Portland Public Library

Yayoi Kusama, edited by Frances Morris ; with contributions by Jo Applin, Juliet Mitchell, Frances Morris, Mignon Nixon, Rachel Taylor, Midori Yamamura

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-202) and index

contains biographical information

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Yayoi Kusama

catalogsbibliography

765881557

edited by Frances Morris ; with contributions by Jo Applin, Juliet Mitchell, Frances Morris, Mignon Nixon, Rachel Taylor, Midori Yamamura

"Yayoi Kusama is one of Japan's most famous living artists. Her originality, innovation and sheer drive to make art have propelled her through a career that has spanned six decades, encompassing painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, collage, film and video, performance, installation and even product design. From the late 1950s to the early 1970s Kusama lived in New York, and was at the forefront of many artistic innovations in the city, becoming close with artists such as Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell and Claes Oldenburg, and influencing many others along the way. It was in these years that Kusama was dubbed "the Polka Dot Princess," for her obsessive use of polka dots in installations and happenings. Returning to Japan in her forties, she rebuilt her career, waiting years for the international recognition that she has recently achieved. Now in her ninth decade, Kusama's imagination remains fertile and productive, as she continues to devise dazzling installations and relentlessly hand-paints her ongoing series of minutely detailed figurative fantasy paintings. Accompanying the first major retrospective exhibition of the artist's work in the U.S., this volume features a wealth of works from all periods in Kusama's career, as well as essays by various international curators and critics, discussing Kusama's years in New York, her career after her return to Japan, her installation works and the psychoanalytic import of her art. Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929. She left Japan for New York at the age of 28, following a correspondence with Georgia O'Keeffe, and was soon participating in the city's 1960s wave of happenings and avant-garde activities. In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan and began writing surrealistic novels and poetry. On November 12, 2008, Christies New York sold a work by her for $5.1 million, a record for a living female artist."--Publisher's website

Introduction / Frances Morris -- Early years 1929-1957 -- Coming to America: infinity net paintings 1957-1961 -- Accumulation sculptures and collages 1961-1965 -- Walking piece, Narcissus garden and self-portraiture 1966 -- Kusama's self-obliteration and the rise of happening 1967-1973 -- Return to Japan 1973-1983 -- Experiments in sculpture and painting 1980s and 1990s -- I'm here, but nothing and installations at the turn of the century 2000-2008 -- Recent work 2009-2011 -- Rising from totalitarianism: Yayoi Kusama 1945-1955 / Midori Yamamura -- Infinity politics / Mignon Nixon -- I'm here, but nothing: Yayoi Kusama's environments / Jo Applin -- Portrait of the artist as a young flower / Juliet Mitchell