Yayoi Kusama: Woman Behind The Iconic Polka Dot Artwork
Yayoi Kusama is a contemporary artist from Japan. She was born on March 22, 1929, in Matsumoto City, Japan. Yayoi is an artist who is well known for one of his characteristics, which often uses polka dots in some of her works. She is also one of the most influential Japanese artists in the world.
Since she was a child, when she was 10 years old, she started painting, even though her mother did not approve of her hobby. However, her mother sent Kusama to art school. She attended the Kyoto City School of Arts and Crafts.
In 1952, Kusama exhibited a painting in a small gallery in the city of Matsumoto. In the mid-1950s she fell in love with the American painter Georgia O’Keeffe. She tried writing for Georgia and finally got a reply. Georgia supported Kusama’s career in the arts and finally, Kusama decided to move to the United States.
In 1958 living in New York City, Kusama began painting her now highly iconic work “Infinity Nets”. In this work, she paints small loops on a white, monochrome canvas that covers the entire surface of the canvas. In 1959, her work was exhibited at the Brata Gallery and her work was praised by the sculptor and minimalist critic Donald Judd.
Kusama has a habit of taking pictures with her new work and dressing up in a short anime wig and dressed in Avant-grande colors. Kusama is also attracting a lot of attention for her eccentric personality.
In 1963, Kusama performed Aggregation: The 1000 Ship Show at the Gertrude Stein Gallery. At the show, she showed off a ship with a set of oars covered in protrusions, then surrounded by wallpaper printed with repeated pictures of boats. This show was arguably less successful, but it was through this show that many artists were impressed with her.
Kusama was quite influential on art in America. Several artists admired Kusama and were inspired by her. Andy Warhol is one of the artists who praised Kusama. At one of his exhibitions he also once covered the walls of his gallery show with a repeating pattern, just like Kusama in the show of a thousand boats.
In 1966, Kusama fell into a severe depression. Even so bad she had tried to commit suicide by jumping out of the window, but luckily she survived. In the same year, she also moved to Europe and exhibited the Garden of Narcissus in front of the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Kusama returned to New York and held a Happening (an organic performance intervention in a room) at the MoMA Sculpture Park. Many people criticize Kusama as someone who likes to seek attention. She finally decided to return to her native Japan in 1973.
When she returned to Japan she checked herself into the Seiwa Mental Hospital. From there he began to re-create art again from scratch. In 1989, The International Center for Contemporary Art in New York held a retrospective of Kusama’s work. This was the beginning of Kusama’s return because at that time the international art world began to pay attention to the works of artists for four decades.
In 1993, Kusama represented Japan at the Venice Biennale. There she got the attention she had been looking for. Kusama is one of the most successful living artists and the most successful female artist of all time. Kusama’s works are very well preserved in world-renowned museums, one of which is the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Modern in London. Not only that, one of her works, Infinity Mirrored Rooms, has captured the hearts of art connoisseurs around the world.
Yayoi Kusama has a lot of amazing works of art. Starting from the Obliteration Room (2002), which is an all-white room where visitors can attach colorful polka-dot stickers, then there is Pumpkin (1994), which is a large statue on the island of Naoshima, and many other amazing works by Yayoi Kusama. which we can enjoy. One of these works we can see permanently at the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Tokyo and also in the museum in Masumoto.
Yayoi Kusama’s work has also been exhibited in Indonesia at Museum Macan in 2018. It turns out that many Indonesian people, especially those living in Jakarta and its surroundings, visit there to see the work of one of the best artists in the world. Not only in Indonesia, but her works have also been exhibited in many countries such as Norway, Russia, the Netherlands, and many more.
