Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective

This book accompanies Yayoi Kusama’s first major European retrospective exhibition, offering a comprehensive overview of the Japanese artist’s influential oeuvre, which spans more than eighty years.

The companion to the groundbreaking new retrospective at the Gropius Bau, this publication examines Kusama’s life and work through wholly original insights by leading experts. The book traces the development of Kusama’s creative output from her early paintings and accumulative sculptures to her immersive environments, as well exploring her lesser-known artistic activity in Europe and Germany in particular. It illuminates Kusama’s commitment to political and social issues in Europe, the US and Japan. A diverse selection of images and archival documents feature alongside texts by authors from different theoretical backgrounds. Essays discuss Kusama’s accomplishments in the worlds of fashion, film, art marketing and publishing. They focus on her engagement with different artistic spheres and offer genre-specific observations about her performances, installations and painting series. As panoramic and fascinating as its subject, this monumental retrospective guides viewers interested in Kusama towards a deeper understanding of her creative trajectory and of the breadth of her extraordinary career.

About the Author:

Stephanie Rosenthal is director of the Gropius Bau in Berlin. Previously she was chief curator at the Hayward Gallery, London, as well as artistic director of the 20th Biennale of Sydney, which took place in 2016.