Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist whose paintings, collages, soft sculptures, performance art and environmental installations all share an obsession with repetition, pattern, and accumulation. She has described herself as an “obsessive artist”. Kusama has exhibited work with Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns. She represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and in 1998-1999 a major retrospective exhibition of her work toured the U.S. and Japan. Kusama’s work is based in Conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. Kusama is also a published novelist and poet, and has created notable work in film and fashion design. She has long struggled with mental illness. On November 12, 2008 Christies New York sold a work by her for $5.1 million, a record for a living female artist.
Tags: abstract expressionism, artist, collages, novelist, obsessive artist, paintings, performance art, poet, soft sculptures, Yayoi Kusama
