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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.
Sep 25, 2024 · Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist known for her extensive use of polka dots and for her Infinity Mirrored Rooms. She employed painting, sculpture, performance art, and installations in a variety of styles, including Pop art and Minimalism. Read more about her life and career.
- Childhood/Education
- Early Training
- Mature Period
- Late Period
- The Legacy of Yayoi Kusama
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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, sp...
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 mat...
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 corre...
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 45th Venice Biennale. The acclaimed installation of one of her Infinity Mirror Roomscontaining dotted pumpkins...
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 att...
Learn about the life and work of Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese-American artist who uses art to express her mental illness and personal obsessions. Explore her paintings, sculptures, installations, and performances inspired by hallucinations, polka dots, and phallic forms.
- March 22, 1929
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.
Sep 26, 2018 · The Japanese artist famed for her Instagrammable artworks overcame childhood trauma, prejudice and mental illness to become a sensation late in life, writes Cath Pound. Yayoi Kusama is the...
Learn about the life and work of Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist who creates immersive installations with dots and mirrors. Explore her works on paper, her Infinity Mirror Rooms, and her exhibition catalogue.
An Introduction to Yayoi Kusama. We explore the artist's childhood, activism and unique fashion sense. Explore the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms exhibition at Tate Modern. Hear from Tate curators Francis Morris and Katy Wan, as they explore the exhibition work-by-work.