• #mangobot

    Futurist Japanese Artists Show Us Life in the Next Century

    Welcome back to MangoBot, a biweekly column about Asian futurism by TokyoMango blogger Lisa Katayama. There's a lot of buzz about Japanese contemporary artists these days. Takashi Murakami's super-cute, superflat alien-like characters are on everything from Louis Vuitton bags to the pages of io9. But he isn't the first or only Japanese artist on our radar. This week, I'm going to introduce you to two very cool futurist artists whom I love, Yayoi Kusama and Mariko Mori. One of them has spent her life covering the world with polka dots, and the other traveled the globe in her own alien pod. More »
  • #art

    Yayoi Kusama's Obsessive Dots Hint at the Future of the Human Mind

    78-year old Yayoi Kusama has had a hallucinatory obsession with dots for as long as she can remember. Throughout the hardships she endured as a child—alleged abuse by her mother, suicidal tendencies—all she saw was dots. Vast fields covered with dots, people wearing polka dots, trees wearing polka dots. Instead of trying to fix her OCD, Kusama decided to embrace it, moving to NYC in her late twenties to meet pen pal Georgia O'Keefe and join the thriving avant garde movement. Today, her signature art can be seen in galleries and museums all over the world. More »