Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama’s eternal soul

Obsessed with spots for 80 years, Yayoi Kusama has made them her personal brand … and her psychotherapy! The small dots she saw in her visions represented infinity and a connection with the universe.

Kusama became a pioneer of Pop Art, Minimalism, and Contemporary Art through all of her works. She was a multifaceted artist, not only devoted to painting, but also expressing her creativity through sculpture and design.

Veteran Japanese Pop artist opens her own museum in Tokyo. When she was 10 years old, Yayoi Kusama had her first contact with moles and dots, as she suffered hallucinations populated by infinite points.

At 88, from the psychiatric centre where she lives, she continues searching for ways of expressing them: vases, walls, naked people… The world is her favourite canvas to transmit concepts such as infinity or sexuality through repetitive images. A retrospective book of her work, just published by Phaidon Press, helps us to understand her art.

Kusama’s personality was forged in childhood traumas: abusive mother, unfaithful father, an adolescence in the darkness of a parachute factory, under World War bombs.

At 25, she decided that Japan was too conservative. Attracted by the American avant-garde, she moved to New York in 1973, where she got the applause she needed. Kusama experimented with various styles, but never abandoned the polka dots and bold colors that defined her work. Georgia O’Keeffe loved her art, free and unique.

She became a Pop icon. Yayoi Kusama imagined infinity mirror games at the service of brands such as Louis Vuitton, Coca-Cola or BMW, and wrote poetry in case someone still didn’t understand her.

Despite all the challenges she has faced in her life, from a difficult childhood and discrimination for being a woman, to the mental health struggles that accompanied her throughout her career, Kusama has always shown resilience and a deep love for art that helped her continue creating and exhibiting her work. Today, in a wheelchair, with full boiling creativity, she feels happy to have her own space in a Japan that, at last, celebrates her art. 

Yayoi Kusama Museum opened with show “My eternal Soul” in October 2017 with tickets sold out for the year. Designed by japanese architect Kume Sekkei, it’s a striking yet minimalistic building. Even bathrooms are covered with moles!

Kusama’s installations are magical sites for art-marriage proposals. Her long history is creating visually provocative works spanning across mediums: painting, performance, film, sculpture, installations… exhibited across the globe.

Yayoi Kusama gives the arty audience the opportunity to engage with her hallucinations realm where reality and illusion merge. Today, she is one of the most influential and celebrated artists in the world.