Yayoi Kusama bio

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_Though she was generally unknown just months ago, fame is not new to Yayoi Kusama. There was a time when she was as well-known as Andy Warhol among admirers of Pop Art. Acknowledged as a progenitor of Minimalism, Kusama made headlines for street performances in which she painted polka dots on nude men and women. But Kusama was largely forgotten by the art world after she returned to Japan in 1973, suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. She was committed to a mental institution, where she remains to this day.

_Kusama’s neglect by art history has been redressed in a traveling retrospective of her seminal 1960s work, currently at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. When the retrospective was on view in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, shock waves of recognition went through the art world. Not only was Kusama relevant to the past; she seemed to pave the way for 1990s art as well. The retrospective will soon conclude its tour in Tokyo, where Japanese audiences will have their first comprehensive look at an artist now considered to be their foremost modernist.

_Even now, rumors about Kusama abound (yes, her many lovers included Joseph Cornell and Donald Judd; no, she is not faking mental illness to gain attention). In our conversations via fax, Kusama and I were separated by language, culture and a couple of generations. Nevertheless, she steered me past the pitfalls of innuendo and legend in my effort to understand how her remarkable life relates to her art.