Yayoi Kusama

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Yayoi Kusama was born in traditional Japan in the 1920s. Very early on, the little girl became interested in art and drawing. Her family suffered the full force of the consequences of the Second World War and Yayoi Kusama is mobilized for the war effort: she produced parachutes and military clothes in a factory. Marked by the figure of a very authoritarian father, the young Girl is plagued by an obsessive delirium, suffering from visual hallucinations. She conducts art studies, despite the opposition of her parents, and begins to exhibit her work, although few women are raised to the rank of artists in a conservative Japan. She makes the principle of accumulation the spring of her work, and of the pea (Polka Dot) her favorite reason. Single by the American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, Yayoi Kusama arrived in the United States in 1957. Thanks to his New circle, notably in Donald Judd, she exhibited and designs facilities in the early 1960s. She created nausea -populated environment of phallic and soft forms, made using her sheets or old socks. His works were psychedelic at will. From 1966, Yayoi Kusama organized performances and happenings in emblematic places in New York: at the Museum of Modern Art, on the Stock Exchange or the Statue of Liberty. These actions are often sources of scandal, due to the nudity of the participants. Nudity takes on a political meaning: the artist militates for sexual freedom, the right of women to have their bodies, spiritual liberation ... In his performances, Yayoi Kusama rarely stages himself but uses the body of others. It is based in particular on Butō, a avant-garde Japanese choreographic art, created just after the Second World War which explores the specifics of the body. Fashion and design having always interested her, she also creates clothes, whose aesthetics are inspired by traditional Japanese clothes. After a period of strong media coverage, the artist will experience a shortness of breath in the 1970s. Returning to Japan, she has lived since 1977 (and at her request) in a psychiatric establishment, only leaving only to work in her workshop. The 1980s put the artist back on the scene as a great figure guard. She is invited to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993. Since 2017, a museum has been devoted to her in the city of Tokyo.

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