Marc Jacobs
Born	(1963-04-09) April 9, 1963 (age 49) New York City, New York, U.S.
Residence	Paris, France
Nationality	American
Education	High School of Art and Design Parsons The New School for Design
Occupation	Fashion designer
Awards	Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Labels	Marc Jacobs Marc by Marc Jacobs Louis Vuitton

Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963) is an American fashion designer. He is the head designer for Marc Jacobs, as well as Marc by Marc Jacobs,^[1] a diffusion line, with more than 200 retail stores in 80 countries.^[2] He has been the creative director of the French design house Louis Vuitton since 1997. Jacobs is on Time Magazine's "2010 Time 100" list of the 100 most influential people in the world,^[3] and ranked 12th on Out Magazine's 2011 list of "50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America".^[4]

Early life and education[link]

Marc Jacobs was born to a non-observant Jewish family in New York City. When he was seven, his father, an agent at the William Morris agency, died. His mother, who remarried three times, , was “mentally ill” and “didn’t really take care of her kids”, according to Jacobs.^[5] As a teenager, he went to live with his paternal grandmother on the Upper West Side, in an apartment in the Majestic on Central Park West.^[6]

He graduated from the High School of Art and Design in 1981 and studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York. During his time at Parsons, Jacobs won the Perry Ellis Gold Thimble Award in 1984, and in the same year was also awarded the Chester Weinberg Gold Thimble Award and the Design Student of the Year Award.^[7]

Career[link]

At age fifteen, Jacobs worked as a stockboy at Charivari, a now-defunct avant-garde clothing boutique in New York City.^[8] While still at Parsons, Jacobs designed and sold his first line of hand-knit sweaters. He also designed his first collection for Reuben Thomas, Inc., under the Sketchbook label.

With Robert Duffy, Jacobs' creative collaborator, and business partner since the mid-1980s, he formed Jacobs Duffy Designs Inc., which continues to this day. In a 2008 interview for 032c, Duffy indicated that he remains Jacobs's best friend and confidant.^[9]

In 1986, backed by Onward Kashiyama USA, Inc., Jacobs designed his first collection bearing the Marc Jacobs label. In 1987, Jacobs was the youngest designer to have ever been awarded the fashion industry's highest tribute, the Council of Fashion Designers of America's Perry Ellis Award for "New Fashion Talent".^[10]

In 1988, Jacobs and Duffy joined the women's design unit of Perry Ellis after its founder, Perry Ellis, had died as vice president and president, respectively. In addition, Jacobs oversaw the design of the various women's licensees. In 1992, the Council of Fashion Designers of America awarded Jacobs with The Women's Designer of the Year Award. In the same year, he designed a "grunge" collection for Perry Ellis, leading to his dismissal.^[11]

In the fall of 1993, Jacobs Duffy Designs Inc. launched their own licensing and design company: Marc Jacobs International Company, L.P.^[10]

In 1994, Jacobs produced his first full collection of menswear.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997, Jacobs was appointed Louis Vuitton's creative director, where he created the company's first ready-to-wear clothing line.^[11] Jacobs has collaborated with many popular artists for his Louis Vuitton collections, including Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami and most recently American artist Richard Prince and rapper Kanye West,^[12]

In the spring of 2001, Jacobs introduced his secondary line, Marc by Marc Jacobs.^[8] In 2006, Jacobs started a new line of body-splash fragrances in affordable huge ten-ounce bottles which are distributed by Coty. First only being sold in perfume boutiques, they have become more and more popular during the recent years.

In 2007 filmmaker Loïc Prigent released a documentary film about Jacobs entitled Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton.^[13]

In February 2008, Jacobs was accused of plagiarizing a scarf design created in the 1950s by Swedish designer Gösta Olofsson.^[14] Jacobs settled the matter by offering monetary compensation to Olofsson’s son.^[15]

In 2009, Jacobs launched a shirt, sold at his stores,^[16] demanding the legalization of gay marriage.

In May 2009, Jacobs co-hosted, with fashion model Kate Moss, a "model and muse"-themed gala for the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute.

In February 2010, Jacobs sued Ed Hardy for infringing on the designs of one of his embroidered handbags.^[17]

In the course of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin in July 2011 Jacobs was the patron of the young talent award “Designer for Tomorrow by Peek & Cloppenburg”. The five finalists were selected by Jacob and the juryboard and received a personal coaching by Jacobs. The juryboard and Jacobs appointed the winner of 2011 during the DfT award show.^{[citation needed]}

In August 2011, it was reported that Jacobs may succeed John Galliano as creative director of Christian Dior.^[18]

Jacobs is a prominent fixture in the New York City celebrity scene, having become something of a celebrity himself. The audience for his fashion shows typically includes celebrities like Kim Gordon and Vincent Gallo.^[19] Most of his collections make references to the fashions of past decades from the 1940s to the 1980s. Disputing the claim by the designer Oscar de la Renta that Jacobs is a mere copyist, Guy Trebay, a critic for The New York Times, has written "unlike the many brand-name designers who promote the illusion that their output results from a single prodigious creativity, Mr. Jacobs makes no pretense that fashion emerges full blown from the head of one solitary genius".^[20] Explaining his clothes, Jacobs has said "what I prefer is that even if someone feels hedonistic, they don't look it. Curiosity about sex is much more interesting to me than domination. ... My clothes are not hot. Never. Never."^[6]

Awards[link]

Council of Fashion Designers:

• Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award, 2011
• Womenswear Designer of the Year, 2010
• Accessory Designer of the Year, 2005
• Accessory Designer of the Year, 2003
• Menswear Designer of the Year, 2002
• Accessory Designer of the Year, 1999
• Accessory Designer of the Year, 1998
• Womenswear Designer of the Year, 1997
• Womenswear Designer of the Year, 1992

Eponymous company[link]

In summer 2011, there were 239 Marc Jacobs retail stores in 60 countries.^[21] Some of them present only a certain portion of the company's several brands (The Marc Jacobs Collection, Marc by Marc Jacobs, and Little Marc, a children's line). The various ready-to-wear and accessory collections are also widely available at department stores around the globe.

As of May 2008, Marc Jacobs boutiques were located in dozens of cities throughout the world.

Personal life[link]

Jacobs, who is openly gay was in a four-year relationship with salesman Jason Preston and was in a relationship with advertising executive Lorenzo Martone. In March 2009, Women's Wear Daily reported that the pair was engaged after a year of dating.^[22] Several reports that they got married were later denied.^[23] On July 24, 2010, Martone announced via Twitter that he and Jacobs had not been together for two months.^[24]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Fashion portal

• List of fashion designers
• List of people from New York City

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Grigoriadis, Vanessa (November 27, 2008). "The Deep Shallowness of Marc Jacobs". Rolling Stone. http://www.vanessagrigoriadis.com/jacobs.html. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marc Jacobs

• marcjacobs.com, company's official website
• Marc Jacobs on Fashion Net
• Marc Jacobs - designer profile at ChoosyStyle
• Marc Jacobs launches E-commerce Playhouse
• DfT hosted by Marc Jacobs

Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生 or 草間 弥生, Kusama Yayoi^?, born March 22, 1929) is a Japanese artist and writer. Throughout her career she has worked in a wide variety of mediums, including painting, collage, sculpture, performance art and environmental installations, most of which exhibit her thematic interest in psychedelic colors, repetition and pattern. A precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements, Kusama influenced contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. ^[1] Although largely forgotten after departing the New York art scene in the early 1970s, Kusama is now acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, and an important voice of the avant-garde.

Born in Matsumoto, Nagano into an upper middle class family of seedling merchants^[2], Kusama started creating art at an early age, going on to study Nihonga painting in Kyoto in 1948. Frustrated with this distinctly Japanese style, she became interested in the European and American avant-garde, staging several solo exhibitions of her paintings in Matsumoto and Tokyo during the 1950s. In 1957 she moved to the United States, settling down in New York City where she produced a series of paintings influenced by the abstract expressionist movement. Switching to sculpture and installation as her primary mediums, Kusama became a fixture of the New York avant-garde, having her works exhibited alongside the likes of Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and George Segal during the early 1960s, where she became associated with the pop art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, Kusama came to public attention after she organised a series of Body Festivals in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots.

In 1973, Kusama moved back to her native Japan, where she found the art scene far more conservative than that in New York. Becoming an art dealer, her business folded after several years, and after experiencing psychiatric problems, in 1977 she voluntarily admitted herself to a hospital, where she has spent the rest of her life. From here, she continued to produce artworks in a variety of mediums, as well as launching a literary career by publishing several novels, a poetry collection and an autobiography.

Kusama's work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. Kusama is also a published novelist and poet, and has created notable work in film and fashion design. Major retrospectives of her work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art and Tate Modern, whilst in 2008 Christies New York sold a work by her for $5.1 million, a record for a living female artist.^[3]

Biography[link]

Early life: 1929–1949[link]

Born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture as the fourth child in a prosperous and conservative family,^[4] whose wealth was derived from the management of wholesale seed nurseries,^[5] Kusama has experienced hallucinations and severe obsessive thoughts since childhood, often of a suicidal nature. She claims that as a small child she suffered severe physical abuse by her mother.^[6] In 1948, she left home to enter senior class at Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts, where she studied Nihonga painting, a rigorous formal style developed during the Meiji period; she graduated the following year.^[7] She hated the rigidities of the master-disciple system where students were supposed to imbibe tradition through the sensei. “When I think of my life in Kyoto,” she is quoted, “I feel like vomiting.”^[8]

Early success in Japan: 1950–1956[link]

By 1950, Kusama was depicting abstracted natural forms in watercolor, gouache and oil, primarily on paper. She began covering surfaces (walls, floors, canvases, and later, household objects and naked assistants) with the polka dots that would become a trademark of her work. The vast fields of polka dots, or "infinity nets," as she called them, were taken directly from her hallucinations. The earliest recorded work in which she incorporated these dots was a drawing in 1939 at age 10, in which the image of a Japanese woman in a kimono, presumed to be the artist's mother, is covered and obliterated by spots.^[9] Her first series of large-scale, sometimes more than 30ft-long canvas paintings,^[10] Infinity Nets, were entirely covered in a sequence of nets and dots that alluded to hallucinatory visions. In the early 1960s Kusama began to cover items such as ladders, shoes and chairs with white phallic protrusions.^[11] Since 1963, Kusama has continued her series of Mirror/Infinity rooms. In these complex installations, purpose-built rooms lined with mirrored glass contain scores of neon coloured balls, hanging at various heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a small platform, light is repeatedly reflected off the mirrored surfaces to create the illusion of a never-ending space.^[12]

New York City: 1957–1972[link]

After living in Tokyo and France, Kusama left Japan at the age of 27 for New York City, following correspondence with Georgia O'Keeffe in which she became interested in joining the limelight in the city.^[13] During her time in the U.S., she quickly established her reputation as a leader in the avant-garde movement. In 1961 she moved her studio into the same building as Donald Judd and sculptor Eva Hesse; Hesse became a close friend. During the following years, she was enormously productive, and by 1966, she was experimenting with room-size, freestanding installations that incorporated mirrors, lights, and piped-in music. She counted Judd and Joseph Cornell among her friends and supporters. However, she did not profit financially from her work. Around this time, Kusama was hospitalised regularly from overwork, and O’Keeffe convinced her own dealer Edith Herbert to purchase several works in order to help Kusama stave off financial hardship.^[14]

Kusama organized outlandish happenings in conspicuous spots like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, often involving nudity and designed to protest the Vietnam War. In one, she wrote an open letter to Richard Nixon offering to have sex with him if he would stop the Vietnam war.^[15] Between 1967 and 1969 she concentrated on performances held with the maximum publicity, usually involving Kusama painting polka dots on her naked performers, as in the Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at the MOMA (1969), which took place at the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art.^[16] In 1968, Kusama presided over the happening Homosexual Wedding at the Church of Self-obliteration in 33 Walker Street in New York, and performed alongside Fleetwood Mac and Country Joe and the Fish at the Fillmore East, New York City.^[17]

In 1966, Kusama first participated in the 33rd Venice Biennale. Her Narcissus Garden comprised hundreds of mirrored spheres outdoors in what she called a 'kinetic carpet'. As soon as the piece was installed on a lawn outside the Italian pavilion, Kusama, dressed in a golden kimono,^[18] began selling each individual sphere for 1,200 lire ($2), until the Biennale organisers put an end to her enterprise. Perhaps one of Kusama's most notorious works, Narcissus Garden was as much about the promotion of the artist through the media as it was an opportunity to offer a critique of the mechanisation and commodification of the art market. Various versions of Narcissus Garden have been presented worldwide venues including Le Consortium, Dijon, 2000; Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2003; as part of the Whitney Biennial in Central Park, New York in 2004; and at the Jardin de Tuileries in Paris, 2010.^[19]

During her time in New York, Kusama had a decade-long sexless relationship with the American artist Joseph Cornell, Kusama's only recorded romantic attachment to date.

Return to Japan: 1973–present[link]

Yayoi Kusama's Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees at the Singapore Biennale 2006 on Orchard Road, Singapore.

In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan in ill health, where she began writing shockingly visceral and surrealistic novels, short stories, and poetry. Kusama checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill and eventually took up permanent residence. She has been living at the hospital since, by choice. Her studio, where she has continued to produce work since the mid-1970s, is a short distance from the hospital in Shinjuku, Tokyo.^[20] Kusama is often quoted as saying: "If it were not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago."^[21]

Yayoi Kusama said about her 1954 painting titled Flower (D.S.P.S),

One day I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness. As I realized it was actually happening and not just in my imagination, I was frightened. I knew I had to run away lest I should be deprived of my life by the spell of the red flowers. I ran desperately up the stairs. The steps below me began to fall apart and I fell down the stairs straining my ankle.^{[citation needed]}

Another quote of hers:

"...a polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement... Polka dots are a way to infinity."^[22]

Her organically abstract paintings of one or two colors (the Infinity Nets series), which she began upon arriving in New York, garnered comparisons to the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman. When she left New York she was practically forgotten as an artist until the late 1980s and 1990s, when a number of retrospectives revived international interest.^[23] Following the success of the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993 – a dazzling mirrored room filled with small pumpkin sculptures in which she resided in color-coordinated magician's attire – Kusama went on to produce a huge, yellow pumpkin sculpture covered with an optical pattern of black spots. The pumpkin came to represent for her a kind of alter-ego or self-portrait.^[24] Kusama's later installation I'm Here, but Nothing, (2000–2008) is a simply furnished room consisting of table and chairs, place settings and bottles, armchairs and rugs, however its walls are tattooed with hundreds of fluorescent polka dots glowing in the UV light. The result is an endless infinite space where the self and everything in the room is obliterated.^[25] The multi-part floating work Guidepost to the New Space, a series of rounded “humps” in fire-engine red with white polka dots, was displayed in Pandanus Lake

Works[link]

Writing[link]

In 1977, Kusama published a book of poems and paintings entitled 7. One year later, her first novel Manhattan Suicide Addict appeared. Between 1983 and 1990, she finished the novels The Hustler’s Grotto of Christopher Street (1983), The Burning of St Mark’s Church (1985), Between Heaven and Earth (1988), Woodstock Phallus Cutter (1988), Aching Chandelier (1989), Double Suicide at Sakuragazuka (1989), and Angels in Cape Cod (1990), alongside several issues of the magazine S&M Sniper in collaboration with photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.^[26]

Film[link]

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 Maryland Film Festival and the second prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. In 1991, Kusama starred in the film Tokyo Decadence, written and directed by Ryu Murakami, and in 1993, she collaborates with British musician Peter Gabriel on an installation in Yokohama.^[27]

Red Pumpkin (2006), Naoshima

Fashion[link]

In 1968, Kusama established Kusama Fashion Company Ltd., and began selling avantgarde fashion in the "Kusama Corner" at Bloomingdales.^[28] In 2009, Kusama designed a handbag-shaped cell phone called C-top, and My Doggie Ring-Ring, an accompanying dog-shaped holder, for a limited edition of Japan’s mobile communication giant KDDI Corporation’s “iida“ brand.^[29] In 2011, Kusama created artwork for six limited-edition lipglosses from Lancôme.^[30] That same year, she worked with Marc Jacobs (who visited her studio in Japan in 2006) on a line of Louis Vuitton products, including leather goods, ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes, watches, and jewelry.^[31]

Commissions[link]

Narcissus Garden (2009), Instituto Inhotim

To date, Kusama has completed several major outdoor sculptural commissions, mostly in the form of brightly hued monstrous plants and flowers, for public and private institutions including Pumpkin (1994) for the Fukuoka Municipal Museum of Art; The Visionary Flowers (2002) for the Matsumoto City Museum of Art; Tsumari in Bloom (2003) for Matsudai Station, Niigata; Tulipes de Shangri-La (2003) for Euralille in Lille, France; Pumpkin (2006) at Bunka-mura on Benesse Island of Naoshima; Hello, Anyang with Love (2007) for Pyeonghwa Park, Anyang; and The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007) for the Beverly Gardens Park in Los Angeles.^[32] In 1998, she realized a mural for the hallway of Gare do Oriente subway station in Lisbon. Alongside these monumental works, she has produced smaller scale outdoor pieces including Key-Chan and Ryu-Chan, a pair of dotted dogs. All the outdoor works are cast in highly durable fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then painted in urethane to glossy perfection.^[33]

In 2010, Kusama designed a Town Sneaker-model bus, which she titled Mizutama Ranbu (Wild Polka Dot Dance) and whose route travels through her home town of Matsumoto.^[34] In 2011, she was commissioned to design the front cover of millions of pocket London Underground maps; the result is entitled Polka Dots Festival in London (2011).

Exhibitions[link]

In 1959, Kusama had her first solo exhibition in New York at the Brata Gallery, an artist's co-op. She showed a series of white net paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed by Donald Judd (both Judd and Frank Stella then acquired paintings from the show).^[35] Kusama has since exhibited work with, among others, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns. In 1962, she was the only female artist to take part in the widely acclaimed 'Nul' (Zero) international group exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. She represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and in 1998–1999 a major retrospective exhibition of her work toured the U.S. and Japan. Major exhibitions of her work include Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Fukuoka, Japan (1987); Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York (1989); "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969", LACMA, 1998 (traveling to Museum of Modern Art, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), 1998–99; Le Consortium, Dijon, 2000 (traveled to Maison de la Culture du Japon, Paris; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; and Artsonje Center, Seoul, 2001–2003); "KUSAMATRIX", Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2004 (traveling to Art Park Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo Art Park, Hokkaido); "Eternity – Modernity", National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (touring Japan), 2004–2005; and "The Mirrored Years", Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2008 (traveling to Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2009). In August 2010, Kusama exhibited at the Aichi Triennale 2010 [1], Nagoya. Her works are exhibited inside the Aichi Arts Center, out of the center and Toyota car polka dot project. As of July 2011, several of Kusama's most intimate works are on display at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain.

As part of FINA Festival 2007, Kusama created Guidepost to the New Space, a vibrant outdoor installation for Birrarung Marr beside the Yarra River in Melbourne. In 2009, the Guideposts were re-installed at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, this time displayed as floating “humps” on a lake.^[36]

An exhibition of Kusama'a work opened at the Tate Modern in London on February 9, 2012.^[37] Described as 'akin to being suspended in a beautiful cosmos gazing at infinite worlds, or like a tiny dot of fluoresecent plankton in an ocean of glowing microscopic life'^[38], the exhibition features work from Kusama's entire career.

Collections[link]

Kusama's work is in the collections of leading museums throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Recognition[link]

Yayoi Kusama's retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern, London in early 2012.

Kusama has received numerous awards, including the Asahi Prize (2001); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003); and the National Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Order of the Rising Sun (2006). In October 2006, Yayoi Kusama became the first Japanese woman to receive the Praemium Imperiale, one of Japan’s most prestigious prizes for internationally recognized artists.^[39]

Art market[link]

Kusama's work has performed strongly at auction: top prices for her work are for paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s. As of 2012, her work has the highest turnover of any living woman artist.^[40] In November 2008, Christie’s New York sold a 1959 white "Infinity Net" painting formerly owned by Donald Judd^[41], No. 2, for $5,100,000, then a record for a living female artist.^[42]

Since 2007, Kusama is represented by Gagosian Gallery , Victoria Miro Gallery and Ota Fine Arts; before moving to Gagosian, she had been with Robert Miller Gallery, New York.^[43]

In popular culture[link]

• Superchunk, an American indie band, included a song called "Art Class (Song for Yayoi Kusama)" on its Here's to Shutting Up album.

• Yoko Ono cites Kusama as an influence.

• The recently built Matsumoto Performing Art Center in her hometown Matsumoto, designed by Toyo Ito, has an entirely dotted façade, likely influenced by her works.^{[original research?]}

• She is mentioned in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song Hot Topic.

Bibliography[link]

• Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiogrphy of Yayoi Kusama, 2011, English, Translated by Ralph McCarthy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., ISBN 978-0-226-46498-5.

• Jo Applin, "Resisting Infinity", Yayoi Kusama, exch. cat., Victoria Miro Gallery, London, 2008

• Izumi Nakajima, "Yayoi Kusama between Abstraction and Pathology". In: Griselda Pollock (ed.), Psychoanalysis and the Image. London: Routledge, 2006.

• "Collection of Print Works: Yayoi Kusama, 1974–2004", Japanese/English, Abe Corporation, Tokyo Japan.

• "Eternity-Modernity: Yayoi Kusama", 2005, English/Japanese, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha Ltd, Tokyo, Japan.

• "Manhattan Suicide Addict: Yayoi Kusama", 2005, French, Les Presses du Reel, Dijon, France.

• "Kusamatrix", 2004, English/Japanese, Kadokawa Shoten, Tokyo.

• "Yayoi Kusama Furniture by graf: decorative mode no.3", 2003, Seigensha Art Publishing, Inc, Kyoto, Japan.

• "Yayoi Kusama", 2003, German, Kunsthalle wien, Vienna, Austria.

• "Infinity Nets", 2002, Japanese, Sakuhinsha, Tokyo, Japan.

• "Yayoi Kusama", 2001, French, Les Press du Reel Janvier, Dijon, France.

• "Yayoi Kusama", 2000, English, Phaidon Press Ltd, London, UK.

• "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968", Los Angeles County Museum of Art 1998, Lynn Zelevansky, Laura Hoptman, Yayoi Kusama

• "Violet Obsession", 1998, English, Wandering Mind Books, Berkeley, California, U.S.A.

• "Hustlers Grotto", 1998, English, Wandering Mind Books, Berkeley, California, U.S.A.

• J. F. Rodenbeck, "Yayoi Kusama: Surface, Stitch, Skin". In: Catherine de Zegher (ed.), Inside the Visible. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston & MIT Press, 1996.

• "Yayoi Kusama Print Works", 1992, Abe Corporation, Tokyo, Japan.

• "Yayoi Kusama: Driving Image", 1986, Parco shuppan, Tokyo, Japan.

• "A Book of Poems and Paintings", 1977, Japan Edition Art, Tokyo, Japan.

• Judy B. Cutler, "Narcissus, Narcosis, Neurosis: The Visions of Yayoi Kusama". In: Hirsh, Jennie, and Wallace, Isabelle D., eds. Contemporary Art and Classical Myth. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yayoi Kusama

• Official Site
• Kusama products at Tate Online Shop
• Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968, Museum of Modern Art
• Gallerist
• Yayoi Kusama Painting|Biography, and Historical Information
• Kusama Documentary
• Video promoting Walking In My Mind at the Hayward Gallery
• Yayoi Kusama – Mirrored Years MCA Sydney, Australia
• Portrait of Yayoi Kusama
• Phoenix Art Museum online
• 2007 Interview at ArtReview.com
• [2]

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Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami at the Palace of Versailles 2010
Birth name	Takashi Murakami
Born	February 1, 1962 Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Field	Contemporary art
Movement	Superflat

Takashi Murakami (村上 隆, Murakami Takashi^?, born in Tokyo) is an internationally prolific contemporary Japanese artist. He works in fine arts media—such as painting and sculpture—as well as what is conventionally considered commercial media —fashion, merchandise, and animation— and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts. He coined the term superflat, which describes both the aesthetic characteristics of the Japanese artistic tradition and the nature of post-war Japanese culture and society. Superflat is also used as a moniker to describe Murakami’s own artistic style and that of other Japanese artists he has influenced.^[1]

Murakami is the founder and President of Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., through which he manages the careers of several younger artists and organizes the biannual art fair GEISAI. ^[2]

Life and career[link]

Academic Background and Early Career[link]

Takashi Murakami was born and raised in Tokyo. From early on, he was an enthusiastic follower of animation and manga (Japanese comics), and aspired to one day work in the animation industry. He attended T.U.A Tokyo University of the Arts, originally seeking to acquire the drafting skills necessary to become an animator, but eventually majored in Nihonga, the ‘traditional’ style of Japanese painting that incorporates traditional Japanese artistic conventions, techniques and subjects. Though he would go on to earn a Ph.D. in Nihonga, he gradually became disillusioned with the field’s insular, highly political world and started to explore more contemporary artistic styles, mediums, and strategies.^[3]

Murakami was unsatisfied with the state of contemporary art in Japan, believing it to be “a deep appropriation of Western trends.” ^[4] Thus, much of his early work was done in the spirit of social criticism and satire. Efforts from this period include performance art (Osaka Mixer Project, 1992), parodies of the “message” art popular in Japan in the early 90’s, (DOBOZITE DOBOZITE OSHAMANBE, 1993), and conceptual works (e.g. Randoseru Project, 1991). He also began developing his own pop icon, “Mr. DOB,” which would later develop into a form of self-portraiture, the first of several endlessly morphing and recurring motifs seen throughout his work. Though he garnered attention, many of his early pieces were not initially well received in Japan.^[5]

New York[link]

In 1994, Murakami received a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council and participated in the PS1 International Studio Program in New York for a year. During his stay, he was exposed to and highly inspired by Western contemporary artists such as Anselm Kiefer and especially the simulationism of artists such as Jeff Koons. While in New York, he established a small studio, which, together with the Hiropon Factory in Japan, became the precursor to his company Kaikai Kiki. After returning to Japan, he would develop the core concepts behind his artistic practice and begin exhibiting regularly at major galleries and institutions across Europe and America. ^[6]

Strategic Approach[link]

Murakami has expressed since early on a frustration with the lack of a reliable and sustainable art market in post-war Japan. Largely for this reason, he formulated a strategy wherein he would first establish himself in the Western art world and then import himself back to Japan, building a new type of art market in the process.^[7] In order to create something rooted in his own Japanese culture and history but still fresh and valid internationally, he began searching for something that could be considered ‘uniquely Japanese.’ After concluding that elements of ‘high’ art were confounding at best, he began to focus on Japan’s ‘low’ culture, especially anime and manga, and the larger subculture of otaku. He felt that these had the potential to be the key elements for his work. His signature artistic style and motifs (cute/disturbing anime-esque characters rendered in bright colors, flat and highly glossy surfaces, life-size sculptures of anime figurines) derived from this strategic concept.^[8]

Superflat[link]

In 2000, Murakami published his “Superflat” theory in the catalogue for a group exhibition of the same name that he curated for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The theory posits that there is a legacy of flat, 2-dimensional imagery which has existed throughout Japanese art history and continues today in manga and anime. This style differentiates itself from the western approach in its emphasis on surface and use of flat planes of color. Superflat also served as a commentary on post-war Japanese society in which, Murakami argues, differences in social class and popular taste have ‘flattened,’ producing a culture with little distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’. The theory provided the contextual background for his work and he further elaborated on it with the subsequent exhibitions, “Coloriage” (2002, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris) and “Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture” (2005, Japan Society, New York). These exhibitions helped introduce Japan’s lesser-known creative culture overseas and such curatorial projects would become an integral part of Murakami’s multifaceted artistic practice.^[9]

In accordance with the Superflat concept, Murakami’s practice involves repackaging elements that are usually considered “low” or subcultural and presenting them in the “high-art” market. He then further flattens the playing field by repackaging his “high-art” works as merchandise, such as plush toys and T-shirts, making them available at more affordable prices.^[10]

Factory[link]

In 1996, Murakami launched the Hiropon Factory, his production workshop, in order to work on an increasingly larger scale and in a more diverse array of media. His model inherits the atelier system which has long existed in Japanese painting, printmaking and sculpture, and is common to anime and manga enterprises, such as Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. In 2001, Hiropon Factory was incorporated as Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.^[11]

Collaborations[link]

In 2002, at the invitation of designer Marc Jacobs, Murakami began his long-lasting collaboration with the fashion brand Louis Vuitton. He began by contributing artwork which was used in the design of a series of handbags. The series re-envisioned the fashion house’s signature monogram and was a huge commercial success. Though he had previously collaborated with fashion designers such as Issey Miyake Men by Naoki Takizawa, his work with Louis Vuitton won him widespread fame and notoriety as an artist who blurs the line between ‘high art’ and commercialism. It also elevated him to celebrity status in his home country of Japan.^[12]

In 2007, Murakami provided the cover artwork for rapper Kanye West’s Graduation album and directed an animated music video for West’s song Good Morning.

In both cases above, Murakami would later ‘re-appropriate’ these projects by incorporating imagery from such projects into his paintings and sculptures, further blurring the boundaries between art and commercial branding and even questioning the existence of such a boundary.

Asked by interviewer Magdalene Perez about straddling the line between art and commercial products, Murakami responded:

"I don’t think of it as straddling. I think of it as changing the line. What I’ve been talking about for years is how in Japan, that line is less defined. Both by the culture and by the post-War economic situation. Japanese people accept that art and commerce will be blended; and in fact, they are surprised by the rigid and pretentious Western hierarchy of ‘high art.’ In the West, it certainly is dangerous to blend the two because people will throw all sorts of stones. But that's okay—I’m ready with my hard hat." ^[13]

Murakami has also collaborated with a wide range of creators and industries in Japan, a prominent example being the image characters he created for the press relations campaign of the major urban real estate development Roppongi Hills.^[14]

In 2009 a Murakami sculpture collaboration with Pharrell Williams was revealed at Art Basel, which spoke to the metaphor of value and sold for a $2m.^[15]

Market Value[link]

In November, 2003, ArtNews reported Murakami's work as being among the most desired in the world. Hiropon, a life-sized satirical sculpture of an anime character with gigantic lactating breasts, sold for $427,500 at Christie's auction house in May, 2002. One year later a second sculpture, Miss Ko2, sold for $567,500. His work has continued to rise in value and in May 2008, "My Lonesome Cowboy" (1998), an anime-inspired sculpture of a masturbating boy, sold for $13.5 million at Sotheby's in 2008.

Current[link]

From 2007 to 2009, Murakami’s first retrospective ©Murakami traveled from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, and lastly the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain. The exhibition earned widespread attention for, among other things, including a fully functioning Louis Vuitton boutique as one of the exhibits.

In 2008, Murakami was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People", the only visual artist included.

Since 2010, Murakami has supported "CHAOS*LOUNGE"(ja:カオス*ラウンジ).^[16] ("CHAOS*LOUNGE" is one of modern art group in Japan.^[17] See also: Pixiv#Chaos Lounge controversy)^[18][19]

In September, 2010 Murakami became the third contemporary artist, and first Japanese, to exhibit his works at the Palace of Versailles in France, filling 15 rooms and the park with his sculptures, paintings, a decorative carpet, and lamps.^[20]

Artwork[link]

Murakami’s art encompasses a wide range of mediums and is generally described as superflat. His work has been noted for its use of color, incorporation of motifs from Japanese traditional and popular culture, flat/glossy surfaces, and content that could be described at once as “cute,” “psychedelic,” or “satirical”. Among his most famous recurring motifs are smiling flowers, iconic characters, mushrooms, skulls, Buddhist iconography, and the sexual complexes of otaku culture.

In addition to large paintings such as 727 (permanent collection Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Tan Tan Bo Puking - a.k.a. Gero Tan, he has also produced sculptures, balloons, ‘all-over’ wallpaper installations, animated works, prints, posters, and assorted merchandise.^[21]

On 21 June 2011, Google featured a doodle tagged as "First Day of Summer" which was created by Murakami. This was accompanied by a Winter Solstice doodle for the Southern Hemisphere.^[22]

Kaikai Kiki and Artist Management[link]

Murakami has incorporated his operations as Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. in Japan (2001), Kaikai Kiki New York, LLC in New York (2001), and Kaikai Kiki LA, LLC in Los Angeles (2010). Kaikai Kiki executes Murakami’s wide range of artistic endeavors and consists of both offices and production studios. In addition to handling the production and promotion of Murakami’s artwork and projects, the company manages the careers of select young artists, organizes international art projects, produces and promotes merchandise, and handles the organization and operation of the GEISAI art fair.

Having earned success and recognition internationally, Murakami has devoted himself to nurturing and supporting the careers of a younger generation of Japanese artists. Likening the operation to that of a record label, he offers both logistic support and practical career advice. Through this endeavor, he also seeks to build an original and sustainable art market in Japan.^[23]

In 2008, Kaikai Kiki converted the basement space beneath its Tokyo office into an art gallery. Kaikai Kiki Gallery has held exhibitions not only for the artists under Kaikai Kiki’s management but also international names such as Mark Grotjahn and Friedrich Kunath. All exhibitions are curated by Murakami.^[24]

A second Gallery called Hidari Zingaro was opened in 2010 and has now expanded to include four separate locations within the Nakano Broadway shopping mall in Nakano, Tokyo. ^[25]

GEISAI[link]

Since 2002, Murakami has been organizing a unique direct-participatory art fair called GEISAI. GEISAI is held twice a year, currently once in Tokyo and once in Taipei, and has also been held in Miami. Rather than give space to pre-screened galleries, GEISAI allows artists to create their own booths and interact directly with potential buyers. ^[26]

Books[link]

• Murakami, Takashi "Geijutsu Kigyoron"　ISBN 978-4-344-01178-6
• Murakami, Takashi "Geijutsu Tosoron" ISBN 978-4-344-01912-6
• Murakami, Takashi "Summon Monsters? Open The Door? Heal? Or Die?" ISBN 978-4-939148-03-3
• Murakami, Takashi "Superflat" ISBN 978-4-944079-20-9
• Murakami, Takashi "Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture" ISBN 978-0-300-10285-7
• Cruz, Amanda/Friis-Hansen, Dana/Matsui, Midori "Takashi Murakami: The Meaning of the Nonsense of the Meaning" ISBN 978-0-8109-6702-1
• Schimmel, Paul "©Murakami" ISBN 978-0-8478-3003-9
• Le Bon, Laurent "Murakami Versailles" ISBN 978-2-915173-72-7

Exhibitions[link]

2012

• "Ego", ALRIWAQ Exhibition Space, Qatar^[27]

2011

• "Beyond Limits", Chatsworth, England

“Homage to Yves Klein“, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France

• “A History of Editions“, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France
• “Solo Exhibition” Gagosian Gallery, London, England

2010

«Oval Budda» in Versailles park. September 2010

• “Solo Exhibition” Gagosian Gallery, Rome, Italy
• “MURAKAMI VERSAILLES” Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France

2009

• “I Love Prints and So I Make Them” ARKI Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
• “I Love Prints and So I Make Them” Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
• “Takashi Murakami Paints Self Portraits” Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, France
• “©MURAKAMI” Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

2008

• “Davy Jone’s Tear,” Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA
• “©MURAKAMI”Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany
• “Takashi Murakami: Prints "My First Art" Series, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo

2007

• “©MURAKAMI” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
• “Tranquility of the heart, torment of the flesh ― open wide the eye of the heart, and nothing is invisible”

2006

• “The Pressure Point of Painting“, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France

2005

• “Opening of Gallery Extension“, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France
• “Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Pop Culture“, Japan Society, New York,USA
• “Outdoor Banner Installation“, Public Art Fund, New York, USA

2004

• “Funny Cuts“, Stuttgart Museum of Art, Stuttgart, Germany
• “Takashi Murakami: Inochi“, Blum & Poe Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2003

• “Superflat Monogram“, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, France
• “Superflat Monogram“, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, USA
• “Double Helix Reversal“, Rockefeller Center, New York, USA

2002

• “Kawaii“, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, France; Serpentine Gallery, London, UK

2001

• “Wink“, Grand Central Station, New York, USA
• “Mushroom“, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, USA
• “KaiKai KiKi“, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, France
• “Summon monsters ? open the door? heal? or die ?“, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
• “Takashi Murakami: Made in Japan“, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA

2000

• “727“, Blum & Poe Gallery, Santa Monica, California, USA
• “Second mission Project KO2“, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, USA
• “Kaikai Kiki :Superflat“, Issey Miyake for Men, Tokyo, Japan

1999

• “DOB in the strange forest“, Nagoya Parco Gallery, Japan
• “Patron“, Marunuma Art Park Gallery, Japan
• “Second Mission PROJECT KO2“, Hiropon Factory, Japan
• “Dob's Adventures in Wonderland“, Parco Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
• “The Meaning of the Nonsense of the Meaning“, Center for Curatorial Studies Museum, Bart College, New York, USA
• “Superflat“, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, USA
• “Love & DOB“, Gallery KOTO, Okayama, Japan

1998

• “Hiropon Project KoKo_Pity Sakurako Jet Airplane Nos. 1-6“, Feature Inc., New York USA
• “Back Beat : Super Flat“, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
• “My Lonesome Cowboy“, Blum & Poe Gallery, Santa Monica, California, USA
• “Moreover, DOB raises his hand“, Sagacho bis, Tokyo, Japan

1997

• Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, France
• Blum & Poe Gallery, Santa Monica, California, USA
• Galerie Koto, Okayama, Japan
• “The Other Side of a Flash of Light“, HAP Art Space, Hiroshima, Japan

1996

• “727“, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
• “727“, Aoi Gallery Osaka, Japan
• “Feature Inc.“, New York, USA
• Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York, USA
• Galerie Koto, Okayama, Japan
• “Konnichiwa, Mr. DOB“, Kirin Art Plaza, Osaka, Japan
• “A Very Merry Unbirthday, To You, To Me!“, Ginza Komatsu, Tokyo, Japan

1995

• Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, France
• “NIJI (Rainbow)“, Gallery Koto, Okayama, Japan
• “Crasy Z“, SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan
• “Mr. Doomsday Balloon“, Yngtingagatan 1, Stockholm, Suède

1994

• “Fujisan“, Gallery Koto, Okayama, Japan
• “Which is tommorow ? - Fall in love -“, SCAI The Bathhouse, Shiraishi Contemporary Art, Inc., Tokyo, Japan
• “Azami Kikyo, Ominaeshi“, Gallery Aoi, Osaka, Japan
• “A Romantic Evening“, Gallery Cellar, Nagoya, Japan

1993

• “A Very Merry Unbirthday !“, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima,

Japan

• Gallery Nasubi, Tokyo, Japan
• “A Romantic Evening“, Gallery Cellar, Nagoya, Japan 1992
• “Wild Wild“, Röntgen Kunst Institut, Tokyo, Japan
• “NICAF'92“, Shirashi Contemporary Art Inc., Yokohama, Japan

1991

• Art Gallery at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Tokyo, Japan
• Galerie Aoi, Osaka, Japan
• “One Night Exhibition, 23rd August“, Röntgen Kunst Institut, Tokyo, Japan
• “I Am Againt Being For It“, Galerie Aries, Tokyo, Japan
• Hosomi Contemporary Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1989

• “Exhibition L'Espoir : Takashi Murakami“, Galerie Ginza Surugadai, Tokyo, Japan
• “Takashi Murakami : New Works“, Café Tiens!, Tokyo, Japan

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Murakami Takashi

• Kaikai Kiki Co.,Ltd (Japanese)
• Kaikai Kiki Gallery
• Hidari Zingaro
• Kaikai Kiki Gallery Taipei
• GEISAI
• Takashi Murakami on Twitter (English)
• Gagosian Gallery
• Galerie Perrotin
• Blum & Poe Gallery

Kristen Stewart
Kristen Stewart at the 2012 Wondercon on March 17, 2012
Born	Kristen Jaymes Stewart (1990-04-09) April 9, 1990 (age 22) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1999–present
Signature
Website
kristenstewart.com

Kristen Jaymes Stewart (born April 9, 1990) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga. She has starred in other films, including Panic Room (2002), Zathura (2005), In the Land of Women (2007), The Messengers (2007), Adventureland (2009), The Runaways (2010), and Snow White and the Huntsman. She will star in upcoming films in 2012: On the Road and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2.

Early life[link]

Stewart was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.^[1][2][3] Her father, John Stewart, is a stage manager and television producer who has worked for Fox.^[4] Her mother, Jules Mann-Stewart, is a script supervisor originally from Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia.^[3][5][6][7] She has an older brother, Cameron Stewart, and an adopted brother, Taylor.^[8][9] Stewart attended school until the seventh grade and then continued her education by correspondence.^[3] She has since completed high school.^[10]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Her whole family all worked behind the camera and Stewart thought she would become a writer/director, but never considered being an actor. "I never wanted to be the center of attention – I wasn't that 'I want to be famous, I want to be an actor' kid. I never sought out acting, but I always practiced my autograph because I love pens. I'd write my name on everything."^[11] Stewart's acting career began at the age of eight, after an agent saw her perform in her elementary school's Christmas play.^[12] After a year of auditioning, Stewart's first role was a small nonspeaking part in the Disney Channel original film The Thirteenth Year.^[4] Then, she had another part in the film The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas as the "ring toss girl".^[4] She subsequently appeared in the independent film The Safety of Objects, in which she played the tomboy daughter of a troubled single mother (Patricia Clarkson). Stewart also played a tomboy in the film Panic Room, playing the diabetic daughter of a divorced mother (Jodie Foster). She was nominated for a Young Artist Award for her performance.^[13]