FILE: Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama turns 96 on March 22

Record ID: 1984467

  • Title: FILE: Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama turns 96 on March 22
  • Date: 21st March 2025
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (FILE - SEPTEMBER 26, 2017) (REUTERS) JAPANESE CONTEMPORARY ARTIST, YAYOI KUSAMA PAINTING AT YAYOI KUSAMA MUSEUM KUSAMA LOOKING ON VARIOUS OF KUSAMA PAINTING VARIOUS OF KUSAMA'S ARTWORKS KUSAMA APPEARING BEFORE REPORTERS AND WAVING POLKA DOTS ON KUSAMA'S BOOK (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) JAPANESE ARTIST, YAYOI KUSAMA, SAYING: "For me there is no greater joy than for
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  • Keywords: Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama writer and multimedia artist
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Asia / Pacific,Celebrities,Arts/Culture/Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA001767310032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama turns 96 on Saturday (March 22).
    Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama is known for her avant garde sculpture and installation, but also for painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry and fiction, all sharing her obsession for dots.
    Crowned the "Princess of Polka Dots" by media and fans alike, her artworks include polka dots, pumpkins and 'infinity nets' often using mirrors.
    After studying painting in Japan, she moved to New York in the late 1950s and had her first exhibition in 1959. Her art featured in the pop art and minimalism of the time, influencing the works of Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.
    In the 1960s, Kusama staged fashion shows and anti-war demonstrations, before venturing into filmmaking.
    She and filmmaker Jud Yalkut produced 1968 experimental documentary short "Kusama's Self-Obliteration", starring Kusama adorned in polka dots. Likening it to being "reborn", it explored entering the 'infinite' universe by leaving behind our finite physical being, to be at one with our surroundings and nature and to observe everything.
    In the 1970s, Kusama returned to Japan and continued her art, but also wrote novels and anthologies, including the controversial "The Hustlers Grotto of Christopher Street" full of her novellas.
    Although it won the Tenth Literary Award for New Writers from the monthly magazine Yasei Jidai, Kusama later expressed "deep regret" over its anti-Black statements that also feature in original 2002 copies of her autobiography "Infinity Net".
    On Oct. 1, 2017, Kusama, 88, opened her own museum in Tokyo, dedicated to her work. Commanding some of the highest prices of any living female artist, she commented at the time that she hoped her art made a positive contribution to the world.
    Her love for polka dots has adorned department stores around the world, including using her psychedelic pop art vision to decorate Louis Vuitton's iconic Fifth Avenue store in July 2012 -- and even designing her own signature collection for the luxury brand spattered in spots.
    "Polka dots are one of my philosophies," said Kusama at the store launch.
    "I believe the moon is a polka dot, the sun is a polka dot, and the universe is polka dots. With this idea, I have been seeking my existence. Since my childhood, polka dots and infinity have been themes of my art."
    Kusama narrates her own journey in six parts in her 2023 book "Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now", published in collaboration with Hong Kong's M+ museum.
    The museum exhibited "Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now," the largest retrospective exhibition of the artist outside of Japan from Nov. 2022 to May 2023. It featured more than 200 of Kusama's paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations and archive materials, from the earliest drawings she made as a teenager during World War II to her most recent immersive pieces.
    The large-scale exhibition examined Kusama's practice as it developed in Japan, the United States, Europe and beyond through six different themes: Infinity, Accumulation, Radical Connectivity, Biocosmic, Death, and Force of Life.
    In November 2024, Kusama's yellow and black-spotted "Pumpkin" was auctioned at Christie's in New York, and sold for over $6.8 million.
    (Production: Lisa Giles-Keddie)
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