Disappointment
View Similar Items
Yayoi KusamaDisappointment1994
1994
About the Item
- Creator:Yayoi Kusama (1929, Japanese)
- Creation Year:1994
- Dimensions:Height: 25.79 in (65.5 cm)Width: 19.69 in (50 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:London, GB
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU180552352
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.
- Binary Code (Red) - Contemporary Urban French Street Art Space InvaderBy InvaderLocated in London, GBINVADER (born 1969) 1969 (French) Title: Binary Code (Red), 2008 Technique: Original Hand Signed and Numbered Screenprint in Colour on Wove Paper ...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Untitled, 1988By Sam FrancisLocated in London, GBSAM FRANCIS 1923-1994 San Mateo, California 1923 – 1994 Santa Monica (American) Title: Untitled, 1988 Technique: Original Hand Signed and Inscribed Screenprint in colours on wove p...Category
1980s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- FirewoodBy Sam FrancisLocated in London, GBSAM FRANCIS 1923-1994 San Mateo, California 1923 – 1994 Santa Monica (American) Title: Firewood, 1973 Technique: Original Hand Signed and Numbered Screenprint in Colours on Wove Pa...Category
1970s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Galloping Race, from: Fables - French Urban Street Art Pop ArtBy Jean DubuffetLocated in London, GBJEAN DUBUFFET 1901-1985 (Philippe-Arthur) 1901 Le Havre - Paris 1985 (French) Title: Galloping Race, from: Fables Course la galope: Fables, 1976 Technique: Original Hand Signed, D...Category
1970s Post-War Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Composition I, from: And Then Composizione, da: E Poi, 1970By Antonio CalderaraLocated in London, GBANTONIO CALDERARA 1903-1978 Abbiategrasso 1903 – 1978 Lago d’Orta (Italian) Title: Composition I, from: And Then Composizione, da: E Poi, 1970 Technique: Original Hand Signed, Da...Category
Late 20th Century Conceptual Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Crusade of the crossroaders Kreisverkehr der StrassengekreuzigtenBy Friedensreich HundertwasserLocated in London, GBFRIEDENSREICH HUNDERTWASSER 1928-2000 Wien 1928-2000 (Austrian) Title: Crusade of the crossroaders Kreisverkehr der Strassengekreuzigten, 1971 Technique: Original Hand Signed and ...Category
1970s Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Ink in the Room, from 'Some New Prints'By David HockneyLocated in Bristol, GB23-colour screenprint on Arches 88 paper Edition 37 of 68 + 14 AP's Signed, numbered, dated and blindstamped by publisher on the front (Gemini G.E.L.) Excellent, with minor loss of s...Category
20th Century Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Rain In The Evening GlowBy Yayoi KusamaLocated in Bristol, GBScreen print Edition of 75 61 x 53.5 cm (24 x 21 in) Signed, numbered, dated and titled on the front PristineCategory
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- DIXBy John Thompson (b.1950)Located in Boston, MAMedium: Silkscreen monoprintCategory
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsSilk, Monoprint, Screen
- Figurative Abstract Angel Screen Print with Poem, "Like a Breeze Passing"By Deborah RumerLocated in Soquel, CAEthereal figurative abstract print of two figures merging by Deborah Rumer (American, 20th Century). Titled "Like a breeze passing...", numbered (Ed100), signed, and dated (© Deborah...Category
1990s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsPaper, Ink, Screen
- "Viriditas" - Layered Tree SilkscreenBy Deborah RumerLocated in Soquel, CAVibrant green nature-themed screenprint with leaves and tree by Deborah Rumer (American, 20th Century). Titled, numbered, signed, and dated ("Viriditas Ed/40 © Deborah Rumer c. '94")...Category
1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsPaper, Ink, Screen
$380 Sale Price20% Off - Donald Sultan, from the Wallflowers Series Signed Limited Edition PrintBy Donald SultanLocated in San Rafael, CADonald K. Sultan (American, born 1951) Untitled, from Wallflowers, 2008 Screenprint in colors on wove paper Signed with artist's initials, numbered, dated, and titled in pencil along...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen