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Original Creators: "The Princess Of Polka Dots" Yayoi Kusama

We take a look at some iconic artists from numerous disciplines who have left an enduring and indelible mark on today’s creators.

Each week we pay homage to a select "Original Creator"—an iconic artist from days gone by whose work influences and informs today's creators. These are artists who were innovative and revolutionary in their fields. Bold visionaries and radicals, groundbreaking frontiersmen and women who inspired and informed culture as we know it today. This week: Yayoi Kusama.

One of Japan's most prominent living artists, Yayoi Kusama, aka the “Princess of Polka Dots,” is making an international comeback in the avant-garde art scene and beyond. Her extensive body of work covers everything from large-scale installation, painting, film, and fashion, to polka dot-themed nude "happenings" held around New York City in the 1960s. Today, at 83 years old, Kusama is still working at the same obsessive pace with which she has worked throughout her long and intensive career as an artist. Best known for their rhythmic repetition and neurotic detailing, Kusama's pieces are a reflection of the powerful hallucinatory manner in which she sees the world.

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Lately, Yayoi Kusama and her prolific polka dots seem to be popping up everywhere around New York City. The Kusama frenzy can be seen in full bloom at the Whitney Museum, where the artist’s retrospective is currently on display. A wide variety of mediums are shown in the exhibit, including paintings both early and recent, sculptures of furniture covered in stuffed, phallic objects, giant inflatable polka-dotted balls, and even an enchanting, immersive installation entitled Fireflies on the Water. Outside of the gallery setting, the Whitney is also presenting an outdoor installation of Kusama's bright red, be-spotted blobs on Pier 45 at in the Hudson River Park.

Polka dot Princess

Kusama reports that since childhood she has been plagued with hallucinations and severe obsessive thoughts. She spoke of once staring at a red, patterned tablecloth and then looking up to find the entire room—floor, walls, and ceiling—covered with the same pattern. Soon she found that even her own body was covered with this pattern, and she felt as if she was disappearing, or being obliterated. Frightening visions such as these have shaped Kusama's work, giving us a look into a world that only she can see. These powerful images permeate every medium she works in from painting to performance, creating the unmistakable Kusama-universe, in which her bizarre persona is the epicenter.

Some manifestations of this neurotic patterning include her Infinity Net paintings, polka dot rooms, objects completely covered with sewn and stuffed phallic shapes, and outdoor painted pumpkins.

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Detail of No.2 ,(1959).

Dots Obsession, (1999). Image courtesy of Yayoi Kusama.

Accumulation series, (1961).

Yellow Pumpkin, (1994).

Immersive Installations

As an artist who’s always experimenting and growing, Kusama has reinvented herself through many different mediums throughout her career. Her compulsive need to create an atmosphere of limitless space and infinite pattern has spread to full-blown environments, as well as live performances. Kusama's mesmerizing installations create a space in which the self is transcended, becoming part of the vast, relentless Kusama-Universe. Two of her fully immersive installations, the Infinity Mirror Room and the Propagating Room, are a clear indication of just how different the world looks to Kusama. The Infinity Mirror Room is a constructed space with the walls, floors, and ceilings covered in reflective surfaces and hundreds of colored lights hanging from the ceiling. The Propagating Room is a typical living room, covered with fluorescent polka dots glowing under a black light.

Infinity Mirror Room – Phallis Field (Floor Show), (1965-98). Image courtesy of Yayoi Kusama.

Fireflies on the Water (2002). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Postwar Committee and the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee and partial gift of Betsy Wittenborn Miller 2003. © Yayoi Kusama. Photograph courtesy Robert Miller Gallery.

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Propagating Room, (2009). Courtesy of Attorney Street.

The Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama Collection

Kusama's most recent international splash is reaching far beyond museums and into the fashion world. Recently the artist has collaborated with Marc Jacobs on a line of Louis Vuitton products including dresses, swimsuits, bags, jewelry, and sunglasses, injecting her colorful polka dot patterns into high fashion. Jacobs, who has collaborated with many artists in the past, including Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, said he wanted to work with Kusama because he admired her endless energy and obsessive drive to depict her endless, hypnotic world.

Photo courtesy of Louis Vuitton.

In addition to clothing and accessories, Louis Vuitton and Kusama have also collaborated on a new iPhone app called Louis Vuitton Kusama Studio, available for free download in the iTunes store. This picture-altering app allows the user to "see the world through the eyes of artist Yayoi Kusama" by transforming a picture and thus reinventing reality. The app involves taking a photo or picking one from your library, and then choosing either the "Dots" filter or the "Waves" filter to apply to the photo. Voila! Your picture is now a delusional-dot portrait or a tentacle-y testament to Kusama that can be shared on your social networks. The process of transforming the photo is also animated and can be replayed at any time.

@abilaurel