Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived in Heaven

In Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived in Heaven, one of our top Holiday Gift books of the year, Akira Tatehata writes, "Obsession may have an unpleasant side but paradoxically it opens up possibilities of intimate communication with others. This complexity heightens the appeal of Kusama’s art, in which narcissism and its opposite, an infinite sense of solitude, is connected to deep universal love. Stated differently, there is a naivety and vulnerability associated with obsessive impulses that can be the foundation for a liberated and harmonious form of expression that is not tied to the modern illusion of an independent individual ego. Kusama is a great artist because of her ability to convert her personal desire for release from oppression into a prayer for simultaneous salvation of herself and others. Her art can even be said to have an ethical function. Yayoi Kusama is an angelic being blessed with rare intelligence and a strong will. Like Walter Benjamin’s angel of history, she is a great, pure spirit who opens her large, sad eyes and holds out a hand of love and salvation to all of us. I would like to offer heartfelt homage to this artist for the delightful visions her obsessive art has opened up for all of us." Where the Youth Is (2013) is reproduced from the book.