What did Yayoi Kusama say? Racism allegations resurface following artist’s death

Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama died at a hospital in Tokyo on August 14. She was 97. Her death was announced on August 27 by Yayoi Kusama Inc. and Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc. on her website with “profound sorrow.”

Disclaimer: This article mentions racism and anti-Black sentiments. Discretion is advised.

The statement continues:

“Throughout an extraordinary lifetime devoted entirely to artistic creation, Kusama pursued an internationally acclaimed career as a pioneering avant-garde artist whose creative practice encompassed visual art, performance, fiction, and poetry.”

Her website adds:

“She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul. We will carry forward Kusama’s wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.”

In her 2002 autobiography Infinity Net, Kusama’s description of Black people had racial undertones, where she wrote about their “distinctive smell” and “animalistic s*x techniques,” among other things.

The artist later apologized for the “hurtful and offensive” language she used in her book in a 2023 statement to the San Francisco Chronicle when it gained renewed attention ahead of her exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

Now, in the wake of her demise, the internet is recalling Yayoi’s troubled past. Here are a couple of reactions.

“It genuinely upsets me, the whole thing with Yayoi Kusama, because she was the first visual artist I drew inspiration from to do a final project for college in my early days of the degree. I had to research her a ton, and from then on, I developed this huge affection for her,” an X user commented.

“Apologizing some 20 years later for racist, anti-Black, Fetishistic rhetoric doesn’t absolve you of said racism!” a netizen chimed in.

Exploring Yayoi Kusama racism accusations

In her autobiography, Yayoi Kusama described Black people as exotic, primitive, and hyper-sexualized beings, according to a Hyperallergic writer's paraphrasing. At one point, she wrote about a n*de Black man who posed for her own performance art and offered explicit details about his lips and genitals, apparently for “visual effect.”

Infinity Net also has a passage where Kusama mourns the New York neighborhood Greenwich Village, where she once lived, turning into a “slum” and real estate prices “falling by $5 a day” as “Black people are shooting each other out front.” According to Vice, the last part was only included in the original Japanese version and not the English translation.

Kusama’s lesser-known short story, “The Hustler’s Grotto of Christopher Street,” also offers anti-Black sentiments, where she writes about a young Black male prostitute and his “impulsive” drug addiction. Likewise, her 1971 play, Tokyo Lee, also featured a Black person who was introduced as:

“wild-looking, hairy, coal-black savage.”

In October 2023, a San Francisco Chronicle critic denounced the SFMOMA’s decision to host a survey exhibition for her artwork titled “Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Love.” The matter went viral and prompted an apology from Ms Kusama for her past racist remarks:

“I deeply regret using hurtful and offensive language in my book. My message has always been one of love, hope, compassion, and respect for all people. My lifelong intention has been to lift up humanity through my art. I apologize for the pain I have caused.”

SFMOMA published the apology on their website and said they “acknowledged” it, while adding their own statement:

“SFMOMA is committed to open and meaningful dialogue with our community. Grounded in our DEI Statement of Intention, we are driven by the transformative power of art and a vision to present our visitors with exciting, evocative, and inspiring art experiences. We also understand the history of art is complicated and that even artists who are visionary in their work may have histories of concerning behavior or biases.”

It continued:

“It is our responsibility to be both forthright when we are faced with these realities and to grapple with how to present and discuss artists holistically and truthfully. In this spirit, SFMOMA acknowledges that some of Yayoi Kusama’s past writings include harmful language describing Black people, which SFMOMA firmly stands against. The museum also acknowledges the artist’s recent public apology.”

At the time, Kusama was living at a mental health facility to cope with her previously revealed “psychiatric condition,” as per the New York Times.

SFMOMA Director Christopher Bedford further told the outlet:

“I think it’s really extraordinary that a woman in her 10th decade on earth, who has been creating a staggering body of work and was variously marginalized and discriminated against herself, comes out and apologizes in an unqualified way for racist statements.”

Bedford added in Yayoi’s defence:

“What we are charged with doing is collecting, displaying and interpreting artists in all of their complexity. Like everybody else, they are flawed. And the profound effort is not to delete or edit or cancel people; the effort is to reckon with them fully and with truth.”

Long before Yayoi apologized, in October 2017, Vice reporter Dexter Thomas published an article titled

“Japan’s most famous avant-garde artist banned us from her studio.”

In it, Thomas writes:

"This week, I had the honor of experiencing two rare artistic blessings. First, I was able to meet Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama in person, in her new Tokyo museum. Then, hours later, I was banned from her personal studio.”

Dexter explained that after weeks of negotiation with the artist’s PR company, his producer got access for him and his camera crew to film a “brief introduction” of Kusama at her museum and then interview her more in-depth at her private studio.

Dexter Thomas reportedly asked Yayoi two questions on the first day: one, which piece in her museum she really wanted her viewers to pay attention to and to explain the “title and meaning” of a painting next to them on the wall. He continued in his article:

“She answered these, then said she’d rather not answer any more questions. I thanked her, we bowed to each other, and I left with my crew to film the rest of the museum and prepare for the following day.”

The PR company reportedly sent an “angry email” to Dexter’s producer and when he called to ask what was “wrong,” they claimed Kusama wasn’t aware that Thomas would talk to her and that his questions were of “low quality.”

“The company insisted I not speak to her again. Any further coverage would proceed only on the condition that I wouldn’t be physically present. I was no longer allowed to be in the same room as Yayoi Kusama. We were later told that Kusama said she’d had trouble understanding what I was asking. She had also decided, after hearing my questions, that I did not understand her work,” the Vice journalist wrote.

Dexter Thomas got a tour of her museum where he saw messages of “love and peace.” However, his own experience was somewhat contrary, which he further explained:

“Overall, it’s a pattern that reflects an uncritical and unimaginative acceptance of mainstream American racism, and also leaves me wondering if my own blackness might have played some small role in Kusama’s assumption that I did not understand her art and was thus unfit to interview her.”

However, Thomas ended his article by giving the benefit of the doubt to Yayoi Kusama due to her “fragile” mental health and history of cutting interviews short, accompanied by his own foreign accent.

Neither Yayoi Kusama nor her team ever addressed the claims in the Vice article.

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Her death was also announced by her eponymous foundation and museum via Instagram.

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