City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 2012 Yayoi Kusama: Biography and Cultural Confrontation, 1945–1969 Midori Yamamura The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4328 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] YAYOI KUSAMA: BIOGRAPHY AND CULTURAL CONFRONTATION, 1945-1969 by MIDORI YAMAMURA A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2012 ©2012 MIDORI YAMAMURA All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Anna C. Chave Date Chair of Examining Committee Kevin Murphy Date Executive Officer Mona Hadler Claire Bishop Julie Nelson Davis Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract YAYOI KUSAMA: BIOGRAPHY AND CULTURAL CONFRONTATION, 1945-1969 by Midori Yamamura Adviser: Professor Anna C. Chave Yayoi Kusama (b.1929) was among the first Japanese artists to rise to international prominence after World War II. She emerged when wartime modern nation-state formations and national identity in the former Axis Alliance countries quickly lost ground to U.S.-led Allied control, enforcing a U.S.-centered model of democracy and capitalism. As a result, the art world became increasingly internationalized. This interdisciplinary study is the first attempt to comparatively examine postwar artistic developments in Japan, the United States, and Europe, through a focus on Kusama. I consider Kusama not so much in terms that seek to aggrandize the uniqueness of the individual, but that assess her entry into and position within an historical sequence, namely the radical changes which took place after the war. Mine is a material investigation, which addresses how personal and cultural memories may be embedded in objects. By examining her breakthrough work against the backdrop of her milieu, this feminist study will illuminate particular issues Kusama might have encountered in society and analyze how her experiences uniquely shaped her practice. I will also analyze works by Kusama’s peers that help to illuminate the scope and nature of the problems that she encountered. Growing up under Japan’s militaristic totalitarian regime, Kusama embraced art as a non-conformist pursuit. Her defiance of fanatic chauvinism propelled her, iv after the war, to seek a career overseas. She arrived in 1958 in New York, where a burgeoning cosmopolitanism contributed to her initial success with five nearly identical white Net paintings. Beginning in 1960, the artists affiliated with the German Zero group invited Kusama to exhibit in Europe. By 1962, she had shown with the future Pop and Minimal artists in New York. As New York’s art market became more firmly established, however, multiculturalism tended to become less embraced there. By 1966, this drove Kusama to drop out of the commercial art world. She began creating politically charged site-specific installations and Happenings where the theme of liberatory sexuality was key. But around 1969, as the gallery-money-power-structure became an unchallengeable fact, she ceased her activity in New York. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation emerged out of a seminar paper that I produced for my dissertation adviser, Professor Anna C. Chave, at the CUNY Graduate Center. Ever since, my work has developed in dialogue with her teaching, research, and writing. Throughout writing this dissertation, she has been the most critically perceptive reader of my work. At the same time, she was extremely patient with my progress, encouraged my original thinking, and was unwaveringly supportive of this project. Without Professor Chave, my dissertation would never have taken shape. My foremost gratitude for this study goes to her. I am equally indebted to the artist Yayoi Kusama and the staff of Kusama Yayoi Studio for allowing me an unprecedented access to her personal archives, which opened my eyes to a whole host of issues that had been buried in received histories. History is in part a process of editing and post-1945 art history has been centered mostly on white, male, and US-born or based artists. This project would have never occurred if Akie Terai, my mother, who grew up in Kusama’s hometown, did not send me the Japanese version of Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama. Based on Kusama’s biography, I researched her career in New York and noticed that she was quite central to the 1960s New York art scene, yet never enjoyed the same recognition as her male counterparts. This made me question a system that would diminish women artists of color, which became an initial motivation for this feminist study. I am very grateful to my mother for calling my attention to Kusama and for her limitless help while I did research for my dissertation vi in Matsumoto. Because Kusama’s own narrative of the role of mental illness in her practice has posed limits to the interpretation of her work, I began developing an alternative approach without, however, losing sight of the complexities of artist’s experience and psychology. I undertook to critically examine Kusama’s biography. And it was Reiko Tomii, the Senior Research Associate for Kusama’s 1989 retrospective, who coined the term, “critical biography” for my method. Dr. Tomii has been selfless, sharing her research and her ideas with me, and advising me on Kusama-related archives. Without her expertise, my work would have been limited. Dr. Tomii deserves my most sincere gratitude. She also invited me to contribute an essay from my research to a Japan Society exhibition catalogue, Making A Home. This helped me grow as a writer. During the course of writing this dissertation, I have benefited from the support of a great number of individuals. I thank profusely my dissertation committee members, Professors Claire Bishop, Julie Nelson Davis, and Mona Hadler. I would also like to thank those individuals who read and offered valuable comments on this dissertation at various stages of its evolution, or shared their works and insights: Valerie Allen, Jerome Feldman, Sujatha Fernandes, Yuko Fujii, Kathleen Friello, Jen Gieseking, Amelia Goerlitz, Franck Gautherot, Jaap Guldemond, David Harvey, Peter Hitchcock, Hiroko Ikegami, Azusa Kaburagi, Jennifer Katanic, Jonathan Katz, Laura Katzmann, Joe Ketner, Seungduk Kim, Pascale Montadert, Juliet Mitchell, Louise Neri, Mignon Nixon, Franklin Odo, Joan Pachner, Ruth Anne Philips, Theodore Powers, Anna Salamone, Karen Shelby, Judith Stein, Margaret Stenz, Molleen Theodore, Jennifer Tobias, Barbera van Kooij, Harriet Walker, Carl Watson, Kathy vii Wentrack, Michael Wenyon, Hyewon Yi, and Midori Yoshimoto. I am also grateful to the following individuals who helped translate the Dutch and the German texts to English: Mrieken Cochius, Silke Gondolf, and Edgar Honetschläger. Research for this dissertation has been enabled by many people and I am grateful to the following individuals and institutions: Akron Art Museum; Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; Eiko Sakaguchi of Gordon W. Prange Collection; Kerry Brougher of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Takako Fujibayashi, Yoko Kawasaki, Isao Takakura, and Megumi Takasugi of Kusama Yayoi Studio; Takako Matsumoto; Akira Shibutami of Matsumoto City Museum of Art; Michelle Harvey of the MoMA Archives; Henk Peeters; Cynthia Mills and Virginia Mecklenburg of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; The Smithsonian Archives of American Art; Michiel Nijhoff of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam Archive; Colin Huizing of the Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam; Aldo Tambellini; Frances Morris and Rachel Taylor of Tate Modern; Kevin Concannon, formerly of the University of Akron; Blanton Museum and Fine Art Library, The University of Texas, Austin; Caroline Westenholz; Phillipe Sauve of the Yves Klein Foundation; Tijs Visser of Zero Foundation. The research for this dissertation would not have been possible without the financial support of a Terra Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, a Ford Foundation Travel Grant at the CUNY Graduate Center, The CUNY Graduate Center Research and Travel Grant, a Mellon Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship at the Center for the Humanities, The CUNY Graduate Center, and a predoctoral fellowship from the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the viii CUNY Graduate Center. I am also grateful to the Museum of Modern Art, where I work as a contractual lecturer. I am especially grateful to Laura Belles, Sara Bodinson, Jean Mary Bongiorno, Pablo Helguera, Tomoko Mikawa, the volunteers there, as well as to my audiences, whose support and feedback have been helping me to grow as an art historian. I am grateful, too, to my fellow fellows at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, at the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY, and at CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, who commented on my work and who stimulated my thinking during our weekly seminars and symposia. I also thank the Art History Department at the CUNY Graduate Center, especially, Professor Kevin Murphy, the Executive Officer, and Andrea Appel, the chief administrator. Earlier versions of Chapter One appeared in Making A Home (New York: The Japan Foundation and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), Yayoi Kusama (London: Tate Modern, 2012) and in Spanish in Yayoi Kusama (Madrid: Museo Reina Sofia, 2011). Earlier versions of Chapter Two appeared in Yayoi Kusama (New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2009) and The Dutch Avant-Garde Nul (Rotterdam: NAI Publisher, 2011). An earlier version of Chapter Three appeared in Yayoi Kusama, Mirrored Years (Dijon: Les Presses du Reel; Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningenn, 2009).