The art of Yayoi Kusama dotty comes to Louis Vuitton

There are spots before my eyes. I'm rushing in the National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan, where crowds of people to a major exhibition of works by Yayoi Kusama. Points are a recurring theme in his art, visual hallucinations and panic attacks she suffered since her childhood, so the show from the huge red spots spheres dominated, and covers an area of ​​disorientation in the giant white tulips fiberglass in red dots - like the white walls, ceiling and floor. It is a disturbing its infinite mirror room, illuminated by the innumerable floating points of light, and a giant pumpkin crawl with a distinctive pattern of dots, she calls the nerves. But unlike his retrospective at the Tate Modern in London, which ran from February to June this year the focus is here on his recent paintings: a long gallery filled with monochrome works, the other with a painting so bright it hurts the eyes . Dotted points, eyes, faces, zigzag patterns, blobs of amoebas and serpentine shapes lashes: the same primitive, repetitive patterns occur in all of them. IN PICTURES: Poppy Delevigne for Louis Vuitton The number is overwhelming, dizzying. When it was founded in New York, were his sculptures and phallus "happenings" hippie naked as scandalous and shameful by many in his homeland, but the magnitude of this show is a reference to the date in Japan, where it always is a national treasure . The next day I'm invited to Kusama's studio in an alley near Shinjuku in Tokyo, a short walk from his private room in Siewa hospital, a psychiatric ward, where she volunteered in hospitals since 1977 and that she rarely leaves except to work. His studio is a narrow concrete and glass, stacked with boxes of supplies to the ceiling, the walls covered with paintings in racks ready splattered work in progress and canvases, gray carpet, paint industry and dingy old office chair at the table where Kusama works under a harsh fluorescent light. She paints comfortably usually in my pajamas, I told one of his assistants, his gray hair pulled into a bun on top, but now she's on the floor with her hair and make-up done, ready to welcome his guests. All aboard the Louis Vuitton Express: READ When she finally into the elevator, but a frail 83-year-colored lights, a red wig and polka peas pushed together in a wheelchair, she asked an assistant to show us a few excerpts from the Tate show, especially that of a document in Matsumoto City, where she grew up. There is something touching in this need to prove, but it is also confusing - JK Rowling is like showing off a review in the Gloucestershire Echo to examine whether there is a published author. Kusama can be discussion about a surreal experience. She is easily distracted, and even if they lived in America for 20 years, she now speaks no English. It is by a team of assistants, to translate for them, addressing them respectfully as "sensei" ("Master" or "teacher") surrounded, and with whom she often seems long discussions before the answer, have the most questions fade . It's hard to know what is lost in translation, and what is up to the vagaries of age and health. But sometimes a question is involved, and you have a sharp but brief flashes of intelligence and focus, they also made it clear in his work over the years. SEE: the Louis Vuitton Fall / Winter 2012 collection Finally she sits down to color, based on a cloth of gold, with large blue designs, thick brush his reasons for the addition of red to blue covers. A flat shoulder assistants, ready to wipe the drops of strange, but the random hand of all Kusama is stable and works quickly, decisively, his face bent over the canvas. This is an uncomfortable way to work, and says she often suffers as a result of his back, but can not resist painting. Many of his physical problems, she says, comes from his years in New York. "I was working too hard at the time, and I was on my knees for so long that I damaged. It was because of something that I decided to return to Japan." Born in 1929 in Matsumoto city in central Japan, Kusama was the daughter of an unhappy marriage unloved young. His mother was the only daughter of a wealthy family, which includes a thriving seed business incubator in the Japanese mountains. His father was forced to take the surname of his wife, and avenged himself by a number of issues, and runs from Tokyo for a while, to live with a geisha. Caught between his parents in conflict, found refuge in Kusama's art, drawing obsessively early childhood. But his ambition was to paint professionally from his family, who were deeply crushed conventional: the women of her background could collect art, but not create them. "Said my parents told me that they were so many clothes that I wanted to buy, but nothing to do with the painting was absolutely not in question, she says, which explains why some of his early works were painted on the seed bags jute, with colors with sand and organic material, it has mixed in the environment. "My mother was very strong will. My older sister had married into one of the richest families in the city of Matsumoto, and my parents wanted me to make a similar marriage. But I had no desire for such a life, because if I got married, I would not be able to paint on. There was a lot of pressure and many conferences. My parents planned to marry someone from a good family and social status, but I did not know him. thus left I go home and never returned. " Kusama went to Kyoto, his train into the traditional Japanese painting, though she rebelled against her once more and sought after part of an innovative art scene in Paris or New York. But even when traveling outside the country was possible for Japanese citizens after World War II, he was still very difficult to obtain the necessary permits. She even wrote to Georgia O'Keeffe, American painter, the only woman, she could find, to ask for help. (O'Keeffe responded to his letters and went to visit them, if protected Kusama finally made it to New York.) She was finally allowed to go to Japan when she was 27 in 1956, with the money sewn into his clothes and silk kimonos sell, as she established herself as an artist. In New York she is with other friends struggling artists like Donald Judd, the minimalist sculptor and achieved recognition slowly, but nowhere near that of their male colleagues, as a foreigner and as a woman, she was twice the underdog. But, she continued to work doggedly, and innovate. 1001 Boats installation (included in the Tate exhibition included) was a rowboat covered with fabric phalluses, then photographed and reproduced once dizzying 1000 through the floor, walls and ceiling of the gallery. She invited his friend Andy Warhol long when it was shown in 1963, several years later, he was celebrated for the decoration of surfaces with one of his shows with the same repetitive silkscreen images of the face of a cow. "For them it's been frustrating that it did so first, then Warhol was all praise," says Glen Scott Wright of Victoria Miro Gallery in London, who worked with Kusama for years. "It was the same with Claes Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras. These guys took their ideas and be good to the great galleries, the sale of the work, earn money received while she was ignored by the market and the institution." When the hippie era began, Kusama has found a world where they belonged. She was surrounded by young gay men and organized happenings. "- Protest against the Vietnam War and advocating for gay rights and sexual liberation She has designed outrageously revealing clothes, wrote and produced a musical, directed and began parties, where people naked hippies graffiti could pay with color. "I felt, there was a need to fight with my art, she says," to create a new form of civilization. " But in spite of pose is oddly sexless naked and even publishing a magazine called Orgy Kusama, the artist itself remained. It is often said that the phallus is a recurring image in her sculptures, because she was so disgusted by him, while his only long-term relationship in the next few years in New York, was with the artist Joseph Cornell, who was helpless and lived with his domineering mother. The closest relationship was consumption was when the pair sat naked, draw portraits of each other. Even now, she shudders when asked if she had her fears. "I do not like sex, she said. Published in his autobiography Net Infinity, in the English language by Tate in 2011, she describes Warhol and his crew plant, and with his assistants in his business Kusama gay as a "leader of the rival gangs. But while Warhol's reputation in the world of art Happenings Kusama abruptly canceled its work on the other. sick, exhausted and burnt creative, she returned to Japan for what they thought was a temporary resident, became depressed and ended up check-in Seiwa Hospital in 1977. Until then, her parents were dead, but it is a moving passage in his autobiography, in which she talks about forgiveness, and even more to understand their cruelty. And here in the hospital, his story would end, if not for the desire to create, that seems unstoppable. They no longer had a studio or even a house, but she began to write novels and poems, which she won a growing fan base in Japan, then began to produce new works. Slowly, his reputation grew, and his work will soon be re-evaluated. There were major exhibitions in Britain and the United States and Japan, has represented at the Biennale in Venice 1993rd The world of art has also been changed, and Kusama was not the only female artist whose work is evaluated. "The women just were not seriously by the art world dominated by men taken in the past," said Scott Wright. "But we are in a very different world of art. It is almost directed by women." Kusama thoughts now start to concentrate his legacy. His team is responsible for overseeing the construction of a new five-story building across from the studio in progress, which will eventually house a museum with many private archives, and a large studio and administrative offices. Currently, she is more worried that he would be earthquake-proof, too. During the 2011 earthquake in Japan, she was so frightened that she ran out on the street. "I am very afraid of nature, especially at night to sleep. I, and the building was shaking so much that I missed in my bare feet. Earthquake [replicas] kept for a long time there were dozens of them. Why we have this urge to build buildings. We consulted a specialist for seismic construction. Nevertheless, she does not intend to live there. "It is very comfortable in the clinic, she said. The Tate show was an indication that the development of broad art finally Kusama recognized as a major talent. Made in 2008, a large net-painting during his early infinity, impoverished days in New York sold at auction for just over $ 5,000,000. But Kusama is still unsure of his place in art history, and need for reassurance: Tate curator Frances Morris While working on the exhibition, Kusama has asked if it would make him as famous as Donald Judd. She takes us upstairs to the small office, to see where his administrative team. Located in the clutter of typical office computer, papers and books, there are replacement wigs are sitting in the stands, tiny models for the sculptures made of fiberglass huge, and a photo of Kusama with Marc Jacobs on the front display window. "I was very happy when he came to visit, she said." He brought me a large bouquet of flowers. "