@article{1afe5c5973e2445aad07d9b0967c8bfd,
title = "The Spotted Seppuku: Commodifying Suicide with Yayoi Kusama",
abstract = "Yayoi Kusama, the self-proclaimed {\textquoteleft}international avant-garde artist{\textquoteright} has enjoyed global commercial success in the most recent decades of her lengthy career. In this article, I address this by taking her body of work as whole, with the message of self-destruction, sifted through the branding of {\textquoteleft}obliteration{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}accumulation{\textquoteright} which I term the {\textquoteleft}Kusama-Seppuku{\textquoteright}. Drawing on analyses of Kusama{\textquoteright}s visual and literary work alongside Pierre Klossowski, Georges Bataille and Friedrich Nietzsche and the simulacra that permeate each, I argue that Kusama has created a body of work that expresses a desire to disengage from any illusion of cohesive identity through modes of obsessive, repetitious acts, processes and accumulations designed to allow an experience of a return {\textquoteleft}to the infinite universe{\textquoteright} (Yayoi Kusama (quoted by Alma Reyes), {\textquoteleft}Art of Eternity at the Yayoi Kusama Museum, Tokyo{\textquoteright} in Taiken Japan (Explore Japan) online publication, 21 Oct 2017: https://taiken.co/single/art-of-eternity-at-the-yayoi-kusama-museum-tokyo/). Each iteration of her work expresses a gesture that constitutes a part of the Kusama-Seppuku, a lifelong performance of suicide, exhaustively commodified.",
keywords = "commodity culture, Erin K Stapleton, Friedrich Nietzsche, gender, Georges Bataille, performance art, Pierre Klossowski, race, self-obliteration, Seppuku, Yayoi Kusama",
author = "Erin Stapleton",
note = "Funding Information: Kusama{\textquoteright}s formative works focus on ways to destroy the integrity of her body and other objects by obscuring their presence with dots (Infinity Net, Self-Obliteration) and with tuberous soft-sculpture phalluses (the Phalli{\textquoteright}s Field series). The pursuit of self-obliteration through accumulation and recognition was prefigured in various {\textquoteleft}business ventures{\textquoteright} beginning in the late 1960s, and continues to be expressed through Kusama{\textquoteright}s collaboration with Louis Vuitton. This project began in 2010 and launched at Selfridges (a large high-end department store in London) in August 2012. The launch occurred shortly after a major retrospective of Kusama{\textquoteright}s work was held at Tate Modern (with the financial support of Louis Vuitton), which ran from 9 February to 5 June 2012. For the Louis Vuitton collaboration, Kusama designed a series of products including clothes, shoes, bags and other accessories that incorporated design elements from each of the artist{\textquoteright}s thematic interests. In particular, the accumulative Kusama polka dot (one of the earliest techniques she used to obscure the boundaries of objects) featured on almost every product. To promote these luxury items, the windows and environments of Louis Vuitton stores were overwhelmed by spotted pumpkins and phalluses and, most significantly, an army of sinister and ambiguous Kusama dolls, which were glossy, identical sculptures of the artist in a red (Louis Vuitton) smock dress who glared at passers-by. The largest of these sculptures was mounted in front of the crest that adorns the flagship Selfridges store in London, while the smallest were about the size of matchboxes and appeared like a clone army, in pockets of display and side windows in Louis Vuitton stores. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Third Text.",
year = "2022",
doi = "https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2022.2050623",
language = "English",
volume = "36",
pages = "145--160",
journal = "Third Text",
issn = "0952-8822",
publisher = "Taylor & Francis",
number = "2",
}