999, http://bombmagazine.org/article/2192/yayoi-kusama.

Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi, born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, the world's top-selling female artist, and the world's most successful living artist. Her work influenced that of her contemporaries, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. Kusama was raised in Matsumoto, and trained at the Kyoto City University of Arts for a year in a traditional Japanese painting style called nihonga. She was inspired by American Abstract impressionism. She moved to New York City in 1958 and was a part of the New York avant-garde scene throughout the 1960s, especially in the pop-art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, she came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly coloured polka dots. She experienced a period in the 70s during which her work was largely forgotten, but a revival of interest in the 1980s brought her art back into public view. Kusama has continued to create art in various museums around the world, from the 1950s through the 2020s. Kusama has been open about her mental health and has resided since the 1970s in a mental health facility which she leaves daily to walk to her nearby studio to work. She says that art has become her way to express her mental problems. "I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art," she told an interviewer in 2012. "I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live."
Wikidata
Q231121
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Getty record
Introduction
Kusama is known for her varied practice that includes painting, sculpture and room-sized installations. She moved to the US 1957, settling in New York City, and produced paintings influenced by abstract expressionism. She was active in New York in the 1960s creating sculpture and installations, and producing happenings.
Nationalities
Japanese, American
Gender
Female
Roles
Artist, Author, Writer, Collagist, Painter, Installation Artist, Performance Artist, Photographer, Sculptor, Video Artist
Names
Yayoi Kusama, Yayoi Nusama, 草間弥生, 草間彌生
Ulan
500122518
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Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

112 works online

Exhibitions

View all 36 exhibitions

Audio

Publications

  • MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art Introduction by Glenn D. Lowry, 2019 Flexibound, 408 pages
  • MoMA Now: Highlights from The Museum of Modern Art—Ninetieth Anniversary Edition Introduction by Glenn D. Lowry, 2019 Hardcover, 424 pages
  • Being Modern: Building the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art Edited by Quentin Bajac, 2017 Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 288 pages
  • Yayoi Kusama: From Here to Infinity By Sarah Suzuki, 2017 Hardcover, 40 pages
  • Photography at MoMA: 1960 to Now Edited by Quentin Bajac, Lucy Gallun, Roxana Marcoci, and Sarah Hermanson Meister, 2015 Hardcover, 368 pages
  • The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today Roxana Marcoci. Essays by Roxana Marcoci, Geoffrey Batchen, and Tobia Bezzola, 2010 Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 256 pages
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