Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama was born on March 22, 1929 in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. She is a painter, sculptor, writer, installation artist and performance artist. In her childhood she experienced hallucinations of polka dots and net patterns. She also had austere obsessive thoughts. Her hallucinations as a child were basically the mold to her art later in life. Polka dots became the trademark of her work. During her career, she covered surfaces such as walls, floors, canvases, household objects and naked assistants with polka dots, which had revolved around her hallucinations. Her work could be best described as repetitive as well as full of patterns. She referred to herself as the “obsessive artist.”

           

Kusama produced her first amazing “Net” paintings in 1959 in New York. The canvases measured up to thirty-three feet and were covered in small and thickly painted loops. The message of the painting was that “infinity” could be quantified and could actually be put in a limited amount of space.

I personally think it is amazing how Yayoi Kusama could produce such interesting work when the source is negative. All of her work is based on dots, which come from her hallucinations. She claims that her hallucinations stem from physical abuse as a child from her mother. I think this makes her artwork even more powerful because it shows how she overcame the abuse and was able to turn it into thought provoking artwork. Kusama has dedicated her life to art. She often says, “If it weren't for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago.”

Graffiti

I found today’s documentary on graffiti to be really interesting, specifically the positive aspects of graffiti. Typically graffiti has a negative connotation among society. When I think of graffiti I automatically correlate it to gang activity or something along those lines. I never really thought that graffiti could be positive or could even be used in a way that is not gang affiliated. The documentary had shown people with positive attitudes towards graffiti and people who believe graffiti is acceptable. Graffiti had been depicted in several ways around the world in the documentary. In France, the youth use graffiti as an outlet to be heard. The youth in France use graffiti to get their messages across to the public. I think this exemplifies how powerful the use of graffiti can be. I also found it interesting that in the documentary there was a reoccurring theme of using graffiti to reject society. In Hamburg, someone had stated that with regarding graffiti one must “have to reject what society believes is art and not art.” From what I learned in the documentary, I think this perfectly describes many graffiti artists. They paint whatever they want so it could be seen, regardless of whether society approves of it or not. This documentary has completely changed my view on graffiti. I now know that graffiti is not just composed of gangs and names, but it is also an outlet to get messages across as well as a way of life.

Hello Art 100 class. My name is Huda Shafique and this is my first time making a blog. This class seems like it's going to be interesting(=