Yayoi Kusama

Self Obliteration

        Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist, she is known as Queen of Dot since most of her artworks is full of dots and balls. Why there are many dots or balls on her artworks? This is because she began to have hallucinations and auditory hallucinations at 10 years old. Thus, everything she see is full of dots on it. Then she try to draw many artworks which is full of dots to cure the fear of dots. She call this method of cure is Obliteration. 

        Then she start making many artworks with things that she afraid of. I think she is very brave that she tried her best to face her weakness. Even when I saw her artworks, I have the feel of being cure.

Feminism

        Yayoi Kusama is a feminist, this may because of her fickle father. She is afraid of sex and penis, thats why you may find out some of her artworks are full of penis. This is also kind of obliteration.

        You can see there are many long narrow piece on the chair, which is representing penis. I think the reason why she use a chair is that when you sit on this chair, you will surrounded by penis. And that may be representing the sexual problems under patriarchalism at that time. On the other hand, the golden birdcage is surrounded by penis, and inside the birdcage you can see some butterflies, which are representing vagina and women. This is reflecting the women are unable to resist the order of man under patriarchalism.

        Finally, this may be the hope of Yayoi Kusama. In this picture, you can see there are several high-heeled shoes, which are stepping on penises. This is representing the feminism. I think Yayoi Kusama is brave because she dare to express the discontent of the society. Also, she is very creative that she can use different things and ways to describe the problem under patriarchalism.