The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents an exhibition by Japanese artist and writer Yayoi Kusama
27.06.2023 – 08.10.2023
“What does living a life mean? I lose myself in this thought every time I create a work of art.”
“Dissolution and accumulation; propagation and separation; particulate obliteration and unseen reverberations from the universe—these were to become the foundations of my art, and they were already taking shape at that time.”
Japanese artist and writer Yayoi Kusama (Matsumoto, Nagano, 1929) is a unique figure, much admired by art historians for her groundbreaking career, which has spanned countless artistic movements from the 1960s to the present day. Now a global cultural icon, over the past seven decades Kusama has resolutely pursued her avant-garde vision with determination, honing her personal aesthetic that is a true reflection of her philosophy of life.
This exhibition focuses on the existential questions that drive Kusama’s creative explorations. Featuring a selection of her paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations and documentary material on her happenings and performances, the exhibition offers an in-depth analysis of her practice, from the first drawings she made as a teenager during the Second World War to her most recent immersive Infinity Mirror Room installations. Organised both chronologically and thematically, Yayoi Kusama: From 1945 to Now explores the six key themes that run through the artist’s life: Infinity, Accumulation, Radical Connectivity, the Biocosmic, Death and the Energy of Life. Kusama has been disrupting the art world and society for decades in order to promote the “healing of all humanity” and these interrelated themes appear and evolve within her obsessive universe.
