At the age of 10 Yayoi Kusama had her first
hallucination which she described as flashes of light auras or dense fields of dots. The dots
would come to life and consume her and she would find herself obliterated. Polka dots have been
a lifelong obsession for her. For someone whose work has crossed from art to fashion and from
filmmaking to performance art, her continuing exploration of the polka dot has remained the one
consistent motif. So this is not a film about a specific artwork. This is a film about the simple
polka dot. A dot that has obsessed Kusama for nine decades, from her struggle for recognition
to her later years as an art world sensation. Yayoi Kusama was born in a rural provincial
town in Japan to a wealthy family. That same year the stock markets crashed and civil unrest
in Japan was followed by intense militarism. In 1941 Japan's entry into the war found
the 12-year old Kusama sewing military parachutes in textile factories. A skill she
would later utilize for her soft sculptures. Her mother was extremely abusive and had planned
an arranged marriage for Kusama and a life as an obedient housewife. In fact she did everything
in her power to stop Kusama becoming an artist... or having any career at all, which she
said would bring shame on the family. But art was Kusama's lifeline, it helped relieve
her hallucinations, depression and anxiety which she still suffers from today. Kusama has described
how at times she feels her whole body functions breaking down, with feelings of becoming "absorbed by"
or "dissolved" within her surrounding environment. Art is a way for her to take back control, a way to
fight her demons. Although she was starting to get some attention in Japan, it was a small art scene
then, and she was a woman living under a stifling patriarchal society. Kusama needed to escape.
A chance discovery in a second-hand bookshop would change her life. American artist Georgia
O'Keeffe was one of the most famous artists in the world, and her works were in every major museum
in the US, but she was pretty much unknown in Japan. Yet somehow - miraculously - a book of her paintings
found its way into the young Kusama's hands in rural Japan. It was a revelation! Kusama
was stunned by O'Keeffe's paintings and would explore similar themes later, but she
was also attracted to her achievements as a woman. Kusama wrote to her in the US and sent her some
drawings. In an incredible show of generosity O'Keefe not only took the time to write back but
then sent letters of introduction to important people in the New York art world. In July 1956
Kusama destroyed 2,000 old work she had created. America would be a new beginning for the artist
and she wouldn't return to japan until 1973. Kusama arrived in New York with
a suitcase full of drawings, a determination to grab everything going in
the city, and (in her own words) to become a star. The first thing she did was go up to the top
of the Empire State building and look down at the city she planned to conquer. We mustn't
underestimate what a difficult task it was for a young Japanese woman with no support, speaking
little to no English to up sticks and moved to New York from a small Japanese town - in the
1950s! This required monumental determination. She went from a wealthy life in Japan to living
in abject poverty in New York surviving on a diet of potatoes, onions, and black coffee. No
wonder she often describes how she craved fame. It is something artists rarely discuss but
for Kusama it would be her driving force. The field of dots she experienced in her
hallucinations developed into a visual device - the polka dot. This image of her mother, by ten-year-old
Kusama was the first time she would use the dot, and it would become her "trademark". We could
make a comparison with Roy Liechtenstein who was also using dots or Bridget Riley, who was
exploring Op-Art, but for Kusama, dots came directly from within. For her, dots were a form of healing,
and repetition of them was a way to calm her mind, and overcome her fear and anxiety. They
were (as she said) a way to "self-obliterate", a way to disappear into her artwork. In New York,
Kusama began applying the polka dot to animals, paper, canvas, walls and naked bodies. From the
beginning, Kusama played with her persona. She was a self-styled "outsider" in America, a female
artist in an aggressively male dominated scene, a Japanese person in the overwhelmingly white
art scene, and a victim of neurosis and depression. She refused to be categorized or put in a box,
continuously innovating and reinventing herself. As a critic once said: "Miss Kusama is an
artist who fits in everywhere but stands alone" New York at the time was under the spell of
Abstract Expressionism but Kusama's first show in New York consisted of what she called "Infinity
net paintings", starting the obsessive repetitive work that would define her career. Kusama rejected
the broad dramatic marks of Abstract Expressionism and painted thousands of tiny semi-circles of
paint repeated across huge canvases. Invisible when seen at a distance, but up close form an
undulating net with no beginning, middle or end. Her work was calm and collected, in contrast
to the emotional mark making of Jackson Pollock. The dots and "nets" could be
traced back to her early work, but here they were huge - a physical
embodiment of "self-obliteration". Her work was so groundbreaking, it anticipated
the emerging Minimalist movement, and we can see it as a bridge between Abstract Expressionism
and Minimalism. It was a great start for Kusama. Less than a year in the city, and her first solo
show in 1959 created an immediate buzz. Kusama, always a workaholic spent every waking hour
making net paintings, sometimes working through the night, more and more of them, until her
studio was full. Not surprisingly, she suffered extreme hallucinations, and was rushed to Bellevue
hospital for her obsessive compulsive neurosis. Installation is a term used to describe art
that is often designed for a specific place or for a temporary period of time, and Kusama
would become a leading exponent of this art form. In 1962, she began making soft sculpture phalluses
out of cotton stuffed canvas. This was radical work for a female artist, and these sculptures made over
60 years ago still have the power to shock today, because of the juxtaposition of humor and
sexuality. Her first "official" installation was in 1963. A rowboat which she covered in her soft
phallic shapes, presented in a space where the walls were covered in wallpaper reproductions
of the same sculpture. It was totally unique, and no one had seen anything like it in
New York. Phalluses would become another theme of Kusama who said that as a child she
was forced by her mother to spy on her father, when she caught him making love to his
mistress, it caused a lifelong aversion to sex One thing the art world rarely discusses is
plagiarism between artists. That is unless you are Yayoi Kusama, who in an unusual move,
specifically addressed how her work was "co-opted" by male artists, who then showed
it in more established galleries. Kusama would later say, it wasn't the idea of
being ripped off that bothered her but rather the lack of acknowledgement. Claes Oldenburg
was working with hard materials in the 1960s, but just months after Kusama's exhibition of
soft sculptural works, he put on a show filled with soft sculptures. It launched Oldenburg's
international career. Kusama's innovation in the art form received little recognition. Then there
was Andy Warhol, a close friend of Kusama - or so she thought. In an interview she said: "Andy Warhol
came to the show and admired my wallpaper images. He said "Wow. fantastic Yayoi, I like this so much"
and then in 1966 he went on to cover the walls of the Leo Castelli gallery with wallpaper. She sank
into a depression and retreated to her studio, covering all her windows so nobody could
steal her ideas - and worked in secret. Then in 1965, kusama re-emerged with her first
"Infinity room", called "Phalli's field" in which she arranged hundreds of polka dotted
soft phallic forms in a mirrored room. Artists have always worked with perspective and
infinity, but Kusama's work was one of the earliest installation artworks that encouraged viewers
to enter and experience rather than passively view a picture in a frame. The room enveloped the
viewer and no longer is the viewer in control. All artists to some extent control how we view
their work, but for Kusama, a lack of control of her health, meant she created work that controls
EXACTLY how we the viewer perceive time and space. Then just seven months after
her infinity room failed to sell, the artist Lucas Samaras showed a similar mirrored
environment at the established Pace gallery. He got rave reviews - and a sellout show. This
was Samara's first environment, and there is no mistaking its similarity to Kusama's mirrored room
that preceded it. These mirror infinity rooms are arguably her most popular works, and when we think
of mirrored rooms today we only think of Kusama. But after seeing Samara's room, Kusama became
so deeply depressed that she attempted suicide. In 1966, Kusama participated in the 33rd
venice biennale, the most prestigious arts festival in the world - the only problem was
that she hadn't been asked by the organisers, she just gate-crashed the event! Without
permission she showed "Narcissus garden", a witty take on the commercialisation of the
art world, consisting of hundreds of mirrored spheres - what she called a "kinetic carpet". Then
dressed in a gold kimono she proceeded to sell each sphere for two dollars, until the biennale
committee threw her out. There were many artists who were aggressive self-promoters but none
of them were women. Kusama had to really fight just for her voice to be heard, and some people
didn't like that. They criticised what they called "her excessive self-promotion and lust
for publicity", but as Kusama saw it, she was a "living work of art". Her work is deeply personal
and so she places herself central to that work. Kusama had been a pioneer in minimalism, sculpture
and installation art, and now she turned to performance art. Some of Kusama's earliest
surviving paintings relate to the horrors of war, and she had a strong political conscience. In
1967 she began organising anti-war protests and happenings known as "Atomic Explosions". She
painted her friends nude bodies with polka dots and demonstrated on wall street, demanding the
government bring back the troops from Vietnam. For all her zany public persona, Kusama
was completely serious about her work, and as with much of her art, what on the
surface seemed almost silly and lightweight, made a powerful statement. Kusama
was well placed to criticise war. Her youth had been marked by the effects of the
Atomic bomb, and she was viscerally opposed to war. She protested the only way she knew -through
art - the work brought her more notoriety but few financial benefits. In another revolutionary
performance of 1968, Kusama even officiated at the first "gay wedding" having formed her own church:
"The church of self-obliteration". Her performances hit the news in Japan and caused a scandal,
bringing shame on her deeply conservative family. In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan where
she was virtually unknown and dismissed. Then in 1977, after a lifetime of fighting anxiety
and hallucinations, she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo, and has lived
there ever since. Kusama has been open about her mental health and remains on medication
to prevent depression and suicidal thoughts. Every single day she commutes to her studio and
works obsessively on her paintings from 9am to 6pm. In 1989, Kusama reached 60 years old, an
important birthday in Japanese culture, that symbolises a new start.
And it certainly was for Kusama! Although she had a cult following, she was pretty
much forgotten about by the art world, until 1989, unexpectedly The Centre for International
Contemporary Arts in New York asked to stage a retrospective of her art. It would relaunch her
career - both internationally and in Japan. Then in 1993 she returned to the Venice Biennale. This
time she was invited as a representative of Japan. Kusama has finally achieved a worldwide success
that had eluded her for so long. fuelled in some part by social media. People queue up for hours
for just 60 seconds in one of her Infinity room installations. Each image they take of infinity,
join millions more on the internet - itself infinite. Today in her 90s, Kusama is as productive
as ever. Often dismissed as "quirky" or "populist", she is in fact, one of the most radical female artists
of all time, who made some of the most important artworks of the 1960s. An innovator and a rule
breaker. Many artists have famously struggled with their mental health, and like them it is
impossible to separate the art of Yayoi Kusama from her mental health, but why should we? Artists
like Kusama, make us question our understanding of mental illness, and see it not as an "obstacle",
but as just another part of the human condition. These infinite repetitive works were originally
designed to eliminate Kusama's intrusive thoughts, but now, as viewers, we can experience a small part of her thoughts and feelings in the
physical endlessness of "Kusama's world".
