Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama
FOR EACH ARTIST CASE STUDY use these headings

Artmaking practice

Artist information
DOB/DOD
Country or origin (cultural background)
Key points about the artists life and background AS THEY RELATE TO THEIR ARTMAKING.

Practice includes both
IDEAS (CONCEPTUAL PRACTICE) and ACTIONS (MATERIAL PRACTICE)

eg. artforms, subject matter, ideas and issues explored, intentions, research, planning, materials, techniques, style, development of personal symbols or recognisable style, influences, themes, collaboration, working within or in response to an art movement, use of technology, location, studio, working methods, exhibition,

NOTE: For each artist include two artist’s quotes and images of the artist at work if possible.

Yayoi Kusama was born on March 22, 1929 in Matsumoto Japan. Throughout her career she has worked with a broad range of media such as painting, collage, sculpture, and environmental installations, in which they all showcase her thematic interest in psychedelic colours, repetition and pattern.

She claims to have experienced hallucinations and obsessive thoughts often of a suicidal nature. She says that she experienced these things from as early as 10 years old. Her mother was also very abusive and it is said that is the reason why Kusama experiences these things.

In 1948, she went to Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts and started as a senior. While here she studied Nihonga a formal style of painting that was used in the Meiji period (1868-1912). However Kusama was not one for formalities and stated that the master-disciple system that she was taught in was a practice in which she hated.

Shortly after Kusama was portraying vague natural usually working with watercolour, gouache and oil usually containing her artworks to paper. She began experimenting, covering things like walls, floors and household objects she later then experiment with naked assistants. She would usually paint polka dots on these objects something that is now considered her trademark. The inspiration behind these repetitive patterns (referred to as infinity nets) was draw directly from her hallucinations.

Kusama left Japan when she was 27 years old to pursue an artistic career in the United States. Kusama moved to Seattle where she lived for a year before moving to New York. While in New York, she was experimenting with room-size artworks, which would often include either a series of polka dots “infinity nets” or very colourful repetitive patterns. She also experimented with special design and started to incorporate mirrors and lights to make the artwork look as if it was a lot bigger than it actually was. During this time she produced a substantial amount of works but due to overwork Kusama was regularly in hospital. During her stay in the United States she also quickly became an important figurehead in the avant-garde movement.
Kusama also organized unusual endeavours in exposed areas such as Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge all in an effort to gain public exposure. Most of these events were to protest against the Vietnam War, and often included naked volunteers in public to get government attention. In further protest, she wrote a letter to President Nixon saying that if he were to stop the war she would have sex with him.

Kusama returned to from the United States in 1973. When she returned she was not in good health but she started to write, usually producing short stories and poems. But due to her declining state of health she checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally ill were she took up permanent residence and where she still resides today. She still paints in her studio that is located across the street from the hospital but she now limits her art making to canvas usually on a larger scale.

Kusama has exhibited work with Andy Warhol and other highly acclaimed artists throughout the world. 1962 Kusama was the only female artist to have work featured at the Nul (Zero) international exhibition in Amsterdam. Kusama's art can be seen in museums throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo.

She has also received many different awards, including the National Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Order of the Rising Sun. She was also the first woman to receive the Praemium Imperiale, which is one of Japan's most prominent prizes for internationally recognized artists.

Kusama's work shows attributes of feminism, minimalism and pop art. Her art is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She brings all of these things to life by using her trademark style of psychedelic colours, repetition and pattern. Her works repetitively show motifs and psychedelic images that suggest themes of psychology, feminism, obsession, sex, creation and destruction. A leading figure in pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements, she is known as one of the most important artists to come out of Japan.

Yayoi Kusama has also collaborated with the fashion brand Louis Vuitton. The launch of the Yayoi Kusama Collection was one of the largest artist partnership’s initiated by any fashion brand to date. The Kusama collaboration signified the largest brand takeover the store has ever experienced.

Conceptual Framework (agencies of the artworld)

Discuss the most relevant relationships between the artists’ Artworks and two or more agencies of the artworld
(2 artworks for each artist) eg. ARTWORK-WORLD
ARTWORK-ARTIST
ARTWORK-AUDIENCE

NOTE: Audience: You must include two quotes from either critical essays, newspaper reviews or gallery catalogues for each artist.
Eg. Some questions you may ask…
ARTWORK- WORLD
How does this Artwork refer to the World in which it was produced?
How does the Artwork refer to cultural, historical or geographical factors in the World?
What were significant events, themes or issues in the World at this time and how do these relate to the Artwork?
What images, signs, symbols or other visual language are specific to that the World , time and place?
Is the technology used specific to a time and place?
Does the artwork respond to conditions from another time and place?
Are there references to the Artworld or a particular art movement?
Are there obvious influences from the Artworld or World evident in the artwork?
Are there recognisable social beliefs or value systems evident in the Artwork?
Are there specific aspects of the world that the artist chooses to comment on (gender, race, class, place etc).
Frames

For each artist annotate two or more artworks using One Frame for each artwork. Include title, media used, dimensions, country and date produced.
POSTMODERN

CULTURAL

SUBJECTIVE

STRUCTURAL
Relationship to yourself
Briefly discuss your own relationship to this artist.
Why did you choose them?
How do they inspire you?
Are there aspects of their practice that you would like to explore further in your own artmaking?
The reason I chose Yayoi Kusama is for a number of different reasons. She is a very famous Japanese artist and her artwork appeal to me in many ways. I find her artwork aesthetically pleasing and I love the idea’s behind her artwork. Kusama inspires me because she does very weird whacky and very out there artwork something that I would like to use in my own artmaking. Some aspects of her practice that I would like to explore further in my own artwork would be the repetitive patters to for a very weird structure and I also would like to explore using pattern, repetitive theme and using very bright bold colours and create works that could be considered psychedelic.
Note: Include source material and a bibliography that shows the resources, texts and the researched critics and historians.
DO NOT gather ALL information from the Internet
DO NOT copy and paste information – this is Plagiarism, a serious offence.