Dies at 97 years old Yayoi Kusama, the iconic artist who turned trauma into art

Yayoi Kusama, one of the most unique and radical creators of recent decades, died on August 14 at the age of 97 in a Tokyo hospital, as reported by her website. Kusama painted until her last days, she never put down her brush, obsessed with exploring and finding harmony and collective healing, beyond differences. This will kept her going since the Vietnam War era.

Born in the city of Matsumoto on March 22, 1929, her career was marked by a succession of struggles and traumas that accompanied her from childhood. Afflicted from the age of 10 by an obsessive-compulsive disorder, suicidal tendencies, and visual hallucinations, she suffered the abuse of a mother who destroyed her works and forced her to spy on her father. But Kusama knew how to transform it into great creative force. The infinite nets that haunted her mind from a young age became her personal signature and one of the greatest exponents of global psychedelia. For her, painting colored dots on different supports or human bodies was an act of therapy. Art was the way to face fear.

His 'hippie' era

In the late 1950s, fleeing the stifling formalism of Japan and with the support of artists like Georgia O'Keeffe, she emigrated to the United States. In New York, she became a key figure of the avant-garde and influenced icons such as Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. She was a pioneer in immersive installations with mirrors and lights, anti-war happenings in Central Park against the Vietnam War, and performance art. In the 60s and 70s, she was a visionary, celibate priestess, dominant over dozens of acolytes who danced and engaged in sexual relations during the happenings. She burned United States flags and Bibles in the streets to protest against the Vietnam War.

In 1973, she returned to Japan due to the aggravation of her mental health and, subsequently, voluntarily entered a psychiatric institution in Tokyo, from where she maintained a tireless production of paintings, novels, and sculptures. Among all her production, works such as Narcissus garden, the series of 900 paintings My eternal soul, the iconic pumpkin from the island of Naoshima, and highly successful public retrospectives in museums such as MoMA, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and Guggenheim Bilbao stand out.

Awarded the Praemium Imperiale – she was the first woman to receive it – her ability to transform psychic vulnerability into a mass phenomenon made her the most visited artist on the planet, demonstrating that creation can be the most powerful antidote to clinging to life. She is one of the most sought-after artists on the planet with a long career. She immersed herself in movements such as surrealism, abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism.