Yayoi Kusama, one of the great icons of Japanese postwar art and one of the most recognizable artists across the world, has passed away at the age of 97, as announced by her gallery, David Zwirner.
I have a story about Kusama that I remember so vividly and that comes to mind immediately (and a wild story Takashi Murakami told me one day about her, but that's for another day). It was the Tate Modern in London in spring 2012, the year the Olympics would be in the capital, and I was visiting for a preview of the Damien Hirst exhibition that was held on the same floor. I loved the dichotomy of the two, but I was there for Hirst and knew I wanted to shuffle over to her show after.
Hirst's show, For the Love of God, was full of all the greatest hits, the calculated but pure zeal and ambition of the young man who would grow to become one of the biggest and most financially successful artists of his generation. And the show felt like a display of one of the most financially successful artists of his generation. The diamond skull, the shark, the butterflies, the pills; conceptual, fun, a bit brilliant, a bit of a mess, a lot of ego. I actually walked away quite impressed.
Then I walked over to Kusama, and what struck me immediately was the juxtaposition on display. Hers was a show of the pure energy of art, the bubbling of energy, the experimentation, sounds, color, DIY, a woman who gave herself to the arts in a way that was almost beyond boundary. It was pop and minimal. It was performance and play. It was the Instagram moment and the conceptual parts of the art world that a photo can't capture. It was a show of decade after decade of untethered spirit.
What I am trying to say is that where Hirst made work that was about art and existence, Kusama spent most of her life as art and existence.
And that is what I will always remember about Yayoi Kusama, that afternoon, alone at the Tate, looking at a career that defined the creative life. —Evan Pricco
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