She may have become the most popular artist on the internet in recent years, with every exhibition attracting the most attention and selfies, but do you really understand her work?
Yayoi Kusama has a unique perspective on art, and has left the world with many unique works of art, bringing a strong visual impact and enjoyment to countless viewers. The most iconic of these is undeniably her polka dot pumpkin series.
Kusama's memories of pumpkins come from her grandparents' farm when she was a child. For Kusama, pumpkins are one of the softest things in her memories, bringing her comfort and peace, which is obviously far beyond the meaning of a vegetable. In an interview, Kusama said, "Pumpkins always make me smile, they are the most humorous of vegetables."
And why is she known as the Weird Granny? First, she was an artist, but also a mental patient who lived in a psychiatric nursing home. Secondly, Yayoi Kusama's work was always in brilliant and contrasting colors. In her later years, she returned to a pure creative realm, but also remained keen on using high purity colors, red or yellow, and said she was an obsessive-compulsive artist. But I think she is the only unique artist in the world.
A tragic childhood
Yayoi Kusama was born into a wealthy Japanese family in 1929, the youngest of four siblings. Her mother was so frustrated by her husband's infidelity that she often forced Kusama to spy on her father and his lover, and was punished by her mother if she lost them. For a child, what she saw was not a simple and beautiful world, but something ugly and unpleasant, and this experience made her fearful and bitter, which made her feel a lifelong aversion to sex.
When Kusama was 10 years old, she was diagnosed with neurological audiological disorder, accompanied by schizophrenia, and these unspeakable and disturbing states, she found a trace of peace and relief from painting, and she painted these hallucinations with a brush to relieve her inner anxiety and fear, at which point, painting for her, perhaps, had already become is the only pleasure in her life.
Kusama's mother, who was preoccupied with the family business and knew nothing about her daughter's illness, thought that Yayoi Kusama should become a rich girl who collected art, and that painting was not something a rich girl should do. As a result, her mother destroyed her canvases and often locked her up and scolded her. The extreme mental stress and intense fear brought Yayoi Kusama to the brink of a nervous breakdown, and in despair she often attempted suicide, painting, being her only reason for living.
This fear affected Kusama for a long time, and when she grew up, the idea of escaping from this suffocating family was born in her mind. She was an ardent admirer of American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, and wrote to her about her desperate situation and her love of art to ask for her advice, and with O'Keeffe's support, she finally fled her hometown for the United States in 1957, even though it was a completely foreign country to her.
Before she left, her mother gave her one million yen and told her never to set foot in the house. On her way out, she expressed her anger at her mother by destroying thousands of pieces of artwork on the riverbank outside her home.
From hustle to fame
When she first arrived in the United States, Kusama's life and career were not going well. She was lonely, broke, didn't speak the language, didn't know anyone, woke up freezing in the middle of the night in her rented apartment, and drew until dawn. It wasn't easy to break into the male-dominated New York art scene at the time. Even though she participated in some exhibitions and was appreciated by many artists at the time, and her works were even copied by other artists, she was still not recognized by the mainstream art scene in New York, and was always in financial trouble.
Kusama had always wanted to participate in the Venice Biennale, and in 1966 she took her work Narcissistic Garden to the 33rd Venice Biennale "on her own", without an official invitation. She took advantage of the middle of the night to put a total of ****1500 stainless steel balls of 30cm in diameter on the outdoor exhibition ground, Kusama herself was wearing a gold kimono and sat in it, and sold each stainless steel ball at a price of $2. On the one hand, it was to earn a living, and on the other hand, it was also thought that she was criticizing the commercialization of the art market in that year.
Although she was soon forced out by the organizers, her unique approach caused an instant sensation in the community, and she became the first Japanese woman artist to participate in the 33rd Venice Biennale, becoming internationally famous.
After receiving attention, she also invited a group of dancers to perform nude in front of the New York Stock Exchange to make a statement against capitalism; led performance artists to cross the Brooklyn Bridge in the nude; and held a flash mob in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City without obtaining a permit, which was a shock to the entire United States at that time, and also led to her appearing on the front page of the New York Daily News. and made the front page of the New York Daily News. Finally, in the early 1970s, Yayoi Kusama was at the height of her powers in New York.
At the same time, she met one of the legends of the time, the famous American surrealist photographer and assemblage sculptor Joseph Cornell, and began a decade-long love affair, 26 years apart. This was the only love story Kusama ever had in her life, and perhaps one of the best and sweetest memories of her life.
The Present Tense at 90
The death of Joseph Cornell in 1972 hit Kusama hard, and from then on, her mental problems became more and more severe. From then on, her life was a two-way street between her studio and the mental hospital, and she stayed in the mental hospital for 40 years, from which she started the rest of her life, and today, at the age of 90, she continues to create.
Since 2000, Kusama has been featured in almost every contemporary art exhibition in the world. Her work "Infinite Web" set a record at Christie's in 2014, selling for $7.1 million, again illustrating the commercial value of Kusama's work, and she collaborated with Louis Vuitton in 2012, launching a series of new products, including bags, leather goods, and high-level ready-to-wear.
Yayoi Kusama's art creation and its mental state is inseparable, she called his work for "art drugs", she once said she was afraid of death, but when she was creating art when the most happy, so every day will create more than 8 hours, so that they are in a state of mental stimulation so as not to worry, once stopped will feel a headache. Once she stops, she gets a headache. One of the first works to gain attention in New York, Infinite Web, was inspired by the hallucinations that have haunted her since childhood.
The polka dot is the most indispensable element in her work, and it has become Yayoi Kusama's trademark. Kusama has said that these infinitely repeating dots form a vast web, which resembles the world as she sees it. The portraits she drew of her mother when she was a child were already filled with dots. For her, these dots were the fear in her mind, and drawing became the medicine that healed her, as a way to release herself from that fear.
In addition to dots and pumpkins, mirrors are also Kusama's most commonly used material, and one of the most beloved of these would be the Infinite House of Mirrors series. In a small room with mirrors on all sides and small lights in the dark mirrored space, the viewer has a wonderful feeling of being in a galaxy of stars, or in a dreamlike state where you can't tell if it's reality or fantasy, and it feels like you can reach out and touch it, or it feels like it's light-years away.
For everyone has their own fear, when we meet the fear of the heart, the vast majority of people will choose to escape, try not to touch it, that over time it can be forgotten, but the fact is that it still exists, it is impossible to eliminate. It's not just a piece of Netflix, when we go deeper to understand Yayoi Kusama, and then walk into this mirror house, and get the perfect selfie at the same time, you'll realize that these glowing dots seem to touch our hearts directly, and in that one moment, the world is still, and we are all dissolved in that environment.
I love the names she gave to the House of Mirrors series, The Infinite House of Mirrors - Full of Life's Light and The Infinite House of Mirrors - Souls Millions of Light Years Away, although life has given her infinite pain, she has transformed that pain, fear and anxiety into love, love for herself and love for the world, giving light to the scary things we all want to hide and are afraid to face, like each and every one of us alive in this universe, glowing with hope, with love, in this universe. What is love? Take a look at Kusama's art. Throughout her life, she expressed her love for humanity, her love for the whole world, through her art.