Yayoi Kusama
«My life is one point lost among thousands of other points.»
The avant-garde Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, born in 1929, was an influential figure on the New York art scene of the post-war era, organizing provocative happenings and exhibiting works such as Infinity Nets, hallucinatory paintings of loops and dots (and physical representations of the idea of infinity).
Narcissus Garden, an installation of hundreds of mirrored spheres, earned Kusama her fame at the Venice Biennale in 1966, where she attempted to sell the various spheres to visitors. Kusama counted Donald Judd and Eva Hesse among her close friends and was often considered a source of inspiration for Andy Warhol and a precursor of pop art.
Since his return to Japan in the 1970s, Kusama’s work has continued to appeal to the imagination and senses, including dizzying installations to walk through, public sculptures, and his paintings titled Dots Obsession (The Obsession of Points).
