KUSAMA, Yayoi. Manhattan Suicide Addict.
(Tokyo): Kōsakusha, 1978. First Edition. Softcover. 23cm by 18cm. 291 pages. Yayoi Kusama left Japan in the mid-1950s for the United States, where she rapidly established herself as a leading figure of the New York avant-garde. Embodying the spirit of the 1960s, her groundbreaking and unclassifiable work challenged the dominant aesthetic of the day, asserting great formal liberty through the use of multiple media, including painting, sculpture, video, installation, environment, and performance. One of the most important post-war and contemporary artists, this work is semi-autobiographical psychedelic vision of the artist’s early years in New York City where she was often plagued by plagued by fears of intimacy and inadequacy. On her return to Japan she voluntarily checked herself into the Seiwa psychiatric hospital. Decorated with thirty illustrations blending abstract imagery with reproductions of her artworks. Kusama’s first work of fiction, which she compulsively completed in less than one month, declaring that through writing she was able to “shed light on a different facet” of herself, one that she “could not reach with plastic art”. A very good copy in orange and silver card covers with paper dust jacket and obi. Some surface scratching, rubbing to the rear cover. Publisher’s catalogue laid-in. A nice copy of this important work, that has yet to be translated into English. Scarce.
$2,500.00