Yayoi Kusama is one of Japan's most famous living artists. Her originality, innovation and sheer drive to make art have propelled her through a career that has spanned six decades, encompassing painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, collage, film and video, performance, installation and even product design. From the late 1950s to the early 1970s Kusama lived in New York, and was at the forefront of many artistic innovations in the city, becoming close with artists such as Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell and Claes Oldenburg, and influencing many others along the way. It was in these years that Kusama was dubbed "the Polka Dot Princess," for her obsessive use of polka dots in installations and happenings. Returning to Japan in her forties, she rebuilt her career, waiting years for the international recognition that she has recently achieved. Now in her ninth decade, Kusama's imagination remains fertile and productive, as she continues to devise dazzling installations and relentlessly hand-paints her ongoing series of minutely detailed figurative fantasy paintings. Accompanying the first major retrospective exhibition of the artist's work in the U.S., this volume features a wealth of works from all periods in Kusama's career, as well as essays by various international curators and critics, discussing Kusama's years in New York, her career after her return to Japan, her installation works and the psychoanalytic import of her art.
Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929. She left Japan for New York at the age of 28, following a correspondence with Georgia O'Keeffe, and was soon participating in the city's 1960s wave of happenings and avant-garde activities. In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan and began writing surrealistic novels and poetry. On November 12, 2008, Christies New York sold a work by her for $5.1 million, a record for a living female artist.

Japanese painter, sculptor, writer, installation and performance artist Yayoi Kusama has been in the vanguard of contemporary art for sixty years. Best known for her use of patterns of dots (which she claims evolved from the hallucinations she's had since childhood), Kusama, now 84 years old, is finally getting the international recognition she deserves.
Hi, Konnichiwa brings together Kusama's vivid imagery and haunting words with photos of the artist at work and at various stages in her life. The pieces are mostly from recent years (2000-2012), although there are some that go back as far as the 1950s. Here are Kusama's large-scale canvases, environmental sculptures, multi-media installations, and numerous self-portraits. Here, too, are photos of the artist at ten years old, and as a young woman in Tokyo and then New York, often wearing outrageous clothes of her own design. And we see Yayoi Kusama in recent years, working in her studio in Tokyo - minus the garish make-up and red wig. The book is a chronicle of her creative endeavors and of her life, offering a glimpse into the fevered imagination of this very complicated and fascinating woman.
Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929 in Japan, and from an early age, suffered from hallucinations, which she maintains inspired the visual language she continues to use today. At art school in Kyoto, she first began to experiment with the subversive themes that became her trademark. After leaving school, Kusama had a period of intense productivity, and by 1955, was gaining prominence as an artist in Japan.
In 1958, Yayoi Kusama moved to New York, where she was one of the pioneers of the Pop Art and performance art movements. She became a darling of the media, promoting free sex and anti-war activism. She started Kusama Fashion Company, which was quite successful -- her clothes sold in hundreds of stores including Bloomingdales
By the 1970s, the earlier energy and excitement of the New York art scene had subsided. In 1973, Kusama went back to Japan, and in 1977, took up residence in a psychiatric hospital, where she still lives. She built a large studio nearby and continues to work there.
While she certainly didn't fade into obscurity, Yayoi Kusama moved out of the spotlight. The last few years, however, have seen renewed interest in her work. In 2008, Christie's sold a painting for $5.1 million, then a record for a living female artist. A major retrospective opened at the Whitney Museum in New York in Summer 2013; and at the same she Kusama collaborated with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton collection featuring her polka dots. Kusama recently signed with a new gallery in New York, and a solo show is planned for Fall 2013.

In a unique style that is both sensory and utopian, Yayoi Kusama's work—which spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design and interventions within existing architectural structures—has transcended some of the most important art movements of the second half of the 20th century, including pop art and minimalism. As Roberta Smith wrote in the New York Times, "These paintings form a great big infinity room of their own, but one in which each part is also an autonomous work of art, its own piece of wobbly, handwrought infinity … their vitality is infectious."
Yayoi Kusama: Festival of Life documents the artist's exhibition at David Zwirner's Chelsea location in New York in late 2017, featuring a selection of paintings from her iconic My Eternal Soul series, new large-scale flower sculptures, a polka-dotted environment and two Infinity Mirror Rooms. The monograph includes new scholarship on the artist by Jenni Sorkin, as well as a special foldout poster.

'I am deeply terrified by the obsessions crawling over my body, whether they come from within me or from outside. I fluctuate between feelings of reality and unreality. I, myself, delight in my obsessions.' Yayoi Kusama is one of the most significant contemporary artists at work today. This engaging autobiography tells the story of her life and extraordinary career in her own words, revealing her as a fascinating figure and maverick artist who channels her obsessive neuroses into an art that transcends cultural barriers. Kusama describes the decade she spent in New York, first as a poverty stricken artist and later as the doyenne of an alternative counter-cultural scene. She provides a frank and touching account of her relationships with key art-world figures, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Donald Judd and the reclusive Joseph Cornell, with whom Kusama forged a close bond. Incandid terms she describes her childhood and the first appearance of the obsessive visions that have haunted her throughout her life. Returning to Japan in the early 1970s, Kusama checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo where she resides to the present day, emerging to dedicate herself with seemingly endless vigour to her art and her writing. This remarkable autobiography provides a powerful insight into a unique artistic mind, haunted by fears and phobias yet determined to maintain her position at the forefront of the artistic avant-garde. In addition to her artwork, Yayoi Kusama is the author of numerous volumes of poetry and fiction, including The Hustler's Grotto of Christopher Street, Manhattan Suicide Addict and Violet Obsession.

Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama’s matchless creativity and originality have been captivating the world since she moved from Matsumoto, her hometown in Nagano, Japan, to the USA in 1958. In the last ten years alone, her retrospective exhibitions in four major European and American museums, including Tate Modern, London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, have seen record attendance.
Kusama has continuously innovated and re-invented 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. It ranges from works on paper featuring intense semi-abstract imagery, to soft sculpture known as ‘Accumulations’, to her ‘Infinity Net’ paintings, made up of carefully repeated arcs of paint built up into large patterns. This comprehensive publication, originally published to accompany a sell-out exhibition at Matsumoto City Museum of Art, offers a comprehensive 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’; works 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’. The plates are in chronological order and followed by detailed captions.

In her most personal book to date, Yayoi Kusama brings us into her private world through poetic recollections, giving insight into her creative process and the essential role language plays in her paintings, sculptures, and daily life.
With a new focus on Yayoi Kusama’s use of language, this book features an impressive overview of her poetry, which the artist creates alongside her work in other mediums. Highlighting the importance of words to the artist, the book draws special attention to the captivating, poetic titles of her paintings, such as in I WOULD LIKE TO SHOW YOU THE INFINITE SPLENDOR OF STARDUST IN THE UNIVERSE and FIGURE OF THE MIDNIGHT DARKNESS OF THE UNIVERSE THAT I DEDICATED ALL MY HEART. These visionary titles are a quintessential part of Kusama’s eye-catching artworks, but also hold their own as unique aphorisms and appealing statements of cosmic spirituality. The poetry also collected here touches on Kusama’s personal trials, her human ideals, and her heroic pursuit of art above all else.
Centered around EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, Kusama’s acclaimed exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, in 2019, the book features more than 300 pages of new paintings, sculptures, and Infinity Mirror Rooms. It also includes photographs of Kusama over time, offering a unique visual timeline of this iconic artist.