Kusama: Infinity

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source: Kusama: Infinity

Yayoi Kusama suffers from schizophrenia and has a naive and sensitive image. However, in reality she is not. She came from a wealthy family in Japan and was able to make her way into the US in the 1950s. She was determined to make a name for herself in NYC. She wore fine mink and fine kimonos for seeking attention. She was a very aggressive and brave woman. Now and then, artwork is an investment of the wealthy. She was successful in the art industry because she was very good at marketing, although she had numerous ideas plagiarized by other artists. Perhaps Yoko Ono imitated Yayoi Kusama's strategy. Kusama said that she and Cornell were in a non-sex dating relationship, but all of the Kusama that Cornell had painted her naked. Cornell's mother throwing a bucket of water at her was a terrible act. Over the years, she has been recognized on the cutting edge of art in NYC and London, and around the world. So it doesn't matter if she doesn't get recognized by her hometown, her rural Japanese city of Nagano, which has abandoned and insulted her.

A remarkable, provocative, innovative artist in canvas, art installations, and even performance art protests. Decades ahead of her time, she fought hard her whole life against the establishment but found her ideas constantly stolen and capitalized on by men. Even when hospitalized for her obsessive compulsions, she was nonetheless prolifically productive. Her mirrored rooms and *-covered furniture are the perfect fodder for social media, and she finally got the recognition she deserved when almost 60 - her works and installations now garner millions. This documentary is well researched and illustrated by contemporary footage.

I love Kusama's work, but didn't have high expectations of this documentary beyond being informative. I very pleasantly surprised how good it was. Kusama's story is very touching as she struggles to make it as an artist in the male-dominated art world, whilst battling her own interior demons. This documentary presents her story in an engaging way and rightfully celebrates one of the biggest contemporary female artists to date.

Yayoi Kusama is without question an utterly fascinating character. I am happy that she finally gained recognition for her life-long, singleminded dedication to art, even after so many rejections and shunnings (and pilfering of ideas by artists!) by people in both the US and the Japanese art worlds. I suspect that there are many other people like her who were not strong enough to continue on in the face of so much adversity, so she should be applauded as a human being as well as an artist. That said, I think that it is pretty clear that her late recognition is a part of the unfortunate and relatively recent phenomenon of the hyper-commodification of art, with collectors and gallerists and curators all out on the hunt for artists whom they can champion so that they (the hustlers) can get rich quick, along with their clients. The completely insane prices commanded for some artists´ works (including, now, Kusama´s) while most artists starve as they await to be (in most cases never) discovered is a result of a massive quantity of wealth concentrated in the hands of a few powerbrokers who trade art in the manner of stocks and bonds. In recent decades, such persons, and their agents, have come to wield enormous power in the art world. The entire system has become corrupt as a result. Now we have con artists posing as not only art critics and art dealers, but artists as well! Many films have dealt specifically with this new development, of collectors buying art in order to flip it for profit, so if you are interested in that topic, I recommend that you watch some of those films. I have created a list here at imdb, but it appears that they will not include a link within the text of this review.

I wish I saw this 2018 documentary before I saw Yayoi Kusama's wondrously expansive exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden last year because it would've given me a deeper appreciation of the genesis of her art and how she views the enveloping scope of nature, something she realized she shared with Georgia O'Keefe. As seen through her unique eye-popping pieces, Kusama's colorful expressiveness is meticulously hypnotic, and filmmaker Heather Lenz does a remarkably thorough job tracking the now-93-year-old artist's relentless tenacity in light of the racism and sexism she faced over the decades in getting her art seen.

Documentaries are not easily found for artists. I am an avid Yayoi Kusama fan. When I heard there was a movie being made I couldn't wait for it to come out. I went to the premiere and loved it. I smiled with delight and excitement throughout the entire movie. I purchased the DVD because I had to own it. This movie did not disappoint. I have watched it 3 times now. If you want to learn more about Yayoi Kusama, watch this documentary. If you want to learn and be introduced to an incredible living artist, watch this documentary. If you want to learn about art, see this documentary. If you support women and their plight to be noticed, watch this documentary. I loved it. I highly recommend it. Heather Lenz did a wonderful job showing us who Yayoi Kusama is, what her art is about and why she is such an important living artist in our lifetime.

I had heard of Kusama, but did not realize her contributions to the art world. She is truly a hero and was ahead of her time.