Yayoi Kusama, one of the world’s most notable avant-garde artists, has died at the age of 97, leaving the global art community to mourn the passing of a uniquely brilliant mind.
Kusama passed away peacefully in a Tokyo hospital on August 14, said a statement posted on her website on Thursday
The ‘polka dot queen’, as she was often known, channelled hallucinations and trauma into vibrant art featuring her trademark dots, nets and infinity motifs over a career spanning decades.
‘She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul,’ the statement said.
She was known internationally for her dotted artworks that spanned many media from larger-than-life sculptures to poetry. Her blend of minimalism and avant-garde was unique and inspirational to the contemporary art world.
Her ‘Infinity Mirrored Rooms’ are a revolutionary series of immersive installations that have been presented around the world since 1965, transforming mirrored spaces with soft sculptures or luminous lights into seemingly infinite environments that have captivated visitors for decades.
Born in 1929 to a wealthy family in Matsumoto in Nagano prefecture of Japan, Yayoi Kusama was the youngest of four siblings.
Kusama grew up in a family that cultivated seeds – a plant nursery still stands at her childhood home. Despite pressure from her mother to pursue a conventional life as a housewife, she persisted in becoming a professional artist, using whatever materials she could find to create.
‘One day, after seeing a tablecloth with a red flower pattern on a desk, I saw the same red flower pattern all over the ceiling, windows and pillars. It filled the room, and covered my body,’ she wrote in her autobiography.
In her teenage years when Japan was recovering from World War II, Kusama began exhibiting her work. By the early 1950s, she had begun attracting attention with solo shows in her hometown, marking an early breakthrough in her artistic career.
But she struggled with her feelings for her home country, which she once described as ‘full of disdain for women’.
She then left for New York at the age of 27 to escape the confinement of Japan and to seek bigger opportunities in the West.
Apart from fine art, Kusama set up her own fashion company in the late 1960s. It was provocative to say the least.
Notable garments from the label contained strategically placed holes to reveal breasts, genitalia and buttocks. The ‘Phallic Dress’ and ‘Orgy’ wedding dress also caused a stir.
Kusama also cultivated an instantly recognisable image for herself, defined by the bright red wig and dotted garments she wore throughout her career.
In the world of activism, she also stood out as someone willing to take a stand. She once staged a performance art piece that featured nude dancers in front of the New York Stock Exchange building. An anti-war message also can be seen in many of her paintings, alluding to the bodies that have passed on due to war.
In a letter to then president Richard Nixon, Kusama wrote: ‘Our earth is like one little polka dot, among millions of other celestial bodies, one orb full of hatred and strife amid the peaceful, silent spheres. Let’s you and I change all that and make this world a new Garden of Eden. … You can’t eradicate violence by using more violence.’
Kusama was never one to shy away from talking about the struggles of mental health, which afflicted her for most of her life.
Living in Japan during her early years might have felt confining, but New York presented her with an even wider range of neuroses.
Her most recognisable works, covered in her signature dots, were revealed to be deeply rooted in the hallucinations Kusama experienced throughout her life. She has described seeing dots spread across her surroundings – and using that as a starting point, she just paints them in the real world.
After returning to Japan in her late 40s, Kusama voluntarily entered a Tokyo psychiatric hospital, where she lived – and worked – for the rest of her long life.
She also published several novels in her later years, while her exhibitions continued to draw huge crowds.
In an interview with Tate Modern, Kusama once said: ‘I’ve sought for truth of art with an ambition and fought like hell all my life to accomplish my purpose as a human being.
‘Even after I finish my life, I’d like to keep telling posterity about my way of art. … I’d like to keep creating art until the day I die.’