feature yayoi Kusama
Love Forever: YAYOI KUSAMA 1958–1968 / In Full Bloom: YAYOI KUSAMA, Years in Japan, 1999
(installation view, Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). All works courtesy the artist
I burned some 2,000 paintings on the
riverbank behind my parents’ house in
order to create a new world of art
Do you look at what other contemporary artists are doing? Or do you I have gained fame quite naturally, while being unconcerned about it.
just do your own thing? Now I am approaching the time when I have to think seriously about
my own life and death.
I have been concentrating on my own activities. I don’t pay attention to
what other artists are doing. I am focusing every day on the thoughts Do you see your work (as other people have) as being particularly
and aspirations concerning my art. feminist?
What do you hope to communicate to the viewer? I have never thought about it.
I hope to communicate that love is forever in the universe, and to share You grew up in quite a conventional environment. Did that make you
with them wishes for peace on the earth without terror and war. determined to make your art transgressive?
When you make your work, to what extent are you thinking of the way I have suffered the greater part of my life because of the environment I
it communicates with other people? grew up in. This has strengthened me a great deal, though.
I am I. Others are others. We are different in many ways. Behind art are, You destroyed a lot of work as you left New York. Why did you do this,
however, aspirations common to all humankind. It gives me a great joy and would you still do it now?
when I find them.
I destroyed my earlier works to make better works. When I left for the
What artists have influenced your work? US at twenty-seven years of age I burned some 2,000 paintings on
the riverbank behind my parents’ house, in order to create a new world
I myself. My greatest aspiration in life is to discover myself and create of art.
artwork.
You’ve called your art ‘obsessional art’. Why is that?
How does it feel to be an influence on other people?
Stereotypical action, repetition, hallucination, accumulation, obsession,
I feel delighted. I would like to strive further, setting my goals higher. the curtain of depersonalisation, emptiness, infinity, psychosomatic
I would like people to evaluate my works after I have achieved them. art, proliferation, ‘vacuum’, cell, segmentation, eternity, driving image.
These are some of the themes I have used for my artworks: paintings,
You work through a large range of media. How do you decide whether sculptures as well as films.
an idea will become a sculpture, performance, painting, fashion, poetry,
installation or film? Or is there no gap between the transformation Your work is often categorised as ‘outsider art’. Can you be famous
from idea to object? and be an ‘outsider’?
Each time I have an idea formed in the mind, I have incorporated new Yes, I can indeed. With my artworks I have become a world-renowned
themes in my artwork, one after another. artist before my knowing it. This is unrelated to my work being ‘outsider
art’.
After your time in New York, you were kind of forgotten for a while by
the artworld. Now you’ve achieved great success and fame quite late Work by Yayoi Kusama is on show at the Victoria Miro Gallery, London,
on in your career. What reasons do you think there are for the artworld from 10 October to 17 November
being so slow to appreciate your work as enduringly important?
79 artreview
Yayoi.indd 7 12/9/07 18:51:44
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182