Yayoi Kusama: biografía

Yayoi Kusama ( born March 29, 1929) is an artist, often called "Japan's greatest living artist".
Born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Kusama has experienced hallucinations and severe obsessive thoughts since childhood, often of a suicidal nature. She claims that as a small child she suffered severe physical abuse by her mother.
Early in Kusama's career, she began covering surfaces (walls, floors, canvases, and later, household objects and naked assistants) with the polka dots that would become a trademark of her work. The vast fields of polka dots, or "infinity nets," as she called them, were taken directly from her hallucinations.
She left her native country at the age of 27 for New York City, after years of correspondence with Georgia O'Keefe in which she became interested in joining the limelight in the city. During her time in the United States, she quickly established her reputation as a leader in the avant-garde movement. She organized outlandish happenings in conspicuous spots like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, was enormously productive, and counted Joseph Cornell and Donald Judd among her friends and supporters, but did not profit financially from her work. She returned to Japan in ill health in 1973.
Her work shares some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop, and abstract expressionism, but she describes herself as an obsessive artist. Her artwork is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content, and includes paintings, soft sculptures, performance art and installations. Kusama is also a published novelist and poet, and has created notable work in film and fashion design.
Yayoi Kusama has exhibited work with Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns. Kusama represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and in 1998 & 1999 a major retrospective exhibition of her work toured the U.S. and Japan.
Today she lives, by choice, in a mental hospital in Tokyo, where she has continued to produce work since the mid-1970s. Her studio is a short distance from the hospital. "If it were not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago," Kusama is often quoted as saying.
Yayoi Kusama said about her 1954 painting titled Flower (D.S.P.S),
"One day I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness. As I realized it was actually happening and not just in my imagination, I was frightened. I knew I had to run away lest I should be deprived of my life by the spell of the red flowers. I ran desperately up the stairs. The steps below me began to fall apart and I fell down the stairs straining my ankle."
Superchunk, an American indie band, included a song called "Art Class (Song for Yayoi Kusama)" on its Here's to Shutting Up album. Yoko Ono cites Kusama as an influence.

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Yayoi Kusama (1929) se ha llamado la artista viva más grande de Japón. Nacida en Matsumoto, prefectura de Nagano, ella salió de su país nativo en la edad de 27 para New York City. Durante su tiempo en los Estados Unidos, ella estableció rápidamente su reputación como líder en el movimiento del avant-garde.
Su trabajo comparte algunas cualidades del feminismo, del minimalism, del surrealism, del arte Brut, del estallido, y del expressionism abstracto, pero ella se describe como artista obsesiva. Sus ilustraciones se infunden con el contenido autobiográfico, psicologico, y sexual, e incluyen pinturas, esculturas suaves, arte del funcionamiento e instalaciones.
Yayoi Kusama ha exhibido el trabajo con Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, y jaspe Johns. Japón representado Kusama en la Venecia Biennale en 1993, y en 1998 y 1999 una exposición retrospectiva importante de su trabajo viajó los ESTADOS UNIDOS y el Japón.
Yayoi Kusama es también un consumidor (persona que sufre de enfermedad mental). Desde niñez, ella ha sufrido de alucinaciones y de pensamientos obsesivos severos, a menudo de una naturaleza suicida. Vive hoy en un hospital mental en Tokio, en donde ha continuado producir el trabajo desde los mediados de-años 70. Su estudio es una distancia corta del hospital. "si no estuviera para el arte, me habría matado hace un rato largo," Kusama me cotizo a menudo como diciendo.
Temprano en la carrera de Kusama, comenzó las superficies de la cubierta (paredes, pisos, lonas, y más adelante, objetos de la casa y ayudantes desnudas) con los puntos del polka que se convirtieron en una marca registrada de su trabajo. Los campos extensos de los puntos del polka, o el "infinito produce neto", como ella los llamó, fueron tomados directamente de sus alucinaciones.
Aquí está una declaración de Yayoi Kusama sobre su 1954 flor dada derecho la pintura (D.S.P.S): "un día observaba los patrones rojos de la flor del mantel en una tabla, y cuando observaba hacia arriba vi el mismo patrón el cubrir del techo, de las ventanas y de las paredes, y finalmente todo sobre el cuarto, mi cuerpo y el universo. Me sentía como si hubiera comenzado uno mismo-a borrar, para girar en el infinito de la época sin fin y de la rotundidad del espacio, y me reduzca al nothingness. Como realicé que sucedía realmente y no apenas en mi imaginación, me asustaron. Sabía que tuve que funcionar lejos a fin de deba ser privado de mi vida por el encanto de las flores rojas. Corrí desesperadamente por las escaleras. Los escalones debajo de mí comenzaron a separarse y me caí por las escaleras."