Et sic in infinitum

Bob Haak
Thames and Hudson

Mika Yoshitake
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

This book explores Yayoi Kusama's best-known and most spectacular series--the Infinity Mirror Rooms--and its influence on the course of contemporary art over the past 50 years. World-renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has worked in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, performance art, and installation. Kusama's iconic Infinity Mirror Rooms, which originated with Phalli's Field in 1965, situate viewers in kaleidoscopic spaces filled with multicolored lights or whimsical forms. These mirror-lined installations reflect endlessly, distorting rooms to project the illusion of infinite space. Over the years, the works have come to symbolize different modalities within the various contexts they have inhabited, from Kusama's self-obliteration in the Vietnam War era to her more harmonious aspirations in the present. By examining her early unsettling installations alongside her more recent ethereal atmospheres, this volume aims to historicize the body of work amidst the resurgence of experiential practices within the global landscape of contemporary art. Generously illustrated, this publication invites readers to examine the series' impact over the course of the artist's career. Accompanying essays, an interview with the artist, and a scholarly chronology round out the book.

Published in association with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Frances Morris
Tate Publishing

Accompanying the first major American retrospective exhibition of Yayoi Kusama's work, and an exhibition at Tate Modern in London, this volume offers a definitive monograph on Japan's most famous living artist. It features a wealth of works from all periods in Kusama's career, as well as essays by various international curators and critics, discussing Kusama's years in New York, her career after her return to Japan, her installation works and the psychoanalytic import of her art. Kusama's originality, innovation and sheer drive to make art have propelled her through a career that has spanned six decades, encompassing painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, collage, film and video, performance, installation and even product design. From the late 1950s to the early 1970s Kusama lived in New York, and was at the forefront of many artistic innovations in the city, becoming close with artists such as Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell and Claes Oldenburg, and influencing many others along the way. It was in these years that Kusama was dubbed "the Polka Dot Princess," for her obsessive use of polka dots in installations and happenings. Returning to Japan in her forties, she rebuilt her career, waiting years for the international recognition that she has recently achieved. Now in her ninth decade, Kusama's imagination remains fertile and productive, as she continues to devise dazzling installations and relentlessly hand-paints her ongoing series of minutely detailed figurative fantasy paintings.
Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929. She left Japan for New York at the age of 28, following a correspondence with Georgia O'Keeffe, and was soon participating in the city's 1960s wave of happenings and avant-garde activities. In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan and began writing surrealistic novels and poetry. On November 12, 2008, Christie's New York sold a work by her for $5.1 million, a record for a living female artist.

Luigi D'Eramo
BonapArte editrice

Carlo L. Ragghianti
Giulio Einaudi Editore

AA.VV.
Shiseido Co.

Terisio Pignatti
La Nuova Italia

Martina Corgnati
Mazzotta

Il volume è il catalogo della mostra di Milano (Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, 1 marzo - 22 aprile 2001)

Sandy Grant, Elinah Grant
Phuthadikobo Museum

The traditional art of decorating the home has been practised in Southern Africa for centuries although much of this creative art form is unknown to the rest of the world. In 1987, the chance discovery of an exceptionally decorated home convinced Sandy and Elinah Grant that they had to find out if more decorated homes were to be found elsewhere. The result of their seven year quest is this throughly researched book. It provides a visual record of many of Botswana's wonderfully decorated homes and shows them in their proper setting, the magnificent traditional towns and villages. The book describes the changing nature of settlement and home. It describes the characteristics of traditional decoration, introduces the reader to many of the outstanding women who still practice this remarkable vernacular art form, describes the materials and colours they use and the techniques they employ. The book should help to prompt widespread recognition of Botswana's rich cultural heritage.

Luciano Caramel, Walter Valentini
Casa Editrice Italica

Amalia Mezzetti
Cassa di risparmio di Ferrara