Kusama, Yayoi

Yayoi Kusama is the most famous contemporary Japanese artist. Her trademark is countless colored dots, known as Polka Dots, which she applies to canvases, sculptures, rooms, and even people. These dots symbolize infinity and the dissolution of the individual within the universe. This is also the topic of her famous Infinity Rooms; the artist uses mirrors and lights in walk-in installations to create the illusion of endless space. Visitors feel as though they are part of the artwork in an infinite cosmos. Finally, her Infinity Nets are images without a subject, without composition, without beginning or end.

Kusama’s favorite motif is and remains the Pumpkin, which has fascinated her since childhood and which she incorporates into drawings, public sculptures, and impressive installations. The works featuring black polka dots are among the most iconic masterpieces of contemporary art and are represented in public spaces and collections around the world. Kusama works extensively with repetition, using bold, high-contrast colors that make her works striking and unmistakable. Her art moves between various movements such as Pop Art, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art, yet remains highly distinctive.

As decorative as her art appears, its roots run deep. Kusama uses her art as a therapeutic means of processing obsessive-compulsive disorder and visual hallucinations that have plagued her since childhood. Since 1977, she has lived and worked voluntarily in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo; in 2017, the artist also opened her own museum there.