Yayoi Kusama's personal story

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, and graduated from Matsumoto Girls' School in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. 1956, she moved to new york, USA, and began to show her leading avant-garde artistic creation. Now she lives in Tokyo, Japan.

Many labels, such as Queen of Dots, Queen of Japanese Art, Queen of Topics, Psychopaths and Weird Mother-in-law, are not enough to cover the complicated and changeable life in Yayoi Kusama. Nobuyoshi Araki, the representative of Japanese bad taste, is over 80 years old. He proved himself with half a century's artistic creation, and witnessed the history of contemporary art together with avant-garde artists such as andy warhol and Yoko Ono Lennon. In an exclusive interview with Bund Pictorial, she said, "I don't think anyone is more talented than me. I have always spent all my time on art, and all my original ideas and ideas have been used in the works representing Yayoi Kusama. "

This summer, the trees along the Thames in London, England will be wrapped in white dots on a red background; In September, at Hayward Gallery in London, huge sculptures will decorate the gallery space in a gorgeous and fashionable way. Huge, repetitive, red and white dots are scattered around the corner of London. Anyone who is familiar with contemporary art will immediately think that these iconic dots belong to the "Japanese strange mother-in-law" wearing similar patterned clothes.

This is the world-famous Queen of Dots, the Queen of Japanese Super Art and the Queen of Topics-Yayoi Kusama. According to statistics, among the clothes worn by young people in Japan, clothes with dots account for about 30%. Yayoi Kusama began to decorate himself with sweaters with asymmetric sleeves and red and white sleeves at the age of 10. So far, all her clothes have been designed by herself. Dot, like her mental illness, has become the deepest mark on artists.

Forty years ago, Yayoi Kusama, an Asian woman, became a pioneer of avant-garde art in new york, and her influence was comparable to that of andy warhol, the leader of pop art. More than 30 years ago, she returned to Tokyo, was admitted to a mental hospital, and then disappeared. 1993, she participated in the Venice Biennale on behalf of Japan alone, re-emerged and established her position in the international art world.

The Times published a survey of the 200 greatest artists of the 20th century. Picasso and Cezanne ranked first and second respectively, while no artists in China were selected. There are four Japanese artists on the list, namely Murakami Takashi, Yayoi Kusama, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Noguchi Yong. Compared with Japanese artists such as Murakami Takashi, 80-year-old "weird mother-in-law" Yayoi Kusama is thirty or forty years ahead of them.

Artists in mental nursing homes

In Shinjuku Psychiatric Sanatorium, 80-year-old Yayoi Kusama goes out slowly with the help of his assistant every morning. She 1973 returned to Tokyo from new york, and it has been more than 30 years.

During the day, she went to work in a nearby studio and returned to a nursing home at night. She rarely goes out, rarely sees guests, does not visit department stores, does not use computers and mobile phones, and lives an isolated life. This interview with Bund Pictorial was also completed with the assistance of an assistant.

When he was less than 10 years old, Yayoi Kusama suffered from nervous hearing and hearing impairment, and he often had auditory hallucinations and hallucinations. The world she saw was covered by a huge net, so she kept drawing, trying to express her illusion with repeated points-mental illness and artistic creation almost accompanied her all her life.

"One day, I sat in a chair and looked at the texture and color on the red tablecloth, and began to look for the same texture around me, from windows, walls and ceilings to every corner of the room, including my body. In the process of searching, I feel that I am gradually eroded and destroyed, time and space are constantly rotating, and my self becomes insignificant. At that moment, I realized that this is not only an illusion, but also an existence in real life. I was frightened by this real illusion. I was very afraid of the red tablecloth and the texture on it ... I ran away, but the steps under my feet were scattered all over the floor. I fell down the steps and hurt my hand and ankle ... "

In the studio near the nursing home, she finished thousands of works, including giant pumpkins. At the same time, she has published more than a dozen novels and poems. Yayoi Kusama finally bought a building next to the nursing home. She said it was the biggest expense in her life, but it was crucial. "I painted and designed sculptures there. This is my job and my whole life. "

1973, after Yayoi Kusama returned to Japan from new york, he left the public eye. Few people know about her life, and the only clue is long-term psychotherapy. This documentary, set in Yayoi Kusama's studio, was released. It was the first time that her private files were made public, and it was very popular. Yayoi Kusama in the lens is short and slightly hunched, wearing her own polka-dot dress, colorful wig and heavy makeup.

In the studio, Yayoi Kusama will change into loose work clothes and start working for at least 8 hours. Yayoi Kusama, an 80-year-old man who is taken good care of in the nursing home, is in good health, but he is not so handy in drawing and often needs the help of an assistant. After the assistants finished the time-consuming and tiring work of laying colors, she used her unique dots to express different illusions and dreams.

In a mental hospital, Yayoi Kusama has a private bedroom. Even in the middle of the night, she can still work here after coming back from the studio. Write novels, poems, design drawings or some small paintings. On weekdays, she will call her agent and talk about her situation the day before, the latest development of a work, and even her favorite dessert-she is more greedy for sweets. Even in a good state of mind, Yayoi Kusama often forgets what he said, or repeats what he said. The other party is completely used to this way, so that the call time is a bit long.

Yayoi Kusama has been paying attention to the newspapers that made him famous more than 40 years ago. She reads newspapers carefully every day, often starting with the political part, which has been a habit for decades. "It's hard to live in Japan, except in a mental hospital." In an interview many years ago, Yayoi Kusama said: Yayoi Kusama once suffered from schizophrenia. When he was lying in bed, he felt the ceiling spinning, so strongly that he felt dizzy and could not control himself. Then he will be depressed and anxious. Today, when she is alone, she still has the same troubles. In fact, as early as several decades ago, some people thought that Yayoi Kusama was using his mental problems for hype. To this day, people still don't know her mental state. The only certainty is that she is still living in a mental hospital.

10 Taipei Art Fair invited Yayoi Kusama to appear as an art star. Accompanied by her agent, she promised to go and brought a pumpkin several meters high with an area of tens of square meters to the scene. This is the closest she has ever been to a China fan. Due to the language barrier, Yayoi Kusama was silent at the Expo site and reception, and the opening speech was also completed by the agent. Some media pointed out that brokers, assistants and others filled Yayoi Kusama with fragile glass products such as cotton to help her do everything. Yayoi Kusama, on the other hand, spends most of his time resting and writing in a mental sanatorium, wandering between two identities: artist and mental patient.

"I don't know where Yayoi Kusama drilled a hole in the wall and caught a glimpse of a gesture or figure of the creator. She has lived on this wall ever since, looking back and forth between the two worlds. " Cai Kangyong's blog post "Yayoi Kusama, an artist who volunteered to live in a mental hospital" is like this.

have nothing at all

"If you must ask me when I started artistic creation, I can tell you that it was at a very young age. My life, every day of my life, is related to art. If people can have an afterlife, I want to be an artist again. No matter life or death, art is everything to me. "

In an interview with Bund Pictorial, Yayoi Kusama repeatedly expressed the importance of art to her, and art is the only thing she can grasp in her life.

1929, Yayoi Kusama was born in a wealthy family in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture. This family has been engaged in seed business for 100 years.

10 years old, Yayoi Kusama drew a pencil drawing. A little girl is gloomy and quiet without a smile, which is a portrayal of her childhood.

The mother runs the family business brilliantly, but she knows nothing about her daughter's mental illness. In her view, Yayoi Kusama's so-called hallucinations are all nonsense, and painting is not what rich girls should do. She prefers her children to be "art collectors". Mother destroyed Yayoi Kusama's canvas, punished her for working with the workers, and often locked her up. "Beat me and kick my ass every day", a strong sense of terror made Yayoi Kusama's spirit close to collapse.

Although the memory of childhood is not perfect, it has greatly stimulated her creativity. Yayoi Kusama not only "invented" plants like flowers, but also made them bigger and bigger. Flowers became the theme of Yayoi Kusama's creation, and a series of "Flowers in Full Bloom at Midnight" were exhibited in LA, precisely because of her childhood memories.

1955, 26-year-old Yayoi Kusama found the works of American female painter Georgia O 'Keeffe in a second-hand bookstore. With the help of a cousin who knows English, she wrote to Joe for help. "Although I am far away, although I have just started on the road of art, I still beg you to show me the way ..." The deeply moved female painter wrote back to Yayoi Kusama, expressing her willingness to recommend her works in the United States.

1957, Yayoi Kusama got a visa to the United States. Before leaving, her mother gave Yayoi Kusama 1 10,000 yen and told her never to set foot in this house. When she left, she destroyed thousands of works on the riverbank outside her home to express her anger at her mother.

In the later novel Foxglove in Central Park, Yayoi Kusama showed her early experience by describing a Japanese girl's experience in new york: lonely and penniless, she still doesn't intend to return to Japan; She shuttled between galleries in the city with her own paintings; Because she doesn't know English, it is extremely difficult for this short and unattractive oriental woman to sell a work. In the rented apartment, she will wake up in the middle of the night and paint until dawn; Pick up fish heads and discarded rotten leaves in the garbage basket on the street and cook a bowl of hot soup with these materials.

"In the eyes of Americans, Japanese women are like flowers in a greenhouse. Yayoi Kusama broke this view. She is very strong and creative. " New york critic Gordon Brown said this in an interview in the 1960s.

The appearance of American artist Joseph Curnell adds romance to Yayoi Kusama's life. Curnell is a famous American artist, sculptor and pioneer of experimental film. "When I first met him, he was wearing a strange coat. I was scared and thought I saw a ghost. "

"He wrote to me every day, called me countless times and called me, so that someone asked me if my phone was broken. I said, no, because he has been talking to me. " Yayoi Kusama later recalled that one day, Kornel wrote 14 letters to her. They had been together since they met in 1960s, until Joseph Kornel died in 1972.

The death of her lover gave Yayoi Kusama a heavy blow, and her mental problems became more and more serious. 1973, one year after Joseph Kornel's death, Yayoi Kusama returned to Tokyo from new york, leaving artists and critics, avoiding the media and living alone in a mental hospital.

The birth of the polka dot queen

It is speculated that Yayoi Kusama sent himself to a mental hospital, which was a kind of self-punishment after Joseph Kornel's death. She regrets her crazy behavior to gain fame, and thinks that she should follow Joseph Kornel's advice and put more energy into her works.

In 1959, eight months after arriving in new york/kloc-0, Yayoi Kusama's five works participated in the group exhibition of young artists in Bratas Art Museum on 10 street. Each painting has a net pattern on a slightly darker gray background, and her dots have attracted the attention of famous critics in new york.

Donald judd wrote in Art News: "Yayoi Kusama is an original painter. The five white giant works in the exhibition are avant-garde and powerful in concept and implementation ... It originated from those points that are dissolved in the plane, and also from those points that are slightly deviated but have a strong effect ... "

1964, Yayoi Kusama organized an exhibition called "Thousand Ships Meeting". She stuffed a soft sculpture like a penis into the boat and filled the whole room. The room is surrounded by photos of these works. Those protruding penises echoed from the printed matter on the wall, and everyone felt at a loss.

Due to the influence of mental illness, Yayoi Kusama will expand into the field of sculpture and installation art very repeatedly. More interestingly, it led the trend of American pop art in the future. Andy warhol's similar exhibition "Cow's Head Staggered" appeared in 1966. In an interview with the media, Yayoi Kusama pointed out many times that American artists, including andy warhol, borrowed their ideas, and all these people made a fortune in the United States.

Even after hosting the sensational "Thousand Ships Expo", Yayoi Kusama has not been recognized by the mainstream art circles in new york, and has even been in deep financial difficulties. 1967, when she learned that she could not get the expected exhibition opportunity, she began to perform by herself. Yayoi Kusama's iconic dots spread to the surface of strange objects, and then spread to the nude of live performances.

"Next to the NYSE on Wall Street, four naked women are twisting their bodies to the beat of drums, and Yayoi Kusama, accompanied by her lawyer, is spraying blue dots on their naked bodies. The police quickly dispersed them. "

1968, Yayoi Kusama frantically organized a series of naked rallies of "human explosion", which quickly became the target of American media. She wore heavy makeup, long hair and fancy clothes made by herself, and performed wantonly beside the Statue of Liberty or in front of the statue of Alice Fairy in Central Park. Crowds poured in from all directions. Each audience needs to pay a "ticket" of $2. With this performance art, Yayoi Kusama made a lot of money. 1969, after an exhibition in MOMA, new york, this Japanese woman became the cover figure of The New York Times, but the subtitle of her front page picture was "But is this art?" .

On weekdays, Yayoi Kusama is introverted and quiet, and the faces of young oriental women are very fresh in the new york art world; However, in the performance, she was crazy about it, completely released, and even appeared naked. Some of her old friends began to turn their backs on her, thinking that Yayoi Kusama had degraded himself to the ranks of non-artists in order to become famous. Yayoi Kusama's family, who was far away in Japan, was deeply frightened when they learned of her dissolute words and deeds in public, and stopped contacting her.

Lead the vanguard for half a century

Yayoi Kusama's ten years in the United States coincided with the vigorous development of pop art. Many years later, when critics combed her creative process again, they attributed Yayoi Kusama-style madness to the complex social environment: "It was an era when hippies were rampant, and Yayoi Kusama soon realized what was popular in this country. They protested the Vietnam War, took drugs, pursued the mystery of the East, sought refuge from foreign religions and advocated sexual liberation. Many people began to make a living by breaking the rules, and some people became rich and famous. "

Yayoi Kusama's experience in new york has written Japanese names into the history of western pop art. 1962, Yayoi Kusama and andy warhol participated in a group exhibition in the Green Gallery. Green Gallery planned to hold a solo exhibition for her in the same year, but had to give it up because of lack of funds. When Alden Berg's solo exhibition opened in the Green Gallery, it contained infinitely repeated soft sculptures similar to Yayoi Kusama's male genitals. His wife talked about Yayoi Kusama's influence on some works. "I'm sorry we adopted your idea." She said.

Almost at the same time, andy warhol is like a wholesale store dealing in imitations, constantly absorbing all the elements around it. At the opening ceremony of "Thousand Ships Expo" in Yayoi Kusama, Warhol praised its perfect performance with extremely shocked expression. If Yayoi Kusama had not left new york because of mental illness, she would have been the most powerful competitor in andy warhol's artistic status, but mental illness was the dominant factor in Yayoi Kusama's creation for decades.

Lu Rongzhi, a domestic critic, compared Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono Lennon to the brightest female stars in the international art world in the 20th century. Yoko Ono Lennon's love affair with Lennon in the century and her contact with the core forces of European and American art circles made her more famous in popular culture than Yayoi Kusama. "But in terms of her unique artistic style and symbolic groundbreaking, Yayoi Kusama's resurrection stems from her art itself." Lu Rongzhi said so.

"Before Yoko Ono Lennon met Lennon, her work was already great. But in a sense, Lennon made her care more. Although Yayoi Kusama's experience is legendary, there is no role like Lennon, which may be one of the reasons why she is not well known. " Fang Zhenning, an independent curator, commented: "It cannot be ignored that she is not only a pioneer of Japanese contemporary art, but also influenced American pop art during her stay in new york."

Hong, who was invited to participate in the Taipei Gallery Expo, recalled: "At that time, dozens of paintings or small sculptures were snapped up, but unfortunately the huge pumpkins were not sold after two or three months. Because we couldn't find a suitable warehouse in Taipei, we transported the pumpkins to the countryside, wrapped them tightly, and put them in the ground like a bunker until they were finally shipped back to Japan. " At that time, the price of this giant pumpkin did not exceed 500,000 yuan, and now it has risen dozens of times. /kloc-0 0 year. Whenever this matter is mentioned, Hong feels sorry.

1966, Yayoi Kusama illegally participated in the Venice Biennale. Without permission, she appeared in front of the Italian Pavilion in the center of the Green Garden with her work "Narcissus Garden". The device consisting of 65,438+0,500 golden mirror balls (made of plastic inside) is eye-catching, and she herself sits in it wearing a golden kimono. And put up a sign: a golden ball is 2 yuan, emphasizing that works of art can be sold like hot dogs. After being invited by the organizing committee of the Biennale, she wore scarlet tights and spread her arms in the middle of the mirror ball, surpassing all the participating artists.

From 65438 to 0993, Yayoi Kusama participated in the Venice Biennale on behalf of Japan alone, and the Japanese government specially set up a theme pavilion for her to pay tribute to the avant-garde queen, thus re-establishing Yayoi Kusama's artistic status at home and abroad. Decades of life in a mental sanatorium smoothed Yayoi Kusama's rebellion, and her works returned to the paintings and sculptures on the bookshelf, and the pumpkin series full of dots became classics. At the same time, Yayoi Kusama also spread her polka-dot patterns to design products. Cosmetic bags designed for Lancome and mobile phones designed for AU sell well. New york's "Avant-garde Queen" still leads the fashion.