Yayoi Kusama - The Dutch years 1960-70

Yayoi Kusama - The Dutch years 1960-70, edited by Tijs Visser / ISBN 9789464778038 / 192-page hardcover, 8.5 x 10.5 inches, published by MER. Books (Belgium), English edition

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A complete documentation of Yayoi Kusama's early performative activities in the Netherlands in the 1960s-70s, through a collection of previously unpublished photographs and written and visual accounts from eyewitnesses, showcasing her unique style and engagement with the emerging sexual revolution.

This publication provides an overview of Kusama's earliest performative activities, staged especially for the camera, with previously unpublished photos. Naked and painted with dots, dressed in her self-designed fashion, posing in the streets of Amsterdam, in a time of an emerging sexual revolution. Written and visual accounts by eye-witnesses offer us a detailed insight into the colorful and erotic world of Yayoi Kusama for the first time, but also show us her particularly compelling, persuasive power to engage people in her universe.

Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam in 2023-2024.

After studying Nihonga, traditional Japanese painting, Yayoi Kusama (born 1929 in Japan) left Japan in the mid-1950s for the United States, where she rapidly established herself as a leading figure of the New York avant-garde. Embodying the spirit of the 1960s, her groundbreaking and unclassifiable work challenged the dominant aesthetic of the day, asserting great formal liberty through the use of multiple media, including painting, sculpture, video, installation, environment, and performance. Yayoi Kusama is considered one of the most important post-war and contemporary artists, with exhibitions all over the world. Her work is not only of historical importance, it also appeals to a young and broad audience, and defies art concepts such as Minimal and Pop Art.

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