Yayoi Kusama is considered Japan’s most famous living artist and one of the most significant contemporary artists in the art world day, however her life was far from easy. Kusama was born in a remote city in Japan 1929 when women were considered mere tools of procreation. She also suffered from hallucinations and severe obsessive thoughts since childhood, often of a suicidal nature. Believe it or not, her delusions are actually the main source of her inspiration and therefore the key to her success.

Tate Modern will be showing the highlights of her entire career until June, exploring her most iconic paintings, sculptures, photographs, collages and films. Some of the astonishing work features her signature dots, her liberal use of phalluses, her naked interventions and a spectacular new-mirrored room installation - 'Infinity Mirrored Room' conceived specially for the show and Kusama’s largest mirror room to date.

The exhibition puts a particular emphasis on her decade in New York- just after she left Japan to pursue her artistic career, which saw her status change from starving artist living in a freezing loft to doyenne of the art scene. During this period, Kusama’s work was rejected by some and acclaimed by others, including key art-world figures such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Donald Judd and Andy Warhol.

The exhibition finishes off with her recent work. After returning to Japan in 1973 and going through a relatively osbcure period, she admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital and started one of her most creative periods of her career. Creating large series of intense bright colour paintings, which recall elements of her earlier years- flowers, eyes, dots and nets.

Yayoi Kusama

Tate Modern

9th February 2012- 5th June 2012

Written by Bianca Spada