Infinity Net Quotes

“All of my works are steps on my journey, a struggle for truth that I have waged with pen, canvas, and materials. Overhead is a distant, radiant star, and the more I stretch to reach it, the further it recedes. But by the power of my spirit and my single-hearted pursuit of the path, I have clawed my way through the labyrinthine confusion of the world of people in an unstinting effort to approach even one step closer to the realm of the soul.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“The machinery of the sky that confounds us on earth with endless transformations of clouds in the light of dawn does not compare to the extraordinary tenacity of human beings, the way of human life, the presentiment of approaching death, the existence of love, the brilliant coruscations of light and the dark scars of our lives, to say nothing of the incomprehensible form of the cosmos and the overwhelming mysteries of space, time, distance.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“Creating art and writing novels and poems are simply different roads I have chosen in my search for truth.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“Psychological and physical frictions abound in the rifts between human beings and the enigmatic, civilised jungle they inhabit. I am deeply interested in trying to understand the relationships between people, society, and nature; and my work is forged from accumulations of these frictions.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“Sometimes, when I was tired of working, I would go to the Museum of Modern Art. Standing before the great pageant of art history, I would gaze on the works that have survived beyond their times, analy-sing and evaluating them as if trying to solve mathematical puzzles, attempting to assess them in the context of the societies and times that had engendered them; but then I would return to myself and, in trying to consider the next starting point for my work, always find myself faced with the difficulty of reading my own future.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“But because New York was the sort of place it was, there were also many artists with true backbone – robust people who could not be broken. And these artists were doing good work.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“Action Painting was all the rage then, and everybody was adopting this style and selling the stuff at outrageous prices. My paintings were the polar opposite in terms of intention, but I believed that producing the unique art that came from within myself was the most important thing I could do to build my life as an artist.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“What I think about first and foremost is that I want to create good art. That is my sole desire. It would be futile and meaningless to focus on the shrinking time-frame before me, or to think of my limitations. I shall never stop striving to create works that will shine on after my death. There are nights when I cannot sleep simply because my heart is bursting with the aspiration to make art that will last forever. I feel how truly wonderful life is, and I tremble with undying fascination for the world of art, the only place that gives me hope and makes life worthwhile. And no matter how I may suffer for my art, I will have no regrets. This is the way I have lived my life, and it is the way I shall go on living.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“My revolution of the Self, which has been such an essential part of my life so far, is all about discovering death. My destiny is to make art for my own requiem: art which gives meaning to death, tracing the beauty of colours and space in the silence of death’s footsteps and the ‘nothingness’ it promises.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“O Time: hold still awhile. I have so much more work to do. There are so many things I want to express. But time just keeps ticking away, and the earth never for an instant ceases to turn.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“In O’Keeffe’s thoughtful reply, dated 18 August, she advised me in the gentlest tones, showing consideration for my youthful artistic ambitions: You seem to be having a hard time to get here. If you do get here I hope it will seem to be worth your trouble. When you get to New York take your pictures under your arm and show them to anyone you think may be interested. You will just have to find your way as best you can. It seems to me very odd that you are so ambitious to show your paintings here, but I wish the best for you.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“With this first letter I sent fourteen watercolors, including Nostalgia of the Orient, Glorious Sunset at Sea, Distressed Stars on Earth, Deep Sorrow, Kingdom of Ferns, Abandoned Heart, and Rye and Rainbow.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“Narcissus Garden was an environmental piece consisting of fifteen hundred plastic mirror balls covering a section of green lawn. The chairman himself had helped me install the reflective spheres, so it was hardly a ‘guerrilla’ operation. I stood among the mirror balls in a formal gold kimono with silver obi and handed out copies of the statement Sir Herbert Read had provided for my exhibition two years earlier. As a comment on commercialism in the art world, I was selling the mirror balls for 1,200 lira (about $2) each, an audience-participation performance that shocked the authorities. They made me stop, telling me it was inappropriate to sell my artworks as if they were ‘hot dogs or ice cream cones’. But the installation remained.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

“Yayoi Kusama at the Brata Gallery, 89 East 10th Street, is a young Japanese painter currently working in New York. Her paintings are puzzling in their dry, obsessional repetitions. They are huge white canvases, lightly scored with gray dots and partly washed over again with a white film. The results are infinitely extending compositions utterly dependent on the viewer’s patient scrutiny of the subtle transitions in tone. Her exhibition is without question a striking tour de force, but disturbing none the less in its tightly held austerity.”
― Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama