Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has passed away at the age of 97

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, one of the most prominent figures in avant-garde art, has passed away at the age of 97, according to a statement published this morning (Thursday) on her official website. Kusama died on August 14, according to the statement, which did not disclose the cause of her death.

Kusama was identified with her works covered in dots and the pumpkin motif, and turned the hallucinations she had experienced since childhood into a unique artistic language. At the age of 27, she left Japan and moved to New York, where she began to establish her status as one of the most prominent avant-garde artists.

Kusama was born in March 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, to a family of merchants who owned a nursery and a seed farm. She began drawing pumpkins as early as elementary school, and at the age of 10 began to experience visions that she described as flashes of light halos or dense fields of dots. According to her, she also saw talking flowers and patterns on fabrics that came to life, multiplied, and swallowed the fabric inward. These experiences later became a central source of the artistic language associated with her.

In 1948, Kusama studied painting in Kyoto, where she developed an interest in Western art. In the 1950s, she began exhibiting her work, and in 1957 she moved to New York, where she was exposed to the major artistic movements of the period, including abstract expressionism. By the 1960s, she was already associated with the Pop Art movement as well.

In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan, and four years later she voluntarily admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo due to her mental state. From there, she continued to create and develop her work, combining painting, sculpture, installations, and performance art. In 1993, she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale, where she presented a solo exhibition centered on the pumpkin motif. In 2017, the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo, dedicated to her work.

In November 2021, a major exhibition of her works was presented at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which included about 200 works, an installation with 900 mirror balls, and four of Kusama's infinity rooms. The exhibition was defined by The Art Newspaper as one of the ten best exhibitions in the world that year.