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Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

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In 1957, encouraged by Georgia O’Keeffe, artist Yayoi Kusama left Japan for New York City to become a star. By the time she returned to her home country in 1973, she had established herself as a leader of New York’s avant-garde movement, known for

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In 1957, encouraged by Georgia O’Keeffe, artist Yayoi Kusama left Japan for New York City to become a star. By the time she returned to her home country in 1973, she had established herself as a leader of New York’s avant-garde movement, known for creating happenings and public orgies to protest the Vietnam War and for the polka dots that had become a trademark of her work. Her sculptures, videos, paintings, and installations are to this day included in major international exhibitions.

Available for the first time in English, Infinity Net paints a multilayered portrait of this fascinating artist. Taking us from her oppressive childhood in postwar Japan to her present life in the psychiatric hospital where she voluntarily stays—and is still productive—Kusama’s autobiography offers insight into the persona of mental illness that has informed her work. While she vibrantly describes the hallucinatory episodes she experiences, her tale is punctuated by stories of her pluck and drive in making her artistic voice heard. Conveying the breadth and ambition of her own work, Kusama also offers a dazzling snapshot of 1960s and 1970s New York City and her encounters with its artists—she collaborates with Andy Warhol, shares an apartment with Donald Judd, and becomes romantically entangled with Joseph Cornell. Replete with the sense of the sheer necessity within an artist to create, Infinity Net is an energetic and juicy page-turner that offers a glimpse into Kusama’s exhilarating world.
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Community Reviews

rated it really liked it
over 2 years ago

Shelves: autobiographies
If you're a fan of Yayoi Kusama, contemporary art, or just strong women in general, this is a great book. It has been translated from its original Japanese version, so at times the writing is a bit rigid, but it's straightforward which is enjoyable in its own way, almost... Read full review

rated it really liked it
about 1 year ago

Beautiful spirit. A life devoted to her art and self-expression and seeing just how far she could go.

rated it it was amazing
about 2 years ago

I was introduced to Yayoi Kusama back in university, where my "obsessive" works were subtly likened to Kusama's process with repetition. The first time I truly paid attention to her was two or three years ago. Occasionally having read up on her, I bumped into one of her s... Read full review

rated it it was amazing
12 months ago

Question: what is the normal amount of times to cry while reading an autobiography, because I think I may have exceeded that amount??

This was incredible. Incredible person, incredible artist, incredible message. It reads less like an account of someone's life and more lik... Read full review

rated it really liked it
11 months ago

Shelves: art , memoir , mental-illness
There aren't many artists (or people) like Yayoi Kusama. Her autobiography is fascinating and an important counterpoint to her current depiction in mainstream media. The recent traveling exhibition of her work, Infinity Mirrors, glosses over her deeply radical sexual and... Read full review

rated it liked it
over 3 years ago

An easy to read autobiography that spans across Yayoi's life. With some elegant prose and lovely imagery, she details her life as a young Japanese artist making her way in New York.

I did struggle with her ego in this book, not one for great moments of humility or reflect... Read full review

rated it really liked it
over 5 years ago

A little weird, but I really liked it. It was a bit hard to understand what she meant because it was translated from japanese, but it was overall enjoyable and def worth reading. The link between her mental illness and her work is told from her perspective versus outsider... Read full review

rated it it was amazing
4 months ago

Shelves: art , memoir-biography
I have been fascinated with Yayoi Kusama and her art since visiting two of her mirrored rooms at the Mattress Factory a few years ago. Such a remarkable woman and artist, and this is a wonderful autobiography. Yayoi writes beautifully, openly, unflinchingly about her life... Read full review

rated it it was amazing
over 4 years ago

I know Yayoi Kusama thanks to my son. I fall in love with her art from the first moment.

Now I read her autobiography and I fall in love with her life and her thoughts.

Kusama is a strong woman who fought hard against her family and the rules which tying all women in that y... Read full review

rated it liked it
over 3 years ago

This is one of the strangest books I've ever read and I ended up with a real love/hate relationship with it. I really liked the part about her art and especially about her relationships with other artists. And it was fascinating from a mental health perspective. But there... Read full review

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Book details

Hardcover, 256 pages
Published January 30th 2012 by University Of Chicago Press (first published March 31st 2003
ISBN
0226464989 (ISBN13: 9780226464985)
Edition language
English
Original title
無限の網 草間弥生自伝

About this author

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Avant-garde Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama was an influential figure in the postwar New York art scene, staging provocative happenings and exhibiting works such as her “Infinity Nets”, hallucinatory paintings of loops and dots (and physical representations of the idea of infinity). Narcissus Garden, an installation of hundreds of mirrored balls, earned Kusama notoriety at the 1966 Venice Biennale, w ...more

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Quotes

All of my works are steps on my journey, a struggle for truth that I have waged with pen, canvas, and materials. Overhead is a distant, radiant star, and the more I stretch to reach it, the further it recedes. But by the power of my spirit and my single-hearted pursuit of the path, I have clawed my way through the labyrinthine confusion of the world of people in an unstinting effort to approach even one step closer to the realm of the soul.
The machinery of the sky that confounds us on earth with endless transformations of clouds in the light of dawn does not compare to the extraordinary tenacity of human beings, the way of human life, the presentiment of approaching death, the existence of love, the brilliant coruscations of light and the dark scars of our lives, to say nothing of the incomprehensible form of the cosmos and the overwhelming mysteries of space, time, distance.
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