Yayoi Kusama
Born 1929, Matsumoto, Japan
1948–1949 Kyōto City Specialist School of Arts, Kyoto, Japan
Selected museum exhibitions: Yayoi Kusama Museum, Tokyo (2017); National Art Center, Tokyo (2017); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2015); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2015); Whitney Museum of American Art (2012); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2011); National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2004); Le Consortium, Dijon (2000); Museum of Modern Art (1998); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1998); Venice Biennale (1992); Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1989); American Center, Tokyo (1980)
Selected honors: 18th Praemium Imperiale Award for painting (2006); Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts, Woman’s Caucus for Art (2006); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (2003); Asahi Prize (2001)
Selected public collections: Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art
At age 90, Yayoi Kusama continues to be active and prolific as an artist, creating paintings, sculptures, and installations that inspire audiences worldwide. Butterfly, 2001, displays many of the themes that have animated her oeuvre since the 1960s. Kusama took a shaped vanity mirror, surrounded it with red, pod-like protuberances that she constructed with fabric and painted butterflies on its surface. Her use of a mirror creates a frame for the viewer that changes each time it is viewed. Suggesting vanitas and self-realization, the artist connects this work to the cycles of life, death, and metamorphosis.