Yayoi Kusama, Japan's polka-dot art icon, dies at 97

Yayoi Kusama died on August 14 at a hospital in Tokyo, according to an announcement from the Yayoi Kusama Museum and Foundation. Her death was announced on Thursday, August 27.

Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama, whose polka dots, pumpkins and dazzling Infinity Mirror Rooms turned her intensely personal artistic language into a global phenomenon, has died at the age of 97.

“Renowned Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama has died at the age of 97,” Reuters reported, citing Kyodo.

Kusama died on August 14 at a hospital in Tokyo, according to an announcement from the Yayoi Kusama Museum and Foundation. Her death was announced on Thursday, August 27. Neither the official announcement nor reports gave a cause of death.

Kusama, who had been open about her mental health struggles, had continued to draw from the hallucinations she experienced since childhood, transforming visions of dots, lights and flowers into the repetitive motifs that became synonymous with her work.

Born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929, Kusama began making art as a child. She moved to the United States in 1957 and became part of New York’s experimental art scene, where she developed her Infinity Net paintings, soft sculptures, installations and provocative performances. Her work intersected with the emerging Pop Art and Minimalist movements, although she consistently carved out a distinct identity of her own.

Her artistic vocabulary was rooted in repetition: dots, nets, mirrors, pumpkins and endlessly multiplying forms. What began partly as a response to the hallucinations and obsessive thoughts she experienced became an artistic philosophy she called “self-obliteration”. Her mirrored rooms, in particular, turned that idea into an immersive experience, surrounding viewers with seemingly infinite reflections of lights and colour.

After returning to Japan in 1973, she voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo in 1977 and continued to work from a nearby studio. Her personal struggles never stopped her from producing art. In fact, her studio said she “continued to paint until her final days”.

Her influence eventually stretched far beyond galleries. Kusama became one of the most recognisable contemporary artists in the world, with exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Her work also entered popular culture through collaborations, including her much-publicised partnership with Louis Vuitton.

In later life, Kusama became a global art superstar, with her immersive installations drawing huge crowds and her works fetching millions at auction. Yet her studio’s statement after her death returned to the idea that had run through much of her career: love, hope and the possibility of art to connect people.

Kusama leaves behind more than an instantly recognisable aesthetic. She turned private visions, fears and obsessions into a visual language that millions could step into — one dot, mirror and infinity at a time.

(With inputs from Reuters, Associated Press)

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