Suit

After leaving war-torn Japan, Yayoi Kusama appeared on the New York art scene, where she soon established a central position with her singular mixture of surrealism, minimalism, pop and psychedelia. Her encounter with American post-war abundance was a shock at first. In several series, she tried to formulate this experience and her disgust with consumerism. In "Costume", Kusama took objects she found in the street back to her studio and covered them with stuffed, phallus-like fabric lumps. Her personal imagery originates in her childhood hallucinations, when the world seemed to consist of dots and protruberances. Kusama herself says that art is her way of confronting her fears.