Yayoi Kusama, an icon, rebel and visionary, passed away this week

10 interesting facts about Yauoi Kusama

1. Yayoi Kusama arrived in Seattle in 1957 with two kimonos and 200 paintings. This is the first city Kusama visited when she moved to the US.
2. Kusama was pen pals with Georgia O’Keeffe, Richard Nixon, and the President of France.
3. She partnered with Louis Vuitton to design a clothing line in 2012.
4. Narcissus Garden, a rogue performance piece by Kusama, was installed outside of the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966 with the support of one of the curators, however she was asked to leave the premises.
5. She was making Pop art before Andy Warhol.
6. Assemblage artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell and Kusama had an intimate friendship that prompted his mother to dump a bucket of water on them once when she caught them kissing.
7. The quintessential polymath, Kusama has published numerous literary works.
8.  A firm believer in love forever, Kusama performed a gay marriage way before gay marriage was legal.
9. In 2016, she was ranked as the most expensive living female artist on aggregate.
10. Yayoi Kusama produced art work for more than six decades.

    Kusama was an avant-garde artist who died at the age of 97. She worked across painting, installation, and sculpture, and has covered rooms, trees, and buildings with her iconic imagery. Kusama started painting her famous polka-dotted sculptures in the 50s which put her problems into perspective. “I wanted to examine the single dot that was my own life. One polka dot: a single particle among billions,” she said.

‘more and more, i think about the role of the arts, and as an artist,

i think that it’s important that I share the love and peace.’
-Yayoi Kusama

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source credits:galerie, chelsea werner-gatzky