Born in Nagano Prefecture
Avant-garde Sculptor, painter and novelist

Started to paint using polka dots and nets as motifs at around age ten ,and created fantastic paintings in watercolors, pastels and oils.

Went to the United States in 1957. Showed large paintings, soft sculptures, and environmental sculptures using mirrors and electric lights. In the latter 1960s, staged many happenings such as body painting festivals, fashion shows and anti-war demonstrations. Launched media-related activities such as film production and newspaper publication. In 1968, the film “Kusama’s Self-Obliteration” which Kusama produced and starred in won a prize at the Fourth International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium and the second prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Held exhibitions and staged happenings also in various countries in Europe.

Returned to Japan in 1973. While continuing to produce and show art works, Kusama issued a number of novels and anthologies. In 1983, the novel “The Hustlers Grotto of Christopher Street” won the Tenth Literary Award for New Writers from the monthly magazine Yasei Jidai.

In 1986, held solo exhibitions at the Musee Municipal, Dole and the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Calais, France, in 1989, solo exhibitions at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England. In 1993, participated in the 45th Venice Biennale.

Began to create open-air sculptures in 1994. Produced open-air pieces for the Fukuoka Kenko Center, the Fukuoka Municipal Museum of Art, the Bunka-mura on Benesse Island of Naoshima, Kirishima Open-Air Museum and Matsumoto City Museum of Art, and a mural for the hallway at subway station in Lisbon.

Began to show works mainly at galleries in New York in 1996. A solo show held in New York in the same year won the Best Art Gallery Show’s first place from International Association of Art Critics.

From1998 to 1999, a major retrospective of Kusama’s works which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art traveled to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Walker Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

In 2000, Kusama won The Education Minister’s Art Encouragement Prize and Foreign-Minister’s Commendations. Her solo exhibition that started at Le Consortium in France in the same year traveled to Maison de la culture du Japon, Paris, KUNSTHALLEN BRANDTS ÆDEFABRIK, Denmark, Le Abattoirs, Toulouse, KUNSTHALLE Wien, Art Sonje Center, Seoul.

Received the Asahi Prize in 2001.
Received Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2003
Received The Praemium Imperiale from The Japan Art Association in Painting in 2006

Kusama participates in various activities in other than art, such as photographic collaboration with photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, an appearance in the film “Topaz” written and directed by writer Ryu Murakami, and collaboration with musician Peter Gabriel and fashion designer Issey Miyake.