Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama presents Infinity Net, a remarkable memoir that reveals her to be a fascinating figure, channeling her obsessive neurosis into an art that transcends cultural barriers.

Yayoi Kusama arrived in New York in 1957, a poverty-stricken artist from postwar Japan, and quickly established herself as a leader of the city’s vibrant avant-garde movement. Known for her massive, hypnotically repetitive “Infinity Net” paintings, her provocative “happenings,” and the signature polka dots that would become her global trademark, Kusama has channeled her obsessive neurosis into an art that transcends cultural barriers.

Infinity Net paints a vivid, multilayered portrait of this fascinating artist. Taking us from her restrictive childhood to her groundbreaking years in New York―where she collaborated with Andy Warhol, shared an apartment with Donald Judd, and became close with Joseph Cornell―this memoir offers profound insight into the personal struggles and hallucinatory episodes that have continually informed her work.

Candidly describing the sheer pluck and drive required to make her artistic voice heard, Kusama also recounts her voluntary return to Japan in the 1970s and her subsequent choice to reside in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo, where she has continued to produce an astonishing, globally celebrated body of work, from sculptures and videos to dizzying walk-in installations and iconic polka-dot pumpkins.

Replete with the sense of the sheer necessity within an artist to create, this energetic and deeply personal page-turner offers a rare glimpse into Kusama’s exhilarating world and the transformative power of art.

Includes black-and-white illustrations