Each country has its own heroes of contemporary art, whose names are well-known, whose exhibitions attract crowds of fans and curious people, and whose works are dispersed in private collections.
In this article, we will introduce you to the most popular contemporary artists Japan.
Keiko Tanabe
Born in Kyoto, Keiko won multiple titles as a child. art competitions, But higher education received not at all in the field of art. She has worked in the international relations department of a Japanese self-government trade organization in Tokyo, a large law firm in San Francisco, and a private consulting firm in San Diego, and has traveled extensively. Starting in 2003, she left her job and, after learning the basics of watercolor painting in San Diego, devoted herself exclusively to art.
Ikenaga Yasunari (Ikenaga Yasunari)
Japanese artist Ikenaga Yasunari paints portraits modern women in ancient Japanese tradition painting using the Menso brush, mineral pigments, carbon black, ink and linen as a base. His characters are women of our time, but thanks to the style of Nihonga, there is a feeling that they came to us from ancient times.
Abe Toshiyuki
Abe Toshiyuki is a realist artist who has mastered watercolor technique. Abe can be called an artist-philosopher: he fundamentally does not draw well-known landmarks, preferring subjective compositions that reflect internal states the person watching them.
Hiroko Sakai
The career of the artist Hiroko Sakai began in the early 90s in the city of Fukuoka. After graduating from Seinan Gakuin University and Nihon French School of Interior Design in design and visualization, she founded "Atelier Yume-Tsumugi Ltd." and successfully managed this studio for 5 years. Many of her works adorn hospital lobbies, offices large corporations and some municipal buildings in Japan. After moving to the United States, Hiroko began to paint in oils.
Riusuke Fukahori
The three-dimensional works of Ryuusuki Fukahori are like holograms. They are done acrylic paint, superimposed in several layers, and a transparent resin liquid - all this, not excluding traditional methods such as shadow rendering, edge softening, transparency control, allows Ryusuki to create sculptural paintings and gives depth and realism to the work.
Natsuki Otani
Natsuki Otani is a talented Japanese illustrator living and working in England.
Makoto Muramatsu
Makoto Muramatsu chose a win-win theme as the basis for his work - he draws cats. His pictures are popular all over the world, especially in the form of puzzles.
Tetsuya Mishima
Most of the paintings by contemporary Japanese artist Mishima are made in oils. She has been painting professionally since the 90s, she has several solo exhibitions and a large number of collective exhibitions, both Japanese and foreign.
Has a very rich history; its tradition is extensive, with Japan's unique position in the world largely influencing the dominant styles and techniques of Japanese artists. Known fact That Japan has been quite isolated for centuries is due not only to geography, but also to the dominant Japanese cultural proclivity for isolation that has marked the country's history. During the centuries of existence of what we might call " Japanese civilization”, culture and art developed separately from those in the rest of the world. And this is even noticeable in the practice of Japanese painting. For example, the Nihonga paintings are among the staples of Japanese painting practice. It is based on over a thousand years of tradition, and the paintings are usually created with brushes on your (Japanese paper) or egina (silk).
However, Japanese art and painting have been influenced by foreign artistic practices. First, it was Chinese art in the 16th century and Chinese art And chinese tradition art, which was particularly influential in several aspects. As of the 17th century, Japanese painting was also influenced by Western traditions. In particular, in the pre-war period, which lasted from 1868 to 1945, Japanese painting influenced by impressionism and European romanticism. At the same time, new European art movements were also significantly influenced by Japanese artistic techniques. In art history, this influence is referred to as "Japanism", and it is especially significant for the Impressionists, Cubists, and artists associated with modernism.
Long story Japanese painting can be seen as a synthesis of several traditions that create parts of a recognized Japanese aesthetics. First of all, Buddhist art and painting methods, as well as religious painting, have left a significant mark on the aesthetics of Japanese paintings; water-ink painting of landscapes in the tradition of Chinese literary painting is another important element recognized in many famous Japanese paintings; painting of animals and plants, especially birds and flowers, is what is commonly associated with Japanese compositions, as are landscapes and scenes from Everyday life. Finally, ancient ideas about beauty from philosophy and culture had a great influence on Japanese painting. ancient japan. Wabi, which means transient and harsh beauty, sabi (beauty of natural patina and aging) and yugen (deep grace and subtlety) still influence the ideals in the practice of Japanese painting.
Finally, if we focus on choosing the ten most famous Japanese masterpieces, we must mention ukiyo-e, which is one of the most popular genres of art in Japan, even though it belongs to printmaking. He dominated in Japanese art from the 17th - 19th century, while artists belonging to this genre created woodcuts and paintings with objects such as beautiful girls, kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers, as well as scenes from history and folk tales, travel scenes and landscapes, flora and fauna and even erotica.
It is always difficult to make a list of the best paintings from artistic traditions. Many amazing works will be excluded; however, this list features ten of the most recognizable Japanese paintings in the world. This article will present only paintings created from the 19th century to the present day.
Japanese painting has an extremely rich history. For centuries Japanese artists developed a large number unique techniques and styles, which are Japan's most valuable contribution to the art world. One of these techniques is sumi-e. Sumi-e literally means "ink drawing", combining calligraphy and ink painting to create a rare beauty of brush-painted compositions. This beauty is paradoxical - ancient yet modern, simple yet complex, bold yet subdued, undoubtedly reflecting the spiritual basis of art in Zen Buddhism. Buddhist priests brought the hard ink block and the bamboo brush to Japan from China in the sixth century, and over the past 14 centuries, Japan has developed a rich heritage of ink painting.
Scroll down and see 10 Japanese Painting Masterpieces
1. Katsushika Hokusai "Dream of the Fisherman's Wife"
One of the most recognizable Japanese paintings is The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. It was written in 1814 famous artist Hokusai. According to strict definitions, this amazing work Hokusai cannot be considered as a painting, as it is an ukiyo-e woodcut from Young Pines (Kinoe no Komatsu), which is a three-volume shunga book. The composition depicts a young ama diver sexually entwined with a pair of octopuses. This image was highly influential in the 19th and 20th centuries. The work influenced more late artists such as Felicien Rops, Auguste Rodin, Luis Ocock, Fernand Khnopf and Pablo Picasso.
2. Tessai Tomioka "Abe no Nakamaro writes a nostalgic poem while watching the moon"
Tessai Tomioka is the pseudonym of a famous Japanese artist and calligrapher. He is considered the last major artist in the bungjing tradition and one of the first major artists Nihonga style. Bunjinga was a school of Japanese painting that flourished during the late Edo period among artists who considered themselves literati or intellectuals. Each of these artists, including Tessaia, developed their own own style and technique, but they were all big fans Chinese art and culture.
3. Fujishima Takeji "Sunrise over the East Sea"
Fujishima Takeji was a Japanese artist known for his work in developing Romanticism and Impressionism in the Yoga (Western style) art movement in late XIX- the beginning of the XX century. In 1905 he traveled to France, where he was influenced by the French movements of the time, in particular Impressionism, as can be seen in his painting "Sunrise over East Sea", which was written in 1932.
4. Kitagawa Utamaro "Ten types of female faces, a collection of dominating beauties"
Kitagawa Utamaro was a prominent Japanese artist who was born in 1753 and died in 1806. He is by far best known for a series called Ten Types of Women's Faces. Collection of ruling beauties, themes Great love Classical Poetry" (sometimes called "Women in Love", containing separate engravings "Naked Love" and "Pensive Love"). He is one of the most significant artists belonging to the ukiyo-e woodcut genre.
5. Kawanabe Kyosai "Tiger"
Kawanabe Kyosai was one of the most famous Japanese artists of the Edo period. His art was influenced by Tohaku, a 16th-century Kano painter who was the only painter of his day to paint screens entirely in ink against a delicate background of powdered gold. Although Kyosai is known as a cartoonist, he has written some of the most famous paintings V Japanese history Art XIX century. "Tiger" is one of those paintings that Kyosai used watercolor and ink to create.
6. Hiroshi Yoshida Fuji from Lake Kawaguchi
Hiroshi Yoshida is known as one of the most big figures shin-hanga style (shin-hanga is artistic movement in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, during the Taisho and Showa periods, which revived the traditional art of ukiyo-e, which took root in the Edo and Meiji periods (XVII - XIX centuries)). He studied the tradition Western painting oil, which was borrowed from Japan during the Meiji period.
7. Takashi Murakami "727"
Takashi Murakami is probably the most popular Japanese artist of our time. His work sells for astronomical prices at major auctions, and his work is already inspiring new generations of artists not only in Japan but also beyond. Murakami's art includes a range of mediums and is usually described as super-flat. His work is known for his use of color, incorporating motifs from Japanese traditional and popular culture. The content of his paintings is often described as "cute", "psychedelic", or "satirical".
8. Yayoi Kusama "Pumpkin"
Yaoi Kusama is also one of the most famous Japanese artists. She creates in various techniques including painting, collage, scat sculpture, performance art, environmental art, and installation, most of which show her thematic interest in psychedelic color, repetition, and pattern. One of the most famous series this great artist is the Pumpkin series. A polka-dotted regular gourd in bright yellow is shown against a net. Together, all such elements form a visual language that is unmistakable to the artist's style, and has been developed and refined over decades of painstaking crafting and reproduction.
9. Tenmyoya Hisashi "Japanese Spirit #14"
Tenmyoya Hisashi is a contemporary Japanese artist who is known for his neo-nihonga paintings. He participated in the revival old tradition Japanese painting, which is the exact opposite of modern Japanese painting. In 2000 he also created his a new style butouha, who demonstrates a firm attitude towards authority art system through his paintings. "Japanese Spirit No. 14" was created as part of artistic scheme"BASARA", interpreted in Japanese culture as the rebellious behavior of the lower aristocracy during the Warring States period in order to deprive the authorities of the opportunity to seek perfect image life, dressing in pompous and luxurious clothes and acting of free will, which did not correspond to their social class.
10. Katsushika Hokusai "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa"
Finally, " A big wave in Kanagawa" is probably the most recognizable japanese painting ever written. It's really the most famous work art made in Japan. It depicts huge waves threatening boats off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture. Although sometimes mistaken for a tsunami, the wave, as the name of the painting suggests, most likely simply has an anomalously high height. The painting is made in the ukiyo-e tradition.
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01.02.18 09:02
Today's art scene Japan is very diverse and provocative: considering the work of masters from the Country rising sun You will think that you have landed on another planet! It is home to innovators who have changed the landscape of the industry on a global scale. We present you a list of 10 contemporary Japanese artists and their creations - from incredible creatures Takashi Murakami (who is celebrating his birthday today) to the colorful universe of Kusama.
From futuristic worlds to dotted constellations: contemporary Japanese artists
Takashi Murakami: traditionalist and classic
Let's start with the hero of the occasion! Takashi Murakami is one of Japan's most iconic contemporary artists, working on paintings, large scale sculptures and fashion. Murakami's style is influenced by manga and anime. He is the founder of the Superflat movement, which supports Japanese artistic traditions and postwar culture. Murakami promoted many of his fellow contemporaries, we will also get to know some of them today. "Subcultural" works by Takashi Murakami are presented in the fashion and art art markets. His provocative My Lonesome Cowboy (1998) was sold in New York at Sotheby's in 2008 for a record $15.2 million. Murakami has collaborated with world famous brands Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton and Issey Miyake.
Tycho Asima and her surreal universe
A member of the art production company Kaikai Kiki and the Superflat movement (both founded by Takashi Murakami), Chiho Ashima is known for her fantasy cityscapes and weird pop creatures. The artist creates surrealistic dreams inhabited by demons, ghosts, young beauties depicted against the backdrop of outlandish nature. Her works are usually large-scale and printed on paper, leather, plastic. In 2006, this contemporary Japanese artist participated in Art on the Underground in London. She created 17 consecutive arcs for the platform - magical landscape gradually turned from day to night, from urban to rural. This miracle blossomed at the Gloucester Road tube station.
Chiharu Shima and Infinite Threads
Another artist, Chiharu Shiota, is working on large-scale visual installations for specific landmarks. She was born in Osaka, but now lives in Germany - in Berlin. The central themes of her work are oblivion and memory, dreams and reality, past and present, and also the confrontation of anxiety. Most famous works Chiharu Shiota - impenetrable nets of black thread, covering a variety of household and personal items - such as old chairs, Wedding Dress, burnt piano. In the summer of 2014, Shiota connected more than 300 shoes and boots donated to her with threads of red yarn and hung them on hooks. Chiharu's first exhibition in the German capital was held during the Berlin Art Week in 2016 and caused a sensation.
Hey Arakawa: everywhere, not anywhere
Ei Arakawa is inspired by states of change, periods of instability, elements of risk, and his installations often symbolize the themes of friendship and teamwork. The credo of the contemporary Japanese artist is defined by the performative indefinite "everywhere but nowhere". His creations pop up in unexpected places. In 2013, Arakawa's work was exhibited at the Venice Biennale and in the exhibition of Japanese contemporary art at the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo). The Hawaiian Presence installation (2014) was joint project with New York artist Carissa Rodriguez and participated in the Whitney Biennale. Also in 2014, Arakawa and his brother Tomu, performing as a duet called the United Brothers, offered Frieze London visitors their "work" "The This Soup Taste Ambivalent" with "radioactive" Fukushima daikon roots.
Koki Tanaka: Relationship and Repetition
In 2015, Koki Tanaka was named Artist of the Year. Tanaka explores the shared experience of creativity and imagination, encourages exchange between project participants, and advocates for new rules for collaboration. His installation in the Japanese pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale consisted of videos of objects turning the space into a platform for art exchange. Koki Tanaka's installations (not to be confused with his full namesake actor) illustrate the relationship between objects and actions, for example, the video contains a recording of simple gestures performed with ordinary objects (a knife slicing vegetables, beer being poured into a glass, opening an umbrella). Nothing significant happens, but obsessive repetition and attention to the smallest details make the viewer appreciate the mundane.
Mariko Mori and streamlined shapes
Another contemporary Japanese artist, Mariko Mori, "conjures" multimedia objects, combining videos, photos, objects. She has a minimalist futuristic vision and sleek, surreal forms. A recurring theme in Mori's work is the juxtaposition Western legend with Western culture. In 2010, Mariko founded the Fau Foundation, an educational cultural non-profit organization, for which she produced a series of her art installations in honor of the six inhabited continents. Most recently, the Foundation's permanent installation, The Ring: One with Nature, was hoisted over a picturesque waterfall in Resende near Rio de Janeiro.
Ryoji Ikeda: Sound and Video Synthesis
Ryoji Ikeda is a new media artist and composer whose work is mainly related to sound in different "raw" states, from sinusoidal sounds to noises using frequencies at the edge of human hearing. His breathtaking installations include computer-generated sounds that are visually transformed into video projections or digital templates. Ikeda's audiovisual art objects use scale, light, shadow, volume, electronic sounds and rhythm. The artist's famous test object consists of five projectors that illuminate an area 28 meters long and 8 meters wide. The unit converts data (text, sounds, photos and movies) into a barcode and binary patterns of zeros and ones.
Tatsuo Miyajima and LED counters
Contemporary Japanese sculptor and installation artist Tatsuo Miyajima uses in his art electrical circuits, video, computers and other gadgets. The main concepts of Miyajima are inspired by humanistic ideas and Buddhist teachings. The LED counters in his setup flash continuously in a repetition of 1 to 9, symbolizing the journey from life to death, but avoiding the finality that is represented by 0 (zero never appears in Tatsuo's work). The ubiquitous numbers in grids, towers, and diagrams express Miyajima's interest in the ideas of continuity, eternity, connection, and the flow of time and space. Not so long ago, Miyajima's Arrow of Time object was shown at the inaugural exhibition "Incomplete Thoughts Visible in New York".
Nara Yoshimoto and the Evil Children
Nara Yoshimoto creates paintings, sculptures and drawings of children and dogs, subjects that reflect the childish sense of boredom and frustration and the fierce independence that comes naturally to toddlers. The aesthetic of Yoshimoto's work is reminiscent of traditional book illustrations, a mixture of restless tension and the artist's love of punk rock. In 2011, the Asian Society Museum in New York hosted the first personal exhibition Yoshimoto titled "Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool", covering the 20-year career of a contemporary Japanese artist. The exhibits were closely connected with the world's youth subcultures, their alienation and protest.
Yayoi Kusama and the space that grows with outlandish forms
An amazing creative biography of Yayoi Kusama spans seven decades. During this time, an amazing Japanese woman managed to study the fields of painting, graphics, collage, sculpture, cinema, engraving, environmental art, installation, as well as literature, fashion and clothing design. Kusama developed a highly distinctive style of dot art that has become her trademark. Illusory visions presented in the works of 88-year-old Kusama (when the world seems to be covered with sprawling outlandish forms) is the result of hallucinations she has experienced since childhood. Rooms with colorful dots and "endless" mirrors reflecting their accumulations are recognizable, they cannot be confused with anything else.
Yayoi Kusama is unlikely to be able to answer what formed the basis of her career as an artist. She is 87 years old, her art is recognized all over the world. Major exhibitions of her work will soon be held in the US and Japan, but she hasn't told the world everything yet. “It's still on the way. I'm going to create this in the future," says Kusama. She is called the most successful artist in Japan. In addition, she is the most expensive living artist: in 2014, her painting "White No. 28" was sold for $7.1 million.
Kusama lives in Tokyo and has been voluntarily in a psychiatric hospital for almost forty years. Once a day she leaves her walls to paint. She gets up at three o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep and wanting to make good use of her time at work. “Now I am old, but I am still going to create more works and best work. More than I have done in the past. My mind is full of pictures,” she says.
(Total 17 photos)
Yayoi Kusama at an exhibition of his work in London in 1985. Photo: NILS JORGENSEN/REX/Shutterstock
From nine to six, Kusama works in his three-story studio without getting up from wheelchair. She can walk but is too weak. A woman works on a canvas laid out on tables or fixed on the floor. The studio is full of new paintings, bright works strewn with small specks. The artist calls this "self-silencing" - endless repetition that drowns out the noise in her head.
Before the 2006 Praemium Imperiale Art Awards in Tokyo. Photo: Sutton-Hibbert/REX/Shutterstock
A new gallery is about to open across the street, and another museum of her art is under construction north of Tokyo. In addition, two major exhibitions of her work are opening. Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Mirrors, a retrospective of her 65-year career, opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington on February 23 and runs until May 14, after which it will travel to Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto and Cleveland. The exposition includes 60 paintings by Kusama.
Her peas cover everything from Louis Vuitton dresses to buses in her hometown. Kusama's work is regularly sold for millions of dollars and is found all over the world - from New York to Amsterdam. Exhibitions of the Japanese artist's work are so popular that measures are required to prevent stampede and riots. For example, in the Hirshhorn, exhibition tickets are sold at certain time to somehow regulate the flow of visitors.
Presentation of the joint design of Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama in New York in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock
But Kusama still needs outside approval. When asked in an interview about whether she achieved her goal of becoming rich and famous decades ago, she said in surprise: “When I was little, it was very difficult for me to convince my mother that I wanted to become an artist. Is it really true that I'm rich and famous?"
Kusama was born in Matsumoto, in the mountains of Central Japan, in 1929 to a wealthy and conservative family that sold seedlings. But it was not a happy home. Her mother despised her cheating husband and sent little Kusama to spy on him. The girl saw her father with other women, and this caused in her a lifelong aversion to sex.
Louis Vuitton shop window designed by Kusama in 2012. Photo: Joe Schildhorn/BFA/REX/Shutterstock
As a child, she began to experience visual and auditory hallucinations. The first time she saw a pumpkin, she imagined it was talking to her. The future artist coped with visions by creating repeating patterns to drown out the thoughts in her head. Even at such a young age, art became a kind of therapy for her, which she would later call "art medicine."
Work by Yayoi Kusama on display at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock
Kusama's mother was strongly opposed to her daughter's desire to become an artist and insisted that the girl follow the traditional path. “She wouldn’t let me draw. She wanted me to get married,” the artist said in an interview. She threw away my work. I wanted to throw myself under a train. Every day I fought with my mother, and therefore my mind was damaged.
In 1948, after the end of the war, Kusama went to Kyoto to study traditional Japanese nihonga painting with strict rules. She hated this art form.
One of the exhibits of Yayoi Kusama's exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in 2012. Photo: Billy Farrell Agency/REX/Shutterstock
When Kusama lived in Matsumoto, she found a book by Georgia O'Keeffe and was amazed by her paintings. The girl went to the American embassy in Tokyo to find an article about O'Keeffe in the directory and find out her address. Kusama wrote her a letter and sent some drawings, and to her surprise, American artist answered her.
“I couldn't believe my luck! She was so kind that she responded to the sudden outburst of feelings of a modest japanese girls, whom she had never met or even heard of in her life,” the artist wrote in her autobiography, Infinity Net.
Yayoi Kusama in a window she designed for Louis Vuitton in New York in 2012. Photo: Nils Jorgensen/REX/Shutterstock
Despite O'Keeffe's warnings that young artists in the US are having a hard time, not to mention young single girls from Japan, Kusama was unstoppable. In 1957, she managed to get a passport and a visa. She sewed dollars into her dresses to get around strict post-war foreign exchange controls.
The first stop was Seattle, where she held an exhibition in a small gallery. Then Kusama went to New York, where she was bitterly disappointed. “Unlike the post-war Matsumoto, New York was in every way an evil and violent place. For me, it was too stressful, and I soon became mired in neurosis. To make matters worse, Kusama ended up in total poverty. She used an old door as a bed, and fished fish heads and rotten vegetables out of trash cans to make soup from.
Installation Infinity Mirror Room - Love Forever ("Room with mirrors of infinity - love forever"). Photo: Tony Kyriacou/REX/Shutterstock
This difficult situation prompted Kusama to immerse himself even more in his work. She began to create her first paintings in the Infinity Web series, covering huge canvases (one of them reached 10 meters high) with mesmerizing waves of small loops that seemed to never end. The artist herself described them as follows: “White nets enveloping the black dots of silent death against the backdrop of the hopeless darkness of nothingness.”
Installation by Yayoi Kusama at the opening of the new building of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art at the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Culture in Moscow in 2015. Photo: David X Prutting/BFA.com/REX/Shutterstock
This obsessive-compulsive repetition helped to drive away the neurosis, but it did not always save. Kusama constantly suffered from bouts of psychosis and ended up in a New York hospital. Being ambitious and purposeful and happily taking on the role of an exotic Asian in a kimono, she joined the crowd influential people in art and interacted with such recognized artists as Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol. Kusama later said that Warhol imitated her work.
Kusama soon gained a certain degree of fame and exhibited in crowded galleries. In addition, the fame of the artist has become scandalous.
In the 1960s, when Kusama was obsessed with polka dots, she began to arrange happenings in New York: she provoked people to strip naked in places like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, and painted their bodies with polka dots.
Preview on Exhibition Art Basel in Hong Kong in 2013. Photo: Billy Farrell/BFA/REX/Shutterstock
Decades before the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Kusama staged a happening in New York's financial district, saying she wanted to "destroy the men of Wall Street with polka dots." Around the same time, she began to cover various objects - a chair, a boat, a carriage - with phallic-looking bulges. “I started making penises to cure my sex aversion,” the artist wrote, describing how this creative process gradually turned the terrible into something familiar.
Passing Winter installation at the Tate Gallery in London. Photo: James Gourley/REX/Shutterstock
Kusama has never been married, although while living in New York she had a marriage-like relationship with artist Joseph Cornell for ten years. “I didn’t like sex, and he was impotent, so we were very good for each other,” she said in an interview with Art Magazine.
Kusama became increasingly famous for her antics: she offered to sleep with U.S. President Richard Nixon if he ended the Vietnam War. "Let's decorate each other with polka dots," she wrote to him in a letter. Interest directly in her art faded, she fell out of favor, and money problems began again.
Yayoi Kusama during a retrospective of her work at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2012. Photo: Steve Eichner/Penske Media/REX/Shutterstock
News of Kusama's escapades reached Japan. She began to be called a "national disaster", and her mother said that it would be better if her daughter had died of an illness in childhood. In the early 1970s, impoverished and fiasco Kusama returned to Japan. She was registered in a psychiatric hospital, where she still lives, and sunk into artistic obscurity.
In 1989, the Center for Contemporary Art in New York hosted a retrospective of her work. This was the beginning of a slow, but revival of interest in the art of Kusama. She filled a mirror room with pumpkins for an installation that was presented at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and in 1998 had a major exhibition at the MoMa Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was here that she once arranged a happening.
At the My Eternal Soul exhibition in National Center art in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
In the past few years, Yayoi Kusama has become an international phenomenon. The contemporary Tate Gallery in London and the Whitney Museum in New York have held major retrospectives that have drawn huge crowds and made her iconic polka dot pattern very recognizable.
At the My Eternal Soul exhibition at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
The artist is not going to stop working, but she began to think about her mortality. “I don't know how long I can survive even after death. There is a future generation that follows in my footsteps. It will be an honor for me if people enjoy looking at my work and if they are moved by my art.”
At the My Eternal Soul exhibition at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
Despite the commercialization of her art, Kusama thinks about the grave in Matsumoto - not in the family vault, she already inherited from her parents - and how not to turn it into a shrine. “But I'm not dying yet. I think I will live another 20 years,” she says.
At the My Eternal Soul exhibition at the National Art Center in Tokyo, February 2017. Photo: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock
