Yayoi KusamaI Want To Sing My Heart Out In Praise of Life, by Yayoi Kusama2009
2009
About the Item
- Creator:Yayoi Kusama (1929, Japanese)
- Creation Year:2009
- Dimensions:Height: 15.75 in (40 cm)Width: 15.75 in (40 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:London, GB
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU160829160012
Yayoi Kusama
Widely inspirational and innovative artist Yayoi Kusama has a body of work that is exceptionally varied, ranging from graphic prints and paintings to polka-dot pumpkin sculptures, hypnotic collages, large-scale installations and fashion design.
Even if you don’t know her name, you’ve likely experienced Kusama’s art — or have seen it on Instagram. Her soft sculptures and dazzling “Infinity Mirrors” are the stuff of selfie-takers’ dreams, but Kusama’s impressive decades-long career certainly holds far more cachet than it does fodder for today’s aspiring social-media influencers.
Born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929, Kusama has worked with her signature polka dots since the age of 10, when she began to experience vivid hallucinations and claimed that patterns and dots were moving around her, swallowing up everything in view. She started to incorporate them into her paintings as a child. Kusama saw circular forms and nets on every surface and became especially fascinated with the pebbles that lined the bottom of the creek near her childhood home. Her family was sternly opposed to her art and her mother physically abused Kusama and discouraged her at a very early age. She has suffered psychological turmoil her whole life and is vocal about her mental illness. Today, Kusama is a voluntary resident at a psychiatric facility in Tokyo, and she calls her work “art medicine.”
At the Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts, Kusama trained in Nihonga, a traditional style of Japanese painting that originated during the Meiji period. On advice she solicited from painter Georgia O'Keeffe, a pioneer of modernism in America whom she greatly admired, she subsequently moved to New York City in 1958. There, Kusama flourished, creating prescient sculptures and large-scale monochrome paintings that bridged current styles with minimalism, which hadn’t yet achieved any kind of prominence as an art movement. She pushed boundaries with her “Accumulations” series, which saw her transforming found furniture pieces into sexualized objects, as well as with an avant-garde staging of theatrical orgies on the street — both stemming from her anxieties about sex as well as an endeavor to make a feminist statement about patriarchal authority and sexism.
Kusama was captivated by Surrealists as well as the Abstract Expressionists and greatly influenced the Pop artists who followed, befriending such icons as Donald Judd — who called her work “the best paintings being done” — and Andy Warhol, with whom she exhibited and later accused of stealing her ideas. Kusama moved with ease through artistic circles and made a point to draw attention to her “otherness” as a Japanese woman by wearing kimonos to her openings.
In 2021, Kusama brought her floral and vegetal sculptures to the New York Botanical Garden and her works can be found in the collections of many of the world’s top museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. She famously collaborated with Louis Vuitton in 2012, and she created a 34-foot-tall balloon for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan in 2019, becoming the first female artist to design a work for the event. In addition to her visual artwork, Kusama is a writer, publishing poetry, novels and an autobiography.
Find a collection of Yayoi Kusama art on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: London, United Kingdom
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
- Richard Prince, Dude Ranch Nurse, Lithograph with Collage, 2008By Richard PrinceLocated in London, GBRichard Prince, Dude Ranch Nurse, Lithograph with Collage, 2008 Lithograph with collage with offset lithography, hand colouring, hand cutting and pencil Fr...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Prints
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph
- Untitled 2 (Moonstrips) By Eduardo PaolozziBy Eduardo PaolozziLocated in London, GBUntitled 2 (Moonstrips) By Eduardo Paolozzi Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) was a pioneering Scottish artist and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. Renowned for his collag...Category
1960s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Untitled (Elephant And Real Estate) By Eduardo PaolozziBy Eduardo PaolozziLocated in London, GBUntitled (Elephant And Real Estate) By Eduardo Paolozzi Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) was a pioneering Scottish artist and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. Renowned f...Category
1970s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Untitled (Moonstrips) By Eduardo PaolozziBy Eduardo PaolozziLocated in London, GBUntitled (Moonstrips), from the General Fun portfolio (1967) By Eduardo Paolozzi Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) was a pioneering Scottish artist and sculptor associated with the Pop ...Category
1960s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph, Paper
- Hollywood By Eduardo PaolozziBy Eduardo PaolozziLocated in London, GBHollywood By Eduardo Paolozzi Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) was a pioneering Scottish artist and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. Renowned for his collage works, he sk...Category
1970s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Untitled #114 By Cindy ShermanBy Cindy ShermanLocated in London, GBUntitled #114 By Cindy Sherman Cindy Sherman is a renowned American photographer and conceptual artist, widely celebrated for her ground breaking work in contemporary art. Best kn...Category
1990s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsPaper, Lithograph
- Spoleto Festival - Original Offset and Lithograph by Carlo Maria Mariani - 1989By Carlo Maria MarianiLocated in Roma, ITSpoleto Festival is an original offset and lithograph on cardboard, realized by Carlo Maria Mariani in 1989. Signed on plate. Good conditions. Carlo Maria Mariani (Rome, 1931) is an Italian painter. Carlo M. Mariani creates works whose conception refers to classical art: from ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Without copying directly from works of the past. This characteristic makes Mariani a painter in line with the characteristics of late seventies painting...Category
1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph
- The Boats - Vintage Poster - 1984By Bernard BuffetLocated in Roma, ITThe Boats - Vintage Poster is an artwork realized for Exhibition at Maurice Garnier Gallery by Bernard Buffet in 1984. Offset and Lithograph, Printed by Mourlot.Category
1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph
- Coliseum - Lithograph and Offset by Bettino Craxi - 1970sBy Bettino CraxiLocated in Roma, ITColiseum is a wonderful lithograph and offset realized by the Italian politician Bettino Craxi. Hand-signed in pencil on the lower right margin. A precious specimen, numbered on th...Category
1970s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph
- Geometric Dove - BlackBy Shepard FaireyLocated in Kansas City, MOShepard Fairey Geometric Dove - Black Offset Lithograph Year: 2021 Size: 24 x 24 inches Signed and dated by hand COA provided Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an Ame...Category
2010s Contemporary Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph
- Premiere U.S. Exhibition Poster at David Barnett Gallery, signed by WeisbuchBy Claude WeisbuchLocated in Milwaukee, WIThis is the poster published by the David Barnett Gallery for the first exhibition of Claude Weisbuch's artwork in the United States. It features...Category
1970s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph
- 'Weisbuch gravures' original signed exhibition poster Musée d'Art Moderne ParisBy Claude WeisbuchLocated in Milwaukee, WIThis poster, published in Paris, was produced for a 1978 exhibition of the prints of contemporary artist Claude Weisbuch. This example is rare and unusual in that it is signed by the artist and inscribed to David Barnett, one of his most significant US dealers...Category
1970s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph