When the unique becomes a multiple
An examination of the multiple variants of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity
Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show)
Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) (1965 – 1998) at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Machteld Verhulst
11956704
Research Master Arts & Culture
Master Thesis
Dr. Rachel Esner
31/12/2020
20960 words
Table of contents
Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 6 1. History 15 1.1. Biography 151.2. Themes in Kusama’s work 21
1.3. Building a brand 23
1.3.1. Mental illness 24
1.3.2. Photography 26
2. Variants 50
2.1. Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) (1965) 50 2.2. Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama and the recreation of Phalli’s Field
in 1998 54
2.3. Phalli’s Field (1965–1998) at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen 56
2.4. The afterlife of Phalli’s Field 59
2.4.1 Sold variants 59
2.4.1.1. Fondation Louis Vuitton: Phalli’s Field
(1965/2013) 59
2.4.1.2. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden:
Phalli’s Field (1965/2016) 60
2.4.2. Unsold variants 60
3. Theoretical context and how it helps understand, evaluate and classify the variants 80
3.1. Questions of authenticity and originality 80
3.1.1. The original and the copy 80
3.1.2. Authenticity 83
3.2. Questions of unique and multiple 87
3.2.1. Untangling the multiple variants of Infinity Mirror Room – 89 Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show)
3.2.2. Phalli’s Field (1965) versus Phalli’s Field (1998) 89 3.2.3. Phalli’s Field (1998) versus the variants from the 2010s 90
Conclusion 96
Bibliography 99
Acknowledgements
This master thesis was written as part of an internship at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen from August 2020 to January 2021. I would like to thank my supervisor at the museum, Dr. Sandra Kisters for the opportunity to conduct this research, for the time she took to discuss the ins and outs of it all and for her help in shaping the final product. At Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen I would also like to thank Cathy Jacob for her time and feedback. Roelie Zijlstra, Bob van Lieshout and Margreet Wafelbakker for sharing their practical insights and memories of the (installation of) the work. And Saskia van Kampen-Prein, Franscesco Stocchi, Christel van Hees and Sjarel Ex for their continued interest in this project.
I would also like to extend my gratitude to several persons outside of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen for their help. To Lynn Zelevansky for answering my endless questions about an exhibition she had curated over 22 years ago, her insight was extremely valuable for piecing together the story behind the 1998 recreation of Phalli’s Field. To Jaap Guldemond, former Senior Curator at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, for agreeing to an interview and telling me about the 2008 Kusama exhibition and the purchase of Phalli’s Field for the Boijmans collection. To Natalie Ogé at Fondation Louis Vuitton and Anouk Verbeek at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for answering my questions about the variants of Phalli’s Field in their collections. To Dr. Tatja Scholte, for sharing her just finished PhD research with me to read as well as some of her notes on sources, and for her enthusiasm about this project.
Several special mentions go to the various archivists and librarians that helped me immensely by looking through and sending me years of documentation all during a global pandemic while most of them were barely ever at their archives to begin with. To Museum Boijmans Van Beuningens’ very own Marieke Lenferink, to Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Jessica Gambling, to the Walker Art Center’s Jill Vuchetich and to the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s Claire Eggleston.
At the University of Amsterdam, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Rachel Esner for her time, support and patience with me and this research. My gratitude also goes out to my second reader, Dr. Anja Novak for her early support of this project and for being there at the end to
read it. Finally, at the University of Amsterdam I would like to thank Dr. Miriam van Rijsingen who supported me from the moment I started in her program.
And lastly, most of all, I would like to thank Tim. For his endless patience and support. For lifting me up when I was feeling down, for not allowing me to quit on myself and for always taking care of me.
Introduction
The value of an artwork is determined by many different factors. The name recognition of the artist, the importance of the work for a movement, whether it is critically acclaimed to be a good, beautiful, dynamic work and much more. Including whether or not the work is unique.
Yayoi Kusama is an artist with name recognition, whose work is an important part of the American post-war movement. Her work was critically acclaimed in the sixties in New York and following a revaluation of her work in the nineties she has become one of the most famous contemporary artists in the world. In the sixties her work was well known in the New York art world as well as in Europe and nowadays people line up to spend mere seconds in Kusama’s fully immersive Environments. These famous Infinity Mirror Rooms, many of which have been created in recent decades, have crowds all over the world swooning over their lively, colorful nature which has made them an Instagram phenomenon. That is why it is no surprise that Kusama has become one the world’s most expensive living female artists.1 Even now, in 2020 at 91 years old Kusama is still making art, including new “Infinity Mirror Rooms”.2
As is the case with much of Kusama’s recent work, the recent Infinity Rooms find their origin in the sixties. In 1965 Kusama showed her first fully immersive Environment, Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) at the Castellane Gallery in New York. The work was a new direction for the artist who had been playing with the concept of infinity throughout the late fifties and early sixties and whose most recent work was mainly soft sculpture.3 In Phalli’s Field Kusama brought these concepts together to create a space in which the visitor could fully lose herself as she was endlessly reflected between stuffed phalli covered in red polka dots.
After Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) Kusama went on to experiment more with the use of mirrors in her work to allow her viewers to experience
1 E. Martinique, “Who Are The Most Successful Female Artists in Auction?”, accessed August 20, 2020,
https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/most-successful-female-artists-in-auction & E. Kinsella, “Who Are the Most Expensive Living Female Artists?”, accessed August 20, 2020,
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/most-expensive-female-artists-817277.
2 K. Brown, “The Yayoi Kusama Craze Is Coming to Europe With a Splashy – But Nuanced – Three-Venue
Retrospective,” accessed August 12, 2020, https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/yayoi-kusama-european-retrospective-1697466.
3 M.Yoshitake, “Infinity Mirrors: Doors of Perception,” in Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, ed. M. Yoshitake (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2017), 12.
infinity.4 Shortly after, she shifted her focus to Happenings and performances. The Happenings Kusama staged brought her citywide fame as her eccentric and extravagant events were often covered by the press.5 The Happenings regularly featured naked men and women covered with polka dots, Kusama’s signature, which she painted on their bodies. Many of the Happenings were held outside in parks, on the Brooklyn Bridge and on Wall Street. During this period in the late sixties Kusama’s Happenings were focused on spreading strong anti-war, pro-love messages.6
Over time Kusama fell out of the public eye in the New York art scene.7 In the mid to late sixties she started to establish a reputation in Europe and she eventually had to retreat to her native country Japan in the mid-seventies due to health reasons.8 In Japan Kusama was more infamous than famous. People were aware of her naked Happenings in New York and frowned upon them.9 She kept working on her art and had exhibitions nationally and some internationally in the late seventies, throughout the eighties and the early nineties. In the late nineties she was rediscovered by the Western art world, more specifically the American art world.10 Kusama’s work returned to New York in 1998 for a retrospective of the works she created during the first decade she had spent in New York from 1958 to 1968. The show was mounted by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Walker Art Centre.11
As part of the exhibition Kusama recreated some of her seminal works from the sixties. Among them was Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show). The work, which was dated 1965-1998, brought back the type of work that by now has become the most famous part of her oeuvre, the Infinity Mirror Rooms. Since the tour ended in 1999 Kusama has kept creating new and different Infinity Mirror Rooms, many of which have toured the
4 In the year that followed Kusama debuted Kusama’s Peep Show (1966) in her third of three shows at the
Castellane Gallery. This work again featured mirrors (fig. 10).
5A. Dumbadze, “Infinity and Nothingness,” in Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, ed. M. Yoshitake (Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2017), 118.
6 Dumbadze, “Infinity and Nothingness”, 124.
7 P. Larratt-Smith, “Song of a Suicide Addict,” in Yayoi Kusama: Obsessão infinita, ed. P. Larratt-Smith & F.
Morris (São Paulo: Instituto Tomie Ohtake, 2013), 212.
8 J. Applin, Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room — Phalli’s Field (London: Afterall Books, 2012), 13. 9 M.Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama, 1950-1975: Biography of Things,” in Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years,
eds. J Guldemond and F. Gautherot (Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen/Dijon: Le Consortium, 2009), 110. Larratt-Smith, “Song of a Suicide Addict”, 212-213.
10L. Zelevansky, “Driving Image: Yayoi Kusama in New York,” in Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968,
eds. L. Zelevansky and L. Hoptman (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art/New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1998), 11.
11 The exhibition was shown at LACMA from March 8th to May 8th, 1998, at MoMA from July 9th to October 6th,
1998. The touring exhibition was closed out by an exhibit at Walker Art Center from December 13th, 1998 to
world in subsequent exhibitions and have been acquired by collections of famous museums. The same happened to Phalli’s Field (1965-1998). The work toured the world as part of an exhibition with stops in Rotterdam, Sydney and Wellington in 2008 and 2009. After which, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, was able to purchase the work.12
Since it was acquired in 2010 the work was on show almost permanently in the museum where it became a favorite of many of the museums’ national and international visitors and an icon of its collection. However, in 2013 another variant of Phalli’s Field showed up in the collection of the newly founded Fondation Louis Vuitton (FLV) in Paris. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen was not formally informed of this purchase by the Victoria Miro Gallery in London through which they had bought their variant of the work in 2010. Therefore, the staff was shocked to learn that a new variant of the work had been sold, as they assumed they had purchased a unique artwork. FLV purchased their new variant of the work, dated “1965/2013”, through the same gallery as Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. They, however, were informed that the work they had bought was a multiple, one of three, and not a unique work of art.13
As is to be expected with a multiple, other variants of Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) besides the ones in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Foundation Louis Vuitton have popped up since. Interestingly enough however they are all dated differently. One of the works was part of an exhibition that toured Scandinavia in 2015 and 2016 dated “1965/2015” and one as part of an exhibition that toured North America in 2016 and 2017 dated “1965/2016”. Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) (1965/2016) was acquired by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. in 2016 before the show opened.14 As a result, Kusama’s seminal work is now a part of three museum collections.15
12 Het Parool, “Boijmans Van Beuningen koopt werk van Kusama,” accessed December 2, 2020,
https://www.parool.nl/nieuws/boijmans-van-beuningen-koopt-werk-van
kusama~ba475009/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F & Trouw, “Boijmans Van Beuningen koopt werk van Kusama,” accessed December 2, 2020, https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/boijmans-van-beuningen-koopt-werk-van-kusama~b951384c/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F.
13 Sjarel Ex to Glenn Scott Wright, 7 March 2013, archive of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, object file on
Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) (1965-1998).
14 A. Verbeek, email to the author, September 14, 2020.
15 The work that was shown in 2015 and 2016 in Scandinavia has, at the time of writing, not been purchased by
The staff at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen again learned about the purchase by Hirshhorn through a third party, namely through an article in The Art Newspaper.16 As a result of the appearance of both new variants the staff at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen came to question the value of the 1998 variant of Phalli’s Field they had purchased.
A brief history of installation art
In order to better understand the broader context at play in this case I would like to start off this thesis by providing a short introduction to installation art. This theory will be relevant at a later stage in the research.
In the mid-sixties when Kusama created her now famous installation Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) the word “installation” had a different meaning to the one it has now. According to Claire Bishop, back then the word installation was not used to describe a single artwork, but instead it was used to describe the way a show was hung.17 In
Installation Art: A Critical History Bishop notes that an “installation shot”, as it was called, would be an image of the installation of the artworks in an exhibition.18 In her book From
Margin to Centre Julie Reiss explains that what we now call an installation artwork was initially known as an Environment.19 Reiss notes that the term “installation” used to describe a single artwork did not come into regular use until 1993, when it appeared as a category of production in journal October. According to Reiss it was at this moment that the term Environment ceased to be used.20
“Environments” were first created in the late fifties by artists who were looking for a way to go against the market. The works that were created were meant to be purely
experiential. They were difficult to dismantle and subsequently successfully reinstall.21 Allan Kaprow is considered by Reiss to be the forefather of the concept. In 1958 in New York Kaprow showed some of his first Environments. At the time Environments were often being shown outside of commercial galleries and museums, instead they were shown in alternative spaces. According to Kaprow an Environment was something the visitor would have to walk
16 J.H. Dobrzynski, “The Hirshhorn acquires a reconfiguration of Yayoi Kusama's first Infinity Mirror Room,”
accessed August 15, 2020, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/hirshhorn-gets-yayoi-kusama-s-first-infinity-mirror-room.
17 C. Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History, (London: Tate Publishing, 2005), 6. 18 Bishop, Installation Art, 6.
19 J.H. Reiss, From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press,
1999), xi.
20 Reiss, From Margin to Center, xii. 21 Reiss, From Margin to Center, 21.
into and a space that required a certain kind of participation from those who entered it. For Kaprow, this idea of viewer participation was born out of a desire to eliminate the audience and to only leave behind only participants. That is why artists who worked with Environments are often staged Happenings as well because Happenings usually also required the viewer to participate in some way. According to Bishop “[b]oth Environments and Happenings insisted on the viewer as an organic part of the overall work”.22 Reiss states that the focus Kaprow and other artists who worked with Environment in the sixties had on active participation can be seen as a reflection of the times.23 The sixties were a time of great political uprising around the world and with artists becoming more and more political. Passivity was seen as a vice, active participation a virtue.24
Around the same time spectator participation became more and more important as Minimalism was also on the rise. Minimalism has been defined in many different ways over the years and is often characterized on the basis of which artists are included. In Arnason’s History of Modern Art it is simply defined as “sculpture that creates an architectural space or Environment.”25 This definition does not directly state the importance of active viewer
participation, it is, however, implied because active participation is an important characteristic of Environments. Minimal art relies on the spatial dimensions of the work in relation to the dimensions of the space in which the work is shown. The position of the viewer in the space further advances their experience of the work.
In the seventies and eighties Environments kept being made and shown in alternative art spaces. In the late eighties things began to shift as alternative culture was co-opted by the mainstream who saw an opportunity to make money.26 As a result of this, amongst other things, it became more common for museums to show alternative works like Environments. Purposefully ephemeral aspects of these works that had previously made it difficult to assimilate these works into the museum were overcome as museum practice evolved and more knowledge of how to exhibit and keep these works was gained.27 Not surprisingly, this institutionalization had an effect on what was now being called “Installation art”. According to Reiss the works often lost their “cutting edge character”.28 Institutions would regularly
22 Bishop, Installation Art, 24. 23 Reiss, From Margin to Center, 15. 24 Ibidem, 15.
25 H.H. Arnason and E.C. Mansfield, History of Modern Art. Seventh Edition (Pearson Education, 2012), 520. 26 Reiss, From Margin to Center, 131.
27 Ibidem, 136. 28 Ibidem, 137.
commission artists to make new installation artworks,29 but it was also not uncommon for works that were initially created in the sixties to be remade.30 Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror
Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) is such a work. First created in the sixties and remade for a retrospective in the late nineties.
Research question
The purpose of this research is to examine what the (re)creation and subsequent sales of multiple variants of Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) by Yayoi Kusama means for the 1998 variant of the work, which is part of the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The existence of the newer variants of the work call into question the role of the 1998 variant of the work in Kusama’s oeuvre as well as the value of the work. Therefore, this thesis sets out to shed light on the relationship between the various variants of the work and answers the question: how can the 1998 variant of Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) by Yayoi Kusama be understood in relation to previously and subsequently created variants of this work?
Methodology
In order to try and understand the status of Phalli’s Field (1965-1998) whether it is a remake, a reconfiguration, a unique work of art or a multiple it is important to understand the
biography of the work. Therefore, this thesis will rely heavily on the existing scholarship about Kusama and Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show). Specifically,
Midori Yamamura’s work on Kusama’s biography and Jo Applin’s writings on Phalli’s Field. Beyond published work this research makes use of documentation on the work that was found in the archives of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center and the library of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which hold the archives of the Sydney Biennale.
29 Ibidem, xv, 135.
30M. Kwon, One Place After Another. Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (Cambridge, Massachusetts
Furthermore, the conclusions made in this research will rely upon first-hand accounts from curators, registrars and other museum professionals who have worked with Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show).
The structure of this thesis will be somewhat unorthodox as the case study is outlined first and the theoretical and argumentative aspect will come at the end. I believe that due to the amount of detail involved in this case it will serve the reader better to fully grasp the case up for discussion first, before entering into the broader debate at play here. The case, after all, is the focal point of this thesis
In order to avoid confusion about which variant of the work I am speaking of I will be using a shortened variant of the title, namely Phalli’s Field, and adding the year of creation after it in brackets such as “(1965)”, “(1965/1998)”, “(1965/2013)” and so forth; or I will speak of the “1998 variant”, “1965 variant”, and so forth. In the case of the variants that were sold and are now part of a collection, I will regularly mention those collections with the dates to further clarify which variants I am discussing. I hope this will allow the reader to better follow the arguments made in this thesis.
Furthermore, it is important to set up some of the terminology that will be used in this thesis going forward. The reader may have noticed that the word that has been used in this thesis to describe the various Phalli’s Fields is “variant”. The choice to use “variant” was made because “version” does not fully or correctly encompass the relationship between the various works. “Version”, to me, implies an alteration or translation of sorts, like a book that has been made into a movie or a Dutch book that has been translated in English. Although the source material is the same, a certain mediation of that material did occur. If I were to apply “version” to the case of Phalli’s Field, it would create too much of a distance between the works. Whereas the word “variant” more strongly implies that the two or multiple objects are nearly identical. An example that is used to define the word “variant” is that of two different spellings of the same word, for example “neighbor” and “neighbour” or “gray” and “grey”. The words carry the same meaning, they simply look slightly different. Thus, I think “variant” works best when describing the relationship between the various Phalli’s Fields and will therefore be used throughout this thesis.
Outline of the research project
Following this introduction, the thesis will continue in Chapter One with a biography of Kusama. This biography offers a short introduction to Kusama’s early life and career, as well as her time in New York and will end with a brief examination of her life and career after leaving New York in the seventies. The focus of the biography will be on Kusama’s time in New York, especially the several years around the creation of Phalli’s Field (1965).
Furthermore, there will be a more in depth look into the themes that can be found throughout Kusama’s large oeuvre, but especially those present in her works of the late fifties and early sixties. Finally, the first chapter will look at Kusama the brand and the tools she used, and still uses, to perpetuate it.
Chapter Two will zoom in on Phalli’s Field. All of the different variants of the work will be discussed, starting with the original work created in 1965. Followed by the 1998 variant of the work created for the travelling exhibition Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968. The focus will be on the themes visible in the works, the creation of the works, their design and the context in which they were presented. Additionally, there will be discussion of Phalli’s Field (1965-1998) in the context of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. This
discussion will cover the works presentation in the 2008 exhibition as well as the acquisition presentation in 2010 and later presentations. Lastly, there will be an overview of the variants of the work that have been created since 2010, their sales, and the exhibitions they were a part of. This last part of the chapter will also look at the difference between each of the variants of the works.
Chapter Three will zoom out and look at the broader questions that can be asked about this case. Specifically: around authenticity and originality, and the notion of unique versus multiple. This final chapter will subsequently return to the case of Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show), comparing the several variants of the work and further analyzing the differences between the variants of the work in the context of originality, authenticity and the multiple.
In the conclusion the main outcomes of the research will be discussed alongside the answer to the research question and recommendations for further research.
As a final note to the reader at this time, I would like to articulate that this case, with all the ins, outs, various variants, presentations and sales, has been quite complex to navigate. Like the title and research question of this thesis suggest it is my aim to find some semblance of
clarity in this situation. Therefore, I ask the reader to bear with me as I balance the tightrope that is the argument that is put forth in this thesis. In the hope of untangling the confusing, tightly knotted web that lies before you.
1. History
1.1. Biography
Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto Japan in 1929. She grew up with her 3 older siblings on a plant nursery ran by her mother’s side of the family.31 Her father married into the family and took on his wife’s last name so the Kusama name could be carried on.32 Kusama
describes her mother as cruel and occasionally violent.33 With her mother in charge at home and in the business, her father lashed out through frequent infidelity.34
From a young age Yayoi loved drawing and painting. Against her family’s wishes she aspired to be an artist.35 Her mother in particular disdained the idea of her daughter becoming an artist and she would regularly destroy Kusama’s works.36 After many years of arguments, her mother finally allowed Kusama to move to Kyoto to attend art school. After only one year of art school Kusama decided to quit, because she was dissatisfied with what she was
learning.37 She had hoped to learn more new techniques including oil painting, but the art schools in Japan were quite conservative at the time and focused on more traditional Japanese watercolor techniques.38 After leaving art school Kusama showed work at a few exhibitions, including in her hometown Matsumoto.39 Around 1955 Kusama started to set her sights on America, specifically New York. In preparation for the move she contacted American artist Georgia O’Keeffe to ask her for advice. She was surprised to find that O’Keeffe wrote her back, telling her it would be difficult for her to break through in the art world and advising her to show her work to as many people as she could.40
31 F. Morris, “Yayoi Kusama: My Life, a Dot,” in Yayoi Kusama: Obsessão infinita, eds. P. Larratt-Smith & F.
Morris (São Paulo: Instituto Tomie Ohtake, 2013), 198.
32I. Nakajima, “Yayoi Kusama between Abstraction and Pathology,” in Psychoanalysis and the image:
Transdisciplinary perspectives, ed. G. Pollock (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006), 154.
33 Y. Kusama & R.F. McCarthy, Infinity Net: The autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, (London: Tate Publishing,
2020), 112-113.
34 Nakajima, “Yayoi Kusama”, 155. 35 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 69. 36 Larratt-Smith, “Song of a Suicide Addict”, 213. 37 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 69-70.
38 M. Yamamura, “Kusama Yayoi’s Early Years in New York: A Critical Biography,” in Making a Home:
Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York ed. R. Tomii (New York: The Japan Society, 2007), 26.
39 G. Borggreen, “The Myth of the Mad Artist: Works and Writings by Kusama Yayoi,” Copenhagen Journal of
Asian Studies, no. 15 (2001): 18–19.
Three years later, in 1958, Kusama got to New York after a stopover in Seattle. In New York she broke free from watercolor and officially moved on to using oil paints.41 During her first years in New York, Kusama painted her now famous Infinity Net paintings, such as No. F. (1959) (fig. 1), which is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.42 The Infinity Net paintings were, often large, canvases with a single-color
background over which Kusama painted seemingly endless half circles, creating a net without beginning, end or center. It was with these paintings Kusama started to get noticed in the New York art world. Critics spoke about these works as a counter movement to the Action Painting that was dominating the scene at the time.43 In 1961 it seemed like Kusama’s career was taking off as she had several solo shows in various galleries along the East Coast and her work was included in various exhibitions in Europe.44 Interestingly enough after this peak in success it would take another two-and-half years before Kusama had a solo show in New York again.45
She did, however, participate in several group shows. Including one at the Green Gallery in the summer of 1962.46 This particular show also featured works by Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg, amongst others. Kusama offered to show several collages for the exhibition as well as two of her Accumulation sculptures, an armchair and a couch (fig. 2 & 3).47 The exhibition of these works marked a new direction in Kusama’s oeuvre. As she had only recently moved from painting, through collage into sculpture.48 The Accumulation sculptures were everyday household objects that Kusama covered with white fabric, stuffed phallus-like forms (fig. 4).49 When looking at these sculptures the viewer recognizes their shapes as something familiar, while at the same time the object looks foreign and strange, overgrown with peculiar shapes. The use of fabrics to create these shapes led to them being dubbed “soft sculptures”.50 The Accumulation sculptures Kusama offered to exhibit ended up in the show. However, she had also offered to exhibit some collages. These were not chosen
41 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 80. Kusama had previously used oil paints in her time between art school
and moving to America. She rarely used them however, because they were too expensive.
42 MoMA,“Yayoi Kusama No. F (1959),” accessed November 15, 2020,
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80176.
43 Borggreen, “The Myth of the Mad Artist”, 28. 44 Morris, “My Life, a Dot”, 201.
45 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 82. 46 Yamamura, “Kusama Yayoi’s Early Years”, 35. 47 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 83. 48 Morris, “My Life, a Dot”, 201.
49 Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 9. 50 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 85.
as they were deemed to be too similar to the ones Warhol had offered to show.51 Kusama had shown some of her collages in group shows prior to the Green Gallery show.52 The collages, like one of Air Mail stickers (fig. 5), were often repetitions of the same image covering the canvas. According to fellow artist Donald Judd, whom she was close with at the time, Kusama believed that Warhol had seen her works and had started copying them, eventually leading her to believe Warhol had stolen his ideas from her.53 After the show was over the owner of the Green Gallery, Richard Bellamy, offered Kusama a solo show at the end of the year. She had to decline the offer because she did not have enough money to make new work.54 At that time Kusama was very poor, often struggling to buy paints and other supplies.55 Because Kusama declined, Bellamy invited Claes Oldenburg to take the slot instead.56 Months later, when the show opened, Kusama attended the opening night. She was shocked to find that Oldenburg was showing soft sculptures, just like her Accumulation sculptures. Oldenburg had not ventured into using textiles for his sculptures before, and Kusama became convinced that he, after having seen her work months prior, had also stolen her ideas.57
Based on statements made by Judd and other artists that knew her at the time it is believed that Kusama became increasingly paranoid that others would steal her ideas as well. This supposedly led her to cover the windows in her studio facing Park Avenue and 19th Street.58 It was during this time that Kusama was working hard on little money. Although she was getting critical acclaim for her work, she was not selling much, which made her feel as though she was not getting any real recognition for her work.59 All the while white, male, American artists like Warhol, Oldenburg, Judd and Frank Stella were showing and selling their work all over New York.60 According to Yamamura, this sent Kusama into a downward spiral, which eventually led her to be admitted to a local hospital after suffering a nervous breakdown. After she came out of the hospital, she started seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication.61
51 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”,, 83.
52 S. Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Personas: The Case of Yayoi Kusama.” Persona Studies no. 1.1
(2015): 32.
53 Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 32. Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 85. 54 Yamamura, “Kusama Yayoi’s Early Years”, 33.
55 Ibidem, 33. 56 Ibidem, 33.
57 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 92.
58 Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 32. 59 Ibidem, 32.
60 Ibidem, 31-32.
In the early to mid-sixties Kusama kept creating Accumulation sculptures. In 1963, Kusama showed one of her now most famous works from the Accumulation series called One Thousand Boats Show (1963) (fig. 6). The work was created for an exhibition at the Gertrude Stein Gallery in New York and consists of a room filling Environment of a row boat covered in white phalli, placed in a space that is covered from floor to ceiling by 999 photographs of the same image of the row boat.62 This work even further connected themes in Kusama’s earlier works like the soft sculptures and the endless repetition that could be found in her earlier Infinity Net paintings.
After the success of the show, Kusama made a deal to do three solo shows at the Castellane Gallery: one in 1964, one in 1965, and one in 1966.63 The Castellane Gallery was located on 764 Madison Avenue and owned by Richard Castellane, an art historian and collector who saw potential in Kusama. Castellane Gallery was little known at the time and little is still known about Castellane’s practice as a gallerist.64 It seems that organizing the mid-sixties series of shows with Kusama is the galleries’ main claim to fame.
Even though Kusama had started working on it in 1963, Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) was first shown in November 1965, in the second of the three solo shows Kusama had at the Castellane Gallery.65 According to a review of the show,
Phalli’s Field (1965) was shown together with a few of Kusama’s other works similar to the soft, accumulation sculptures that she had shown in the years prior, including Baby Carriage (c. 1964 – 1966) (fig. 7) and several stuffed shoes (fig. 8). Furthermore, the show included My Flower Bed (1962) (fig. 9) and Kitchen Utensils (1963).66 The Infinity Mirror Room was a new direction for Kusama, as it was her first fully immersive Environment. It did, however, bring together themes and techniques from her earlier work. The concept of the infinite was previously visible in the Infinity Net paintings and the use of fabric to create sculpture was visible in her Accumulation works that Kusama was still producing at the time when Phalli’s Field was created.
62 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 95-96.
63 Y. Kusama, “Overview of 1960s exhibitions,” accessed August 10, 2020,
http://yayoi-kusama.jp/e/exhibitions/60.html & S.M.E. Jacobsen, “Biography,” in Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity, eds. L. R. Jørgensen, M. Laurberg and M.J. Holm, (Humlebæk: Lousiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015), 117–118.
64 Yamamura, “Re-Viewing Kusama”, 107. 65 Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 1.
66 K.C. Kuramitsu, “Selected Exhibition History,” in Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968, eds. L.
Zelevansky and L. Hoptman (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art/New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1998), 178.
In 1966 Kusama had the last of her three shows at the Castellane Gallery, in which she showed another mirrored room. This time the space was closed off and the visitor was not allowed to enter. Like Phalli’s Field (1965), this mirror room was octagonal, however this time all of the sides were of equal length. The work was titled Endless Love or Kusama’s Peep Show (1966) (fig. 10). The space was much smaller this time, and the floor was made of mirrors as well. On the ceiling were a series of lightbulbs in different colors that blinked rapidly, changing colors in a set pattern. The viewer could look into the space through small square openings. Looking in, the viewer would see only her own face reflected back,
oscillating in and out of focus as the lights around her blinked. The blinking lights captured the viewers, almost hypnotizing them.
After Kusama’s Peep Show (1966) Kusama did not execute another full mirror room until the nineties. Several smaller “peep-in” boxes on plinths were created around the same time (fig. 11 & 12), but no full rooms were created.67 Another “room” was planned but it was never executed. According to surviving documentation, the work titled, Love Forever was going to be a part of an exhibition called “Zero op Zee” on the pier at Scheveningen in the Netherlands.68 It was meant to be a bigger variant of Kusama’s Peep Show (1966) featuring blinking multicolored lights on the ceiling.69
Shortly after Kusama’s Peep Show Kusama moved on from the concept of the full mirror room and started mounting Happenings.70
Kusama’s move towards Happenings was in line with trends of the art world at the time. In the late sixties protests against the Vietnam War ramped up around the world and many artists participated in these protests, staging Happenings to raise awareness for the war and other social issues. Early on the Happenings Kusama staged were mostly anti-war.71 She would organize them to take place in landmark locations around New York City such as the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park.72 They would always involve a small group of men and/or women who would walk around completely naked covered in Kusama’s signature polka dots,
67 Yoshitake, “Infinity Mirrors”, 27. The peep in boxes were recreated before any of the other infinity rooms in
the early eighties. The nineties brought the recreation of some full rooms.
68 Yoshitake, “Infinity Mirrors”, 25.
69 Yoshitake, M. (ed.), Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2017), 55. 70 She did create several smaller peep-in boxes that were mirrored on the inside, Yoshitake, “Infinity Mirrors”,
12. For images of these works see Yoshitake, Yayoi Kusama, 58-68.
71 Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 68.
which she painted on their bodies. Kusama herself, though, was rarely unclothed.73 Alongside the public Happenings, Kusama would organize events in her studio. These events often involved the same components as the Happenings held outside: nudity, people covered in multicolored polka dots, and Kusama in the middle of it all, directing.74 Around these Happenings she adopted a new persona, that of the “polka dot priestess”. One of the events that took place in her studio was a homosexual wedding ceremony at which she officiated (fig. 13).75
In the mid-sixties Kusama received her Green Card and was thus free to travel outside the United States.76 She went to Europe on several occasions, amongst others to the
Netherlands and Italy. In late 1965 she participated in an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam about the ZERO movement. Kusama’s One Thousand Boat Show (1963) was presented among many works of mainly Dutch, ZERO artists.77 While she was in the Netherlands to attend the opening of the show, she staged several Happenings around the country.78 One of them was in the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam, where Dutch ZERO artist Jan Schoonhoven was having an exhibition. Like Kusama’s later Happenings in New York, the participants of the Happening were nude and covered in painted polka dots.79 The Happening became a national scandal and the director of the museum came under fire for allowing the event to take place.80 During the same visit as the Happening in Schiedam, Kusama held another event in Delft at student society Wolbodo. Here Kusama held another naked Happening; one of the supposed participants was the previously mentioned artist Jan Schoonhoven, a Delft native.81 In 1966, Kusama showed her work Narcissus Garden (1966) at the Giardini, as part of the Venice Biennale, in front of what was then the book pavilion, across from the Dutch Pavilion.82 Although she was not a participant for Japan, she did get an
73Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 44 & M. Tezuka, “Chronology,” in Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968,
eds. L. Zelevansky and L. Hoptman (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art/New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1998), 201.
74 Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 44. 75 Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 44. 76 Tezuka, “Chronology”, 198.
77 M.R. Sullivan, “Reflective Acts and Mirrored Images: Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden,” in History of
Photography, no. 39.4 (2015): 407. Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 19.
78 Morris, “My Life, a Dot”, 203-204.
79 V. de Cubber, “Onderzoek naar de psychische complexiteit van de persoon, het creatieproces en het oeuvre
van Yayoi Kusama” (MA thesis, Ghent University, 2010), 51.
80 De Cubber “Onderzoek naar de psychishe complexiteit”, 51. 81 Ibidem, 51.
82 The old Book Pavilion by Carlo Scarpa no longer exists. Based on photographs of Narcissus Garden one can
see that the pavilion was placed between the Dutch and Finnish pavilions as they are visible in the background of some of these images.
official spot. In images of the work Kusama can be seen wearing a shiny kimono and standing between thousands of reflective spheres (fig. 14 & 15).83
Back in New York Kusama started diversifying. She made a film – Kusama’s Self-Obliteration (1967) – which featured at several film festivals and she started a clothing line and boutique.84 All the while she was still producing new work and regularly cross pollinating her various outputs, like using clothes from her clothing line in her Happenings (fig. 16).
Throughout the late sixties and the early seventies Kusama’s health kept declining. Eventually she returned to Japan where she initially tried to continue on with the
Happenings.85 Her efforts turned out to be unsuccessful, as Japan was a much more
conservative place than New York had been. Kusama’s work was rejected and so she changed course.86 She returned to painting and collage and started writing books and poems.87 In the seventies and eighties, she showed her work in several exhibitions around Japan, many of them group shows.88 All the while she was voluntarily living in a psychiatric hospital, where she received round the clock care but which she left almost daily to work in her studio across the street. Kusama has been living in the facility ever since and still works on her art from a studio nearby.89
1.2. Themes in Kusama’s works
Almost all of Kusama’s works fit within several overarching themes, which can be found throughout her oeuvre. After leaving behind the traditional watercolor technique she grew up learning, these themes began to emerge more clearly. The Infinity Net paintings Kusama started creating after her arrival in New York are a prime example of one of such themes, namely what seems like an endless repetition, bordering on obsessive. The pattern Kusama hand painted on often large canvases looks like there is no beginning, middle or end. Standing up close to the works it seems like they go on infinitely. This repetition of the same form was continued in Kusama’s Accumulation sculptures, where paint on canvas is replaced by stuffed
83 Sullivan, “Reflective Acts”, 405. 84 Tezuka, “Chronology”, 201.
85 Larratt-Smith, “Song of a Suicide Addict”, 212-213. 86 Morris, “My Life, a Dot”, 204.
87 M. Yoshimoto, “Performing the Self: Yayoi Kusama and Her Ever-Expanding Universe,” in Into
Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York, ed. M. Yoshimoto (Rutgers University Press, 2005), 77.
88Y. Kusama, “Overview of 1970s exhibitions,” accessed August 10, 2020.
http://yayoi-kusama.jp/e/exhibitions/70.html & Y. Kusama, “Overview of 1980s exhibitions,” accessed August 10, 2020, http://yayoi-kusama.jp/e/exhibitions/80.html.
fabric protrusions. Endlessly repeated and fully covering every inch of the objects they were attached to, just as the Infinity Nets had covered the canvases created in the years prior.
With the phalli on the Accumulation sculptures another theme came in, namely sexuality. Kusama has stated on several occasions that the reasoning behind her use of the phallic forms was a fear of sex. Interestingly enough Kusama’s use of the phalli in her work coincided with her showing off her body more and more. Posing in photographs with and on top of many of the Accumulation sculptures wearing either leotards, fishnets and heavy make-up or fully naked. This use of sexuality was later extended in the many Happenings Kusama organized in which participants were often naked and could sometimes be found kissing (fig. 17).
Although the Accumulation sculptures mostly included furniture, other household items and clothing, they were also part of works that moved Kusama further along into another art form in her work: the Environment. One Thousand Boat Show (1963) (fig. 6) can be seen as an example of such a work. Along with the phalli attached to the rowboat, 999 images of the exact boat could be seen surrounding it, from floor to ceiling. It was a work people could step into and be surrounded by the hundreds of images of the boat.
The phalli were, of course, also used in Kusama Phalli’s Field (1965). Just like One Thousand Boat Show this work was an Environment in which the stuffed protrusions played a pivotal role. This time, however, Kusama furthered her use of repetition even more with the addition of mirrors. Through the use of mirrors, the phalli looked to the viewer as if they were being repeated infinitely. Although Kusama had used repetition of the same shapes previously to simulate a sense of endlessness, the mirrors used in Phalli’s Field (1965) allowed the viewer to be fully enveloped in this, thus heightening the experience.
The viewer would not only see the protrusions endlessly reflected in the mirrors; she would also see herself. Not once, but many times, with the overlapping of the reflections making her look fractured. An experience which, according to Bishop can be described as either “oceanic bliss or claustrophobic terror”.90 Bishop also states that Kusama’s work does not “corroborate the present space-time of the viewer”, but rather offers “a mimetic
experience of fragmentation.”91
The fragmentation Bishop talks about can also be found in Kusama’s often talked about idea of “self-obliteration”. Kusama wants her viewers to as she says “[b]ecome one with eternity. Obliterate your personality. Become part of your Environment. Forget yourself.
90 Bishop, Installation Art, 92. 91 Ibidem, 90.
Self-destruction is the only way out”.92 By seeing oneself endlessly reflected one might lose sight of oneself. Feeling as though one can no longer make out where they are, thus seemingly disappearing in the endlessness of one’s own reflection. Something that would supposedly, lead one to be erased or as Kusama says, obliterated. This obliteration should, according to Kusama, be seen as a positive. As she says, “we become part of the eternal and we obliterate ourselves in Love”.93 Giving up the self and getting rid of supposed uniqueness will lead to togetherness and becoming one with the universe.94
The main way in which Kusama has tried to facilitate self-obliteration is the use of polka dots. According to Kusama covering her works, herself and other people in polka dots will aid in the process of self-obliteration.95 According to Applin, during the sixties Kusama “often hailed the polka dot as a symbol of femininity, reproduction and nature”.96
Kusama’s use of polka dots has become so widespread that, to this day, it is the thing that is most recognizably her. Beyond any of the themes that were discussed above the use of the polka dot is most prevalent throughout Kusama’s oeuvre.
The themes and imagery explained in this section can be found in everything Kusama creates. It makes Kusama’s works immediately recognizable and undoubtedly hers. This strong sense of recognition is partially the result of great consistency through the years, but even more than that it is the result of Kusama’s self-marketing practices and the creation of Kusama as a brand.
1.3. Building a brand
It has long been understood that Kusama always wanted to become a famous artist. She has spoken about this on various occasions over the years.97 Throughout her entire career she has been in pursuit of this goal and has been actively working at it through self-marketing.98 This was especially true during the late fifties and throughout the sixties when Kusama was in New York. She was in the place she wanted to be, right in the middle of the New York art world, and she believed she had it in her to be a successful and famous artist. However, as discussed above, she was not succeeding in the way that she wanted to be. The art world was ruled by
92 L. Hoptman, Yayoi Kusama (London: Phaidon, 2000), 112. 93 Hoptman, Yayoi Kusama, 112.
94 Yoshimoto, “Performing the Self “, 71. 95 Yoshitake, “Infinity Mirrors”, 26. 96 Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 7. 97 Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 13. 98 Sullivan, “Reflective Acts”, 412.
white men, and the white male artists were the only ones who got the spotlight. Kusama was an outsider - a result of her foreignness, Japanese nationality, and the fact that she was a woman. As Kusama tried hard to innovate, work on new ideas and create in many different mediums, the real recognition for her work lagged behind. Reading about Kusama during this time in many biographies and articles one can feel her sense of desperation. Trying to grasp at something that stays forever out of reach.
In reading about this time in Kusama’s career one can also see how she has pivoted her strategy several times over during the sixties. She changed her look to play into a certain aspect of her personality, for instance, playing up her “exotic” look by wearing a kimono to gallery openings.99 On other occasions wearing leotards, fishnet tights or nothing at all.100 Kusama was actively self-marketing and creating a persona for herself. One that she could link to her work to create a strong brand. To create a strong brand you need; a goal, a good product, strong and recognizable visuals, a good story, the ability to communicate that story and to stay consistent. Kusama has checked all of these boxes over the many decades that she has been actively working to grow her brand. Here, I would like to take the time to discuss two of the most important tools Kusama has used from the early sixties and onwards to create and grow the brand namely, talking about her mental illness and her use of photography.
1.3.1. Mental illness
As was previously mentioned Kusama had what has been described as a mental breakdown in the early sixties. She started taking medication and seeing a psychiatrist.101 After starting her treatment it was not long before Kusama first started speaking out about her mental health issues. In 1963 she went on a local radio show where she talked in depth about her mental state and about the hallucinations she first started having as a young child.102 It is not particularly strange for Kusama to first start speaking out about her struggles with mental health after going into therapy. It is reasonable to assume that she started learning more about herself through the process and felt the need to share this with others. What is interesting about it, however, is that Kusama also started talking about her mental illness in relation to
99 G.A. Foster, “Self-Stylization and Performativity in the Work of Yoko Ono, Yayoi Kusama and Mariko
Mori,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, no. 27.4 (2010): 272.
100 Foster, “Self-Stylization”, 272. 101 Yoshitake, “Infinity Mirrors”, 94.
her art. Although it would be both insensitive and incorrect to state that Kusama is lying about her mental illness to gain notoriety or to stand out, she did make an active choice to link it to her art practice and has done so regularly in the many years since.103 Often stating that it is the reason for her creativity.104 Thereby, linking her mental illness to her art and tying together herself and her work.
Over the years, one can clearly see that this narrative of the “mad artist” has become a very pervasive one. Terms like “obsessive”, “mentally ill”, “institutionalized” and even “mad” or “crazy” are not hard to find when looking up information about Kusama.105 Her struggles with mental illness are still seemingly at the forefront of her artist persona. There seems to be something about the idea that Kusama might be “crazy” that intrigues people and draws them in. This is even strengthened by the fact that Kusama lives in a care facility fulltime. A fact that is rarely left out in any text written about her.
Authors like Gunhild Borggreen have written about the myth of madness that exists around Kusama and how simply attributing all of her work to the fact that she struggles with mental illness does her a disservice.106 Although I agree with this Borggreen’s reading of Kusama’s work as such I would like to go further by stating that not only is attributing her creativity to just her mental illness a mistake, it is also a mistake to assume that it was not an active choice for Kusama to create the narrative around that. What she chooses to put out there about her mental illness is an active choice. I believe, like Borggreen, that it is thus important to get away from the idea that Kusama is simply subject to her mental illness and that it has rendered her powerless. Instead it can be argued that Kusama has made an active choice to employ her mental illness to create a narrative around herself.
As was stated previously for a brand to be successful it needs a good story and to stay consistent. The narrative around Kusama’s mental illness is that narrative and it has stayed consistent. Although there is much more that can and needs to be written about Kusama and her relationship to her struggles with mental illness in relation to her artistic output, creative process and the way in which it is, in my view, being used as a brand strategy, the rest of this chapter will focus more on Kusama’s use of photography. As this was specifically at the forefront of Kusama’s practice in the sixties and is thus especially relevant for the time.
103 Applin, Infinity Mirror Room, 20. 104 Nakajima, “Yayoi Kusama”, 131.
105 Borggreen, “The Myth of the Mad Artist”, 11. 106 Borggreen, “The Myth of the Mad Artist”, 15.
1.3.2. Photography
Around the same time that Kusama started speaking out about her struggles with mental illness, she was trying to stand out more in the art world in general in order to solidify her place in history. One way in which she was trying to do this was by using fashion and her own image. Interestingly, when Kusama first arrived in New York Kusama would wear skirts and pantsuits (fig. 18 & 19). In the early sixties she decided to change this as she started using her femininity as well as her “exotic” look to draw attention to herself and, by extension, to her work. Whenever there was an opening or an event Kusama would come dressed in a traditional kimono.107 In doing so she underlined her femininity as well as the fact that she was Japanese.108 The Japanese woman was being portrayed regularly in American cinema at the time. The focus was always on either her submissive role in the family or on sexualizing her for her exotic looks.109 Kusama showed the art world both. While she would often appear in traditional dress for events, she would simultaneously pose in tight leotards or naked in her studio and be photographed with, and on top of, her various creations. For instance, sprawled on top of the couch from the Accumulation series while looking straight into the camera, as if to entice, challenge or seduce the viewer (fig. 20)
This started a trend in Kusama’s life and work whereby she made sure to be
photographed with as many of her works as she could: either naked, dressed in leotards or a kimono.110 She did her own marketing at the time and she did it well.111 There are even works from that time that are no longer extant of which no photographs remain that do not feature Kusama herself. Phalli’s Field (1965) is one of these works. She intrinsically linked her own image to every image of each of the artworks she created.112
Kusama would hire certain professional photographers to take pictures of her with her works. The main ones she worked with in the early sixties were Hal Reiff, Peter Moore, Rudolph Burckhardt and fellow Japanese artist Eikoh Hosoe. Burkhardt was known for photographing works by Abstract Expressionists and worked for art magazines.113 Hosoe mainly photographed Kusama in her studio but is also responsible for the famous images taken of her inside Phalli’s Field (1965) and the photographs that serve as documentation for
107 Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 33. 108 Foster, “Self-Stylization”, 272.
109 Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 35. 110 Sullivan, “Reflective Acts”, 417.
111 Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 35–36. Hoptman, Yayoi Kusama, 50-51. 112 Sullivan, “Reflective Acts”, 419.
performances such as 14th Street Happening (1966) (fig. 21).114 The pictures that Hosoe took of Kusama in her studio are most clearly provocative. Kusama wears heavy eye make-up, a leotard, fishnet tights and high heels and poses very clearly playing to the camera. In one of the images Kusama is laying on her back on one of the crates with phalli which were part of Phalli’s Field (1965). She looks up at the camera and her legs are spread (fig. 22). In another image she can be seen standing in high heels and a leotard on a windowsill with one foot resting on the couch from the Accumulation series (fig. 23). Hosoe also took some portraits of Kusama that are particularly striking as Kusama looks straight into the camera (fig. 24 & 25).115
Photographs taken outside of the studio with works in exhibitions were also common. Beyond the images of Kusama in Phalli’s Field (1965) examples of this are, Kusama posing naked in One Thousand Boats Show (1963) (fig. 26) and Kusama posing in a golden kimono in Narcissus Garden (1966) (fig. 14). As was previously mentioned Narcissus Garden was first shown at the 33nd Venice Biennale in 1966. The work consisted of a field of thousands of reflective orbs lying on the grass in front of the book pavilion in the Giardini. In her article about the work Marin R. Sullivan talks about the interesting history behind the creation of the work, its place in the Biennale and most importantly for this research about the way in which photographs of the work dictate the way we think about it today. Sullivan notes that, just as is the case with Phalli’s Field (1965)
[Kusama] appears in almost every existing photograph of the work, a fact that suggests a carefully orchestrated performative impulse across her artistic practice during the mid-1960s – an impulse that while not exclusively photographic, could only be codified through photography.116
As a result of Kusama appearing in almost every photograph taken of the work she is bound to the work. According to Sullivan in the case of Narcissus Garden (1966) Kusama’s presence was what she calls an “essential, complex material element of the work”.117 The photographs function as “a means to promote herself while simultaneously fusing her
114 Sullivan, “Reflective Acts”, 412. Burkhardt is mentioned by name and given credit for the One Thousand
Boats Show image mentioned on the next page in Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 33.
115 One can only speculate why Kusama chose to work with Hosoe specifically and frequently, but it seems that
beyond their connection of being Japanese artists in New York their visions lined up. When looking at Hosoes’ oeuvre it becomes clear that sensuality and nudity are prevalent topics in his work. Considering that this was exactly what Kusama wanted to convey, it makes sense that the two would work together.
116 Sullivan, “Reflective Acts”, 406. 117 Sullivan, “Reflective Acts”, 407.
corporeal self with her work in perpetuity”.118 Sullivan notes that during the sixties photography became more and more important for Kusama’s practice. As was stated previously, she mostly hired professional photographers to take the photographs, but according to one of the photographers, Burckhardt, she would always tell him how to compose the images.119 Because of this Kusama was what Sullivan calls “the driving force” behind every image taken of her and her work.120 After the photos were taken Kusama would send them out to galleries, museum directors and curators.121 Beyond taking the photos and sending them out, Kusama also collected press clippings from all kinds of publications that the photos featured in.122 It is clear that she did not reject photography or publicity, but chose to integrate them into her practice and used them to try and further her career.
Other scholars, like Soo-Jin Lee, have also written about photography as a means for Kusama’s self-marketing in the sixties. Speaking of the image of Kusama posing naked with One Thousand Boats Show (1963) (fig. 26) Lee states that
[by] staging herself inside her installation art, and performing erotically for the camera, Kusama thus consciously turned herself into an art object to be looked at while also maintaining her role as the “author” and artist of the image.123
Like Sullivan, Lee also talks about the way in which Kusama would compose the photographs taken of her. As well as calling her use of photographers like Burkhardt, who worked for well-known magazines, an aggressive embrace of “the commercial system of publicity photography under her own artistic practice”.124 Lee notes that the nude photograph of Kusama with One Thousand Boat Show (1963) was the catalyst for Kusama’s practice of having herself photographed with her work. According to Lee, it is from that moment on that Kusama “used her body as a medium of art and publicity”.125
What becomes clear from the articles by Sullivan and Lee, in combination with the vast amount of images of Kusama with, in and on top of her works taken by magazine photographers and fellow artists is that Kusama was not in any way apprehensive about publicity. Something that was quite out of the ordinary for artists at the time.126 She was not
118 Ibidem, 407.
119 Zelevansky, “Driving Image”, 20. 120 Sullivan, “Reflective Acts”, 412. 121 Ibidem, 412.
122 Ibidem, 412.
123 Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 33. 124 Ibidem, 33.
125 Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 33. Emphasis by Lee. 126 Lee, “The Art and Politics of Artists’ Persona”, 35.
only, as Sullivan and Lee both mention, actively using her body as part of her work, but also actively using it to sell herself and her work. It is also unmistakable that Kusama was
successful in intrinsically linking her own image to her work.
Interestingly, according to Lee, Kusama’s self-promotion was what caused her eventual downfall in the New York art world. In the late sixties when she started mounting Happenings, she was criticized for being too much of an attention seeker, for her nudity and for her use of self-promotion.127 It seems like the work she put in at the time did not pay much dividends back then. In the long run however, it seems like the work Kusama put in in the sixties pays off now.
Even now Kusama is still seemingly using photography to put across a certain narrative. As Kusama gets older and has become more famous it is not unreasonable to assume that people might start believing that she is no longer the one physically creating the artworks that are put out by her studio. It is interesting to see that this is being countered by the studio and Kusama’s galleries – Ota Fine Art, Victoria Miro and David Zwirner – by putting out photos of the artist at work in her studio (fig. 27). Thereby still connecting
Kusama to her works but shifting the narrative slightly to fit with the times and to fit with the goal that has to be reached, namely, to convince people that Kusama is still the one creating the work.
Kusama’s self-marketing tactics started in the early sixties after she came to New York in search of success. Kusama had high highs and the lowest of lows throughout her time in America. She worked incredibly hard to attain her goal of becoming famous. She
innovated, experimented and showed her work everywhere. Yet she never became as large a success as she aspired to be. Kusama, however, was smart and she knew what she was doing. Using her foreignness, her femininity, her mental illness and photography in order to create a persona and a brand that would draw people in. In hopes that it would bring her the fame and success she strived for. Although she may not have succeeded at the time, now one can clearly see what can only be described as the foundation being laid for a powerful, global Kusama brand.
Figure 1. Yayoi Kusama No. F. (1959).
Figure 3. Yayoi Kusama Accumulation No. 1 (1962).
Figure 5. Yayoi Kusama Airmail Accumulation (1961).
Figure 7. Yayoi Kusama Baby Carriage (1964–66).
Figure 15. Yayoi Kusama in Narcissus Garden (1966) at the 33rd Venice Biennale, 1966.
Figure 17. Happening in Kusama’s studio with Phalli’s Field as a backdrop with participants wearing clothing from Kusama’s clothing line (1968).
Figure 19. Kusama in front of Infinity Net at the Stephen Radich Gallery, New York in 1961.
Figure 23. Yayoi Kusama in her studio with Accumulation No. 2 (1966).
Figure 25. Yayoi Kusama in her studio leaning against what is likely a panel from Phalli’s Field (c. 1963).
Figure 26. Yayoi Kusama posing inside One Thousand Boats Show at the Gertrude Stein Gallery, New York (1963).
