Japanese Artist Yayoi Kusama Dies at 97
Al Jazeera Staff
Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist famous for her polka-dot paintings and immersive 'Infinity Mirror Rooms,' has died in Tokyo at 97. Her company confirmed she passed away from multiple organ failure on August 14, noting she painted until her final moments.
Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist renowned for her polka-dot paintings, pumpkin sculptures, and immersive installations known as “Infinity Mirror Rooms,” has died at the age of 97.
Her company announced the sad news on Thursday, stating that she passed away from multiple organ failure at a hospital in the capital Tokyo on August 14.
“Until the very last moment, she never put down her brush, continuing to explore eternal love and the soul,” the statement read.
Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama had a turbulent childhood marked by family discord. She began drawing at a young age, channeling the hallucinations she experienced into vibrant works featuring polka dots, nets, and infinite patterns.
“Even now, I still see hallucinations,” she told reporters in 2017. “Polka dots fly everywhere—on my dress, on the floor, on the things I carry, all over the house, on the ceiling. And I paint them.”
After studying art in Japan, Kusama moved to the United States in the late 1950s, quickly making a name for herself in New York’s avant-garde scene with exhibitions of net paintings, soft sculptures, and body-painting events held to protest the Vietnam War.
She returned to Japan in 1973, and four years later, voluntarily checked into a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo, where she lived until the end of her life, being driven each morning to a small nearby studio to continue working.
Repetitive motifs were her hallmark, taking various shapes such as nets, spirals, or worms, but most often seen as vibrant polka dots on canvas, or as shimmering spheres and points of light in her installations.
“Our earth is only a polka dot among millions of stars in the universe,” the artist dubbed the “queen of polka dots” once wrote.
In her later years, Kusama became a true art star. She collaborated with fashion brands like Louis Vuitton, and her images and works appeared on numerous licensed products, from teacups, T-shirts, and keychains to store displays.
As her fame grew, her international exhibitions drew large crowds and her works fetched high prices. The painting “Untitled (Nets)” (1959) sold for $10.5 million in 2022.
She was awarded the Order of Culture, Japan’s highest honor for artists, in 2016.
David Zwirner, the art dealer who represented Kusama for 15 years, said she was “certainly the world’s most famous living artist” at the time of her death. “Kusama’s art has influenced the history of minimalism, pop art, and performance art,” he added.
