Yayoi Kusama Giappone - XLV Biennale di Venezia (Venezia, 1993)

Beyound "Obsession"/ Kusama opens a shining door to the 21st Century Yayoi Kusama I have been creating artistic forms till this day as a means to explore the proof of my living and overcome my mental illness. I have tried, ahead of others, every possible way to create art throughout my life, simply because I always had a burning desire to weigh life and death, measure the unknown brightness of and the prospect for the future, and come as near them as possible. In today’s world, the darkness of the end of the century and “retrospect” are given much emphasis and glorified. Now I want to conquer and sever myself from the mental illness that has plagued me all through my life. I want to obliterate and efface the gloom of the end of the century and open a shining door to the 21st Century with my own hand, hoping for the hymn of ever-shining life to continue beyond the quietude of death. I want to overcome, with the force of my art, obsessions that have haunted me all the time and mental illness inherent in human beings. As an artist who has been trying to explore life and death, I want to find out what under­lie people and the times, so as to prophesy and show the future with my art. I wish to continue my struggle against the expectation of death that is to come, while sticking steadfastly to the origin of creation. The 21 st Century will be chaotic amid ever­­advancing high technology and information industry, where many young people will be losing sight of humanity and their “self”. We will be witnessing, around us, increased lack of humanity and artistic creativity as well as poverty of mind here in Japan which is now an economic superpower. The world is contaminated with nuclear power, wars and violence. I wish to leave be­hind the evidence for the future that we did our utmost as artists to shine in this polluted world. With the artistic process which I have staked my life on, I want to reach beyond life and death as a “thinker” transcending the realm of artist. It is a praise for ever-shining life. It is a perpetual sense of awe for great humanity. Human beings are, by no means, mere dots like trifling worms even against the back­ground of enormous and eternal universe. Dots that shined have become enmeshed one by one and evolved into interminable net. Through self-obliteration of one polka dot which is me, my soul returns forever to the universe, via transmigration, as one of the interminable polka dots. Death is negative and life is positive. “Infinity Net” embodies negative and positive, which has been one of my artistic themes. I am gradually moving toward the end of my life as a human being. I spend everyday with a strong wish to come closer, step by step and through my art, to the soul burning flashes. In the previous history, the end of the century was always dark and filled with mental ill­ness, grotesqueness and fear of uncertainty. But that has all changed now. With our inner glowing energy that captures the soul burning flashes, let us open a shin­ing door to the new age, the 21 st Century. Overcoming diseases of humankind, wars, decadence and violence, and holding in my hand the immortal flashes of soul that con­tinue to shine even after death, I wish to confront all things, whatever they may be, as a thinker.

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