The Queen of Contemporary Art; Yayoi Kusama
Yahoi Kusama（草間弥生）1929—
I like pumpkins because of their humorous form, warm feeling and a human like quality and form, she mentions. The queen of contemporary art is now at 93. She is still creating art. She has been working in painting, performance, video art, sculpture and installation. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, pop art and abstract expressionism and is infused with autobiographical, psychological and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan. Kusama Yayoi was born in 1929 in Matsumoto Nagano prefecture into a wealthy plant nursery family. Since she was young , she was suffering from heavy hallucination visually and auditory. Kusama began drawing pictures of pumpkins in elementary school. Her desire to create work of pumpkins continues for the rest of her life. Her mother was not supportive of her creative endeavors. Therefore Kusama had to rush to finish her art. Her mother was also physically abusive that she took paintings away to discourage her. Her mother also would often send her to spy on he father`s extramarital affairs, which instilled within her a lifelong contempt for sexuality , particularly the male’s lower body and the phallus. Her soft-sculpture motif of phallus continues thought her life. In 1948 after world war two, Kusama went to study Nihonga( Japanese painting ) at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts. She got frustrated with this distinctly Japanese style, she became interested in the European and American avant-garde. By 1950 Kusama was depicting abstract natural forms with the polka dots that would become a trademark of her work. The vast fields of polka dots or infinity nets as she called them were taken directly from her hallucinations. After living in Tokyo and France, Kusama left Japan at the age of 27 for the United States. In 1957 She moved to Seattle and on the following year she moved to New York City.It was exactly when New York was the centre of avant-garde or pop-art movement. In 1960 she came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly coloured polka dots. She creates the illusion of a never-ending space that was polka-dot. Earth is a polka-dot, which has the form of the sun, a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life and also the form of the moon, calm, round, soft colourful , senseless and unknowing. Polka dots are a way to infinity. Kusama has been open about her mental health In 1967, Jud Yalkut made a film of Kusama titled Kusama’s Self-Obliteration. She clearly says that art has become her way to express her mental problems. She says,” I fight pain, anxiety and fear every day. The only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art. I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live.” She believes that her mission is to make the world more peaceful by art. She always expressing an extreme devotion to peace loving and refusal of war and terrorism by infinite human love. She is convinced that viewers sympathized with her work and it became a sensation. She says that is how she could create an incredible amount of infinite literature, infinite fashion and infinite art. She also has been establishing her life by creating her art about some of the strong desires of human beings such as the beauty of life and the marvelous mystery of the universe. The most important thing is that the world is facing many crises right now, even now I want to fight with all of you to make the world better. So for sure, we need her art for the world peace now……
I like pumpkins because of their humorous form, warm feeling and a human like quality and form, she mentions. The queen of contemporary art is now at 93. She is still creating art. She has been working in painting, performance, video art, sculpture and installation. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, pop art and abstract expressionism and is infused with autobiographical, psychological and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan. Kusama Yayoi was born in 1929 in Matsumoto Nagano prefecture into a wealthy plant nursery family. Since she was young , she was suffering from heavy hallucination visually and auditory. Kusama began drawing pictures of pumpkins in elementary school. Her desire to create work of pumpkins continues for the rest of her life. Her mother was not supportive of her creative endeavors. Therefore Kusama had to rush to finish her art. Her mother was also physically abusive that she took paintings away to discourage her. Her mother also would often send her to spy on he father`s extramarital affairs, which instilled within her a lifelong contempt for sexuality , particularly the male’s lower body and the phallus. Her soft-sculpture motif of phallus continues thought her life. In 1948 after world war two, Kusama went to study Nihonga( Japanese painting ) at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts. She got frustrated with this distinctly Japanese style, she became interested in the European and American avant-garde. By 1950 Kusama was depicting abstract natural forms with the polka dots that would become a trademark of her work. The vast fields of polka dots or infinity nets as she called them were taken directly from her hallucinations. After living in Tokyo and France, Kusama left Japan at the age of 27 for the United States. In 1957 She moved to Seattle and on the following year she moved to New York City.It was exactly when New York was the centre of avant-garde or pop-art movement. In 1960 she came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly coloured polka dots. She creates the illusion of a never-ending space that was polka-dot. Earth is a polka-dot, which has the form of the sun, a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life and also the form of the moon, calm, round, soft colourful , senseless and unknowing. Polka dots are a way to infinity. Kusama has been open about her mental health In 1967, Jud Yalkut made a film of Kusama titled Kusama’s Self-Obliteration. She clearly says that art has become her way to express her mental problems. She says,” I fight pain, anxiety and fear every day. The only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art. I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live.” She believes that her mission is to make the world more peaceful by art. She always expressing an extreme devotion to peace loving and refusal of war and terrorism by infinite human love. She is convinced that viewers sympathized with her work and it became a sensation. She says that is how she could create an incredible amount of infinite literature, infinite fashion and infinite art. She also has been establishing her life by creating her art about some of the strong desires of human beings such as the beauty of life and the marvelous mystery of the universe. The most important thing is that the world is facing many crises right now, even now I want to fight with all of you to make the world better. So for sure, we need her art for the world peace now……
Nippon Art channel : Collaborated with NAGAI Art Gallery
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