Yayoi KusamaJapanese, 1929–2026Untitled
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Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
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- The museum
About the painting
Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's work is widely diverse in theory and practice, including painting, drawing, sculpture, assemblage, performance, video, and installation. At one point, she ventured into the fashion world with her own clothing line. During the decade she lived in New York-1958 to 1968-she was especially known for her exuberant abstract paintings, which used a signature motif known as an infinity net-interlocking shapes painted with netlike patterns.
In Untitled, Kusama added her characteristic polka dots over the infinity nets, creating yet another dimension. This work was made shortly before she returned to Japan to seek treatment for the hallucinations and obsessive thoughts that had troubled her since childhood. Kusama has often said making art is the way she manages her obsessions.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Particulars
- Accession number
- 2010.7
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — © Yayoi Kusama
Meanwhile, in the life of Yayoi Kusama
The whole life1959–1972
A passionate platonic bond with Joseph Cornell
In New York Kusama had a brief relationship with Judd and then a passionate but platonic one with Joseph Cornell, twenty-six years her senior: they phoned each other daily, sketched each other, and he sent her personalised collages. The bond lasted until Cornell’s death in 1972.
1960–1975
Travel: United States
1967
Travel: Netherlands
1968
An anti-war performance on the Brooklyn Bridge
In 1968 Kusama staged an anti-war performance on the Brooklyn Bridge, “Self-Obliteration. Anatomic Explosion — Anti-War”, inviting LGBT participants: she decorated the naked bodies of the protesters with her signature pattern, the young men raised a banner with the title of the action while the young women stood in the middle of the bridge and kissed. The action caused an international scandal; in Japan Kusama was called “shameless”, and the Kyoto school where she had studied demanded that her name be struck from the list of distinguished graduates.
1968
“Homosexual Wedding” and the Fillmore East
In 1968 Kusama presided over the happening “Homosexual Wedding” at the “Church of Self-Obliteration” at 33 Walker Street, performed alongside Fleetwood Mac and Country Joe and the Fish at the Fillmore East, and opened naked painting studios and a gay social club, the Kusama ’Omophile Kompany. The nudity in her art and protests was a severe shame for her family, and she felt alone.
1969
“Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead” at MoMA
In 1969 the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York saw the performance “Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead”: at Kusama’s direction eight performers undressed, stepped into a fountain and struck poses mimicking nearby sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti and Maillol. The event was unannounced.
