Self-Portrait

The work of Yayoi Kusama rests on self-affirmation, self-destruction, self-promotion, self-invention, self-reference, and the self-portrait, even in those creations where the representation of the artist herself is less evident. This section includes some of the paintings and drawings that Kusama has produced in the genre of the self-portrait, which has occupied a highly prominent place throughout her career. The section begins with her Self-portrait of 1950, a dark painting that is one of the first works to bear this title, where a sunflower in pink flesh tones floats over a human mouth, and is presided over by Portrait (2015), where she combines some of her most characteristic motifs—such as polka dots, pumpkins, nets, and phallic tuber forms—in a composition constructed as a collage and dominated by a hieratic figure.