Since her birthday is tomorrow, I decided to look at Yahoo Kusama this week. Kusama is a contemporary Japanese artist who mostly works with sculptures and installations. I also thought looking at Kusama was appropriate this week because she’s known around the world for her site-specific installations and right now we’re laying the groundwork for our site-specific installations.
Yayoi Kusama is from Matsumoto and she studied art at Kyoto City University of Arts. At the age of ten, Kusama began experiencing hallucinations. She described them as “seeing people’s auras” and also seeing lots of dots everywhere. As a result, polka dots became a life long obsession for her. Kusama says creating this polka dot art helps relieve her depression and anxiety that she has around her hallucinations. As an Asian woman, she had a really hard time beginning her career. Kusama moved to New York in hopes of “becoming a star.” She went from living a wealthy lifestyle with her family in Japan to living in poverty in America. As a result, she became a rather aggressive self-promoter.
If you’re a social media user, you’re likely familiar with what Kusama is best known for these days: her infinity rooms. Kusama creates these “infinity rooms” by placing mirrors on all four walls of a room as well as the floor and ceiling. She then creates something that will be replicated indefinitely by the reflections. These installations are super popular selfie spots, so that’s probably why you’ve seen one before.
Overall, Kusama is a super inspiring figure; she had lots of battles to fight to get to where she is today and I think we can all take something from her story.
Works cited:
drawing into space 