Love Forever, Singing in Towada

KUSAMA Yayoi

Avant-garde artist and novelist. Born 1929 in Nagano, Japan. From childhood, Kusama created fantastical paintings composed of polka dots and meshes. She relocated to the US in 1957, where she developed her standing as an avant-garde artist, returning to Tokyo in 1973. Kusama represented Japan at the 1993 Venice Biennale, staging the Japanese pavilion’s first solo exhibition. She received the Asahi Prize in 2001, and was recognized as a Person of Cultural Merit in 2009, the same year she began her My Eternal Soul series. In 2011, she kicked off a major retrospective touring four cities in Europe and North America with stops at Tate Modern (London, UK) and Centre Pompidou (Paris, France); in 2012, a ten-city domestic tour marking the launch of her collaboration with Louis Vuitton; in 2013, a retrospective touring Latin America and Asia; and in 2015, a retrospective touring northern Europe. Kusama was named the world’s most popular artist by The Art Newspaper in 2014, and one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2016, the same year she was awarded the Japanese Order of Culture.