If you like this article, please click "Follow" at the top right. Thank you for your support and encouragement, and hope to bring you a comfortable reading experience.
At christie's auction in New York, the "concept space" created by Lucio Fontana sold for $29.13 million, equivalent to 185 million yuan, which was a sensation.
And this painting still many people do not understand, because this painting does not use a pen at all, only needs to be scratched with a knife a few times, it looks extremely simple.
Similarly, there is such a woman in Japan.
Yayoi Kusama
With "painting points", she earned 700 million yuan a year, which is world-famous and laid her own world in the field of art.
Her feats are the envy of the world and have attracted countless fans.
However, such an artist, who is the envy of everyone, has an unfortunate childhood.
Because she suffered different blows in her infancy, when she was 10 years old, she had mental problems and became a "psychopath".
In order to cure her illness, she was hospitalized for 48 years, disgusted by everyone.
After becoming famous, she did not hesitate to cut off ties with her family in order to treat her tragic childhood.
What exactly did she go through?
What kind of life are you living now?
Kusama yayoi as a child
Tragic childhood, the heart of escape
The heroine of the story is named Yayoi Kusama and is a girl with a "hard life".
Born in 1929 in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, Kusama Yayoi's family has been running a seed business for more than a hundred years.
Supposedly, in such a family, Kusama Yayoi should live a very happy life, but this is not the case.
Her father was out there raising lovers, and it was a luxury to return home.
At the same time, his father had a special hobby— alcoholism.
Under the influence of alcohol for a long time, my father had long since lost the peaceful appearance he remembered.
On weekdays, he will have a cold face and be very rude to everyone.
The mother became moody because of her father's various behaviors, and often took her out of anger.
As long as the father did not come home, or was drunk outside, the mother would be angry.
Family photo
However, she did not have the means to clean up her father, so she transferred her anger to Kusama Yayoi's body, and either beat her or scolded her, kicked her, and spanked her ass.
Kusama's body was bruised, the wounds were never fully recovered, the old wounds were always healed, and new wounds were added, and life was miserable.
However, Yayoi Kusama did not have the ability to resist them, she was still too young.
Whether in terms of strength or spirit, Yayoi Kusama has always been the target of suppression.
Under such intense pressure, Kusama Suffered from mental illness when she was 10 years old, and she often hallucinated and sometimes suicidal tendencies.
She has tried to cut her wrists, drink medicine, hang herself, go on hunger strike and other suicide methods, she often feels that someone is calling her, and sometimes she can see vague apparitions.
Under the influence of such hallucinations, Kusama began to become strange, and gradually, she became a psychopath.
But her parents didn't change because she was suffering from mental illness, and they beat and scolded Kusama Yayoi as before.
What's even worse is that her parents even think that she should be mentally ill, which is the real her.
To some extent, Yayoi Kusama is miserable.
She was not understood by her parents and did not receive their care, which caused Kusama Yayoi's temperament to become extremely irritable and withdrawn, she did not understand her parents' behavior, and her parents could not understand her.
Yayoi Kusama and her parents are two parallel lines, without a fulcrum of intersection, they cannot communicate at all.
Although she could not understand her parents, she still wanted to be with her mother.
She often stayed aside, watching her mother draw pencil drawings, silently accompanying her mother.
Every time her mother left, she would admire her mother's paintings alone, and she often saw some small dots in the paintings.
A portrait of Kusama's mother when he was 10 years old
Probably out of curiosity, Kusama would follow the small dots in his mother's paintings and connect them with his own unique thinking to form a unique painting.
It was her work and her connection to her mother.
In the painting, Kusama Yayoi found herself and the goal she was struggling to pursue, so she began to create her own creation.
In 1954, Yayoi Kusama completed his first painting, D.S.P.S., and expressed it below:
"One day I was looking at the pattern of the red tablecloth and began to look around for the same pattern, from the ceiling, the windows, the walls to all corners of the house, and finally my body, the universe. In the process of searching, I felt that I was worn out, constantly rotated by the infinite world and the sense of absolute space, and I became small and insignificant. ”
花(D.S.P.S),1954
What a strange painting, Kusama was overjoyed.
But her parents didn't think so, and when they saw her work, they didn't understand it.
What's more, her parents feel angry, they think that Kusama Yayoi is already mentally ill, should be at home, why waste drawing paper, waste time.
Her mother felt angry and punished her for working with the workers.
Although Yayoi Kusama was suppressed by her parents, she did not give up because of her parents' behavior.
She carried out a lot of painting creation behind her parents' back, and also achieved great results.
But family life was too depressing, and for the first time she had the idea of escaping her parents and fleeing Japan.
In 1955, Yayoi Kusama stumbled upon the works of the American writer Georgia O'Keeffe, which contained her yearning and her ideals.
She reinforced her desire to flee her parents and escape Japan.
So she plucked up the courage to write a letter to Georgia O'Keeffe, describing her yearning for art and her own life experience, hoping to get Georgia O'Keeve's help to help her leave Japan and move to the United States.
After the letter was sent, she looked forward to it every day, and the mailbox at the door of her home was a place she frequented.
Luckily, Yayoi Kusama quickly received a reply, in which Georgia O'Keeffe offered to help her leave Japan and prepare herself.
After receiving the reply, Kusama fell into a wave of ecstasy, as if she saw her future, where there were her own ideals, where she had the art of her dreams.
In 1957, Yayoi Kusama moved to the United States smoothly with the help of Georgia O'Keeffe.
Although her mother kept preventing her from leaving, she was thirty years old and had the ability to resist.
Despite her mother's wishes, she resolutely stepped on the plane to leave.
However, when she arrived in the United States, she did not choose to rest, but spent most of her time creating.
Unfortunately, because of her lack of fame, almost no one asked about her paintings.
Meanwhile, Kusama Yayoi didn't have enough money to live after leaving home, and the place where she lived was a damp, dilapidated little apartment with little sunlight and tattered windows.
In the winter, Kusama often wakes up frozen, and she does not have enough money to repair the windows or buy quilts.
In order to survive, she had to go out to work, or work as a waiter, or a dishwasher, or a supermarket salesman, as long as she could get money, she was willing to try.
She often eats food in the trash because she has no money, and she will take these leftovers back to eat hot because she doesn't have money to pick up leftovers in the restaurant.
In her eyes, those leftovers were already the best food.
However, she still did not give up her dream, and she was still working hard.
She not only goes out to watch exhibitions and learn about other people's styles, but also goes to various colleges and universities to learn artistic creation techniques.
She has her own set of painting techniques that ordinary painters do not have, and it is also a proof of Kusama Yayoi's future life.
That's dots and lines in series!
Fortunately, because the development of art has a certain time limit, so at that time in the United States did not have this style of painting with dots and lines, which gave her a lot of creative space.
Finally, kung fu paid off, and when Yayoi Kusama ate a meal, her unique painting style also attracted the attention of many people, many people called her "avant-garde queen", which was all the rage.
Surprisingly, her artistic life has improved to a certain extent, and love is also "not far behind" and quietly comes.
Plain love, spiritual comfort
When Kusama's career was improving, his love also followed.
In 1960, in a park in New York, Usa, Yayoi Kusama met Joseph Cornell, who had just come out to look for inspiration.
At first, they didn't notice each other's presence, but in their own little world, they were doing their own thing as usual.
On this day, Yayoi Kusama was noticed by Joseph Cornell while working in the park, and he watched quietly from the sidelines, not disturbing the woman who was immersed in his own world.
On the other hand, Kusama Had no idea that there was a person here who was silently watching her, and she was completely immersed in the painting.
It was only when she was finishing her painting that she was getting ready to pack her things that she noticed Joseph Cornell.
But they didn't talk, and in Joseph Cornell's eyes, Kusama was the star, looking up, but out of reach.
The two men passed by without stopping.
Later, the two did not know why, suddenly as if there was a tacit understanding, every day they would go to the park on time, one person immersed in painting there, and the other person watched silently next to him.
Strangely, the two people did not discuss, nor did they make eye contact, which may be the so-called fate.
The two secretly had a relationship, and finally, Joseph Cornell could not stand it, he broke the silence between them, and began to take the initiative to talk to Kusama Yayoi.
He expressed his love directly to Yayoi Kusama: "I like you for a long time, and I have been silently paying attention to you recently. ”
The sudden confession shocked Yayoi Kusama.
Is this the romance that is unique to the artist, Joseph Cornell expresses his love directly and simply?
And Yayoi Kusama, who had admired him for a long time, did not hesitate much, and she directly agreed to Joseph Cornell.
Soon they fell in love, and they had their own way of falling in love.
There is no vigorous declaration of love, no fiery rose.
They only have youth on the drawing board, love under the brush.
It is a delicate woman, a gentle boy, a figure in the park, under the sunset, hand in hand!
Although this life was uneventful, Kusama felt Joseph Cornell's love and understanding of himself, a true feeling he had never felt in his parents.
However, their happy life did not last long, and in 1972, Kusama lost his lover forever, and Joseph Cornell died.
The death of Joseph Cornell for Kusama Yayoi, like his own life collapsed in an instant, so that Kusama Yayoi, who originally had mental illness, worsened, and his mental state worse and worse, many times Kusama Yayoi's assistant called her, she did not seem to hear, only cared about painting.
Now that she had lost her own light in her eyes, she was left to paint, and in order to escape the facts, she painted frantically every day, as if this was the only way to make herself briefly forget the fact that her lover had died.
She began to become more and more withdrawn, not wanting to see anyone.
Yayoi Kusama slowly faded out of view, shutting herself in her studio every day, in the dark.
In 1973, the year after Joseph Cornell's death, Yayoi Kusama chose to leave the place.
This is the beginning of the dream, but also the end of love, she found that she seems to never forget, so once again chose to escape.
Flowers that appear in Kusama's hallucinations
Yayoi Kusama returned to Japan in 1973.
After returning to China, she felt a pang of weakness and lost hope for herself.
The blow of the loss of her lover had exhausted her physically and mentally.
However, after returning to Japan, under the influence of conservative ideas at that time, the family knew about Kusama Yayoi's deeds in the United States.
They do not take credit for the excellent results brought by Yayoi Kusama, but on the contrary, they feel that Yayoi Kusama is a disgrace to the family.
Later, her affairs were known to the Japanese people, and many media came out to accuse her, and even some media publicly called Kusama Yayoi "the shame of Matsumoto City, Japan."
Under such circumstances, Yayoi Kusama, who returned to Japan, did not choose to go home.
She knew that her parents hadn't forgiven her for running away from home, and they were almost forgetting that they had a daughter.
At the beginning, Kusama Yayoi had just gained some fame in the United States, and his father could not wait to rush to the United States.
He did not come to reconcile with his children, he came to break off relations.
In his father's eyes, Kusama is a disobedient "psychopath", a complete "freak", and he cannot tolerate such a person staying in the family.
So, desperately, he found Yayoi Kusama and severed the father-daughter relationship with her face to face.
At the same time, Yayoi Kusama's friends have also alienated her, and she has no friends.
Family, love, career, friendship, quadruple blows.
Kusama Yayoi had already been unable to bear it, there was no way, she had to choose to move into a spiritual sanatorium.
This is 16 years of living!
During these 16 years, Kusama stayed in his own safe area and soothed his wounds.
Finally, she stood up!
Psychiatric artist, nursing home worker
In 1989, Yayoi Kusama, who had been recuperating for 16 years, reappeared.
She left Tokyo, Japan, and returned to New York, WHERE she made her comeback and a solo retrospective.
In this exhibition, there are works from her early years, which were not accepted by everyone at that time.
This time, Yayoi Kusama's work seems to be very suitable for everyone's appetite, and everyone likes her work.
At first, she could only buy $75 for her work, but now Yayoi Kusama can buy $750,000.
Major brands have come to seek cooperation, and her work is simply difficult to find!
Not only that, Kusama yayoi also received an invitation to the Venice Biennial Exhibition, which is very different from the expulsion of previous years.
In 1993, Yayoi Kusama had his own theme museum, which became the envy of the whole of Japan.
She didn't just stick to painting, but also began to move into the ranks of fiction.
She wrote more than a dozen novels, both autobiographies and essays.
She often calls herself a "psychiatric artist," a lunatic, and a genius.
After returning to Japan, she continued to live in a nursing home in Tokyo and continued her work.
Since 1973, Yayoi Kusama has been living in a nursing home for 48 years.
In this nearly 50 years of life, her life has become very regular.
She gets up at eight o'clock every day to create and returns to the nursing home in the evening to rest, and she works at least eight hours a day.
She would also take care of other elderly people in the nursing home, telling them stories, chatting with them, and bringing them tea and food.
Of course, she has not forgotten her duty and still paints.
At the same time, she will also give interviews, but rarely.
Because Kusama himself did not like to appear in public.
During her recuperation, her parents also came to her, and they wanted to be forgiven by Yayoi Kusama.
But she had already died and did not forgive her parents, she did not want to see them!
After all, they have no relationship anymore!
In Kusama's world, painting and writing were the destination, while his lover Joseph Cornell was his emotional attachment.
After his death, Kusama's heart also disappeared, and there was no warmth.
Similarly, when she was young, she used to rely on her own mother, her own father, as her sole reliance.
But it turns out they didn't deserve it.
As their own parents, they did not understand themselves, did not understand themselves, either beat or scolded themselves, and even thought that they were mentally ill.
In the years since she left, there has been no care, no greeting, only accusations, reprimands, and severances.
Kusama Had already disappointed them.
Nowadays, she relies on her own ability and her optimism to achieve her ideals and wishes.
How much courage and dedication does it take!
I thought that there were no parents under the sky who did not love their children, but I did not expect that there were still cold-blooded people!
I only hope that everyone can live in love and become a happy dreamer!