Yayoi Kusama: All About My Love

by Akira Shibutami, Yayoi Kusama (Visual Art)

A career retrospective of Yayoi Kusama, Japan’s most prominent artist and “Queen of Polka Dots,” covering all aspects of her provocative work. Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama’s matchless creativity and originality have been captivating the world for more than six decades. Her retrospective exhibitions in four major European and American museums have seen record attendance. Yayoi Kusama , originally published to accompany a sellout exhibition at the Matsumoto City Museum of Art, offers an overview of Kusama’s entire career, including works from her youth, when she indulged in drawing in order to escape from her hallucinations; paintings made when she was based in New York, including “Infinity Nets” and “Polka Dots,” and her happenings in places such as Central Park; her immersive mirrored infinity rooms from the 1980s and 1990s, when she participated in the Venice Biennale; and last but not least, the ongoing large-scale series “My Eternal Soul.” Kusama has continuously innovated and reinvented her style; well-known for her repeating dot patterns, her art encompasses an astonishing variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance, and immersive installation. Featuring an essay by Akira Shibutami analyzing Kusama’s work, this comprehensive publication celebrates one of Japan’s most important artists. 350 color illustrations

Genres: Art, Reference

264 pages, Paperback

Published December 3, 2019

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the several coffee table style art books a friend let me borrow of Kusama this one was by far the best. Not only was it comprehensive with her work including earlier examples of watercolor and photo collage that I hadn’t seen in other collections of her work, but it also I had a fantastic bibliography of her own authored works including poetry collections and novels by Kusama. Lengthy interviews with the artist also round out this book making it much more than assemblage of photographs of her more famous colorful large scale gallery pieces.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yayoi Kusama is one of the best living artists of our time. This book compiles her beautiful work, in full color pages.

[Nathalie Pauwels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely insight in Kusama's life and her tremendously diverse creative output. From paintings to novels, from poetry to fashion, from happenings to printing. The interview towards the end of the book is as open and authentic as it is endearing with Kusama apologizing for weeping while talking about her harsh upbringing. Most of the artwork in the book is from Kusama's own collection, which must be vast as she keeps on creating. It makes the book more personal than I thought it was on first sight.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been fortunate to have viewed two of her art installations - one in Stavenger , Norway and one in Bentonville, Arkansas art museums . Beautiful and so colorful and they made me feel happy! I was glad to have read this biography of her life and now have a better understanding of her art and her life and how her coping with her mental illness affected her life and art. Remarkable artist and woman.

[Vincent Eaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The obsessive, damaged, colorful works of the Japanese artist who has suffered from various mental ailments through the years, while being an inventive, repetitive, compulsive art brut and some Disneyesque eye-poppers.

[Jordan Oosterman · Rating 5 out of 5]

INSPIRATIONAL!

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent documentation of all her art and well written story of her life.