Yayoi Kusama was the avant-garde radical who became a pop icon

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Yayoi Kusama died of multiple organ failure at a Tokyo hospital on Aug 14.

Yayoi Kusama died of multiple organ failure at a Tokyo hospital on Aug 14.

PHOTO: EPA

Blake Gopnik

  • Yayoi Kusama was a pioneering avant-garde artist who gained early fame in the 1960s for provocative feminist works and immersive Infinity Nets.
  • She later retreated due to mental illness but reemerged in the late 1980s, with her condition becoming central to her public image and appeal.
  • Her Infinity Rooms and collaborations with popular brands made her a global pop icon, blending high art with mass culture successfully.

AI generated

NEW YORK – On June 4, 1962, the Green Gallery in New York opened the most prophetic of group shows.

It gave Andy Warhol his earliest exposure as a pop artist, with an image of dollar bills that was his first silk-screened work.

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