Infinity and beyond

At the end of a hushed, narrow street in Shinjuku is an unassuming building with a lacquered door the colour of a candy apple, and behind that door is Yayoi Kusama's studio. When the 95-year-old artist first returned to Tokyo in 1973, after 16 years making art, and headlines, in New York, she didn't intend for the move to be permanent. But her mental health had deteriorated and necessitated a homecoming. In 1975, Kusama voluntarily admitted herself to a hospital in Shinjuku, and soon after built the studio with the red door, right across the road. For the next four decades, she spent her days traversing the busy street that separated these two spaces, painting furiously, and with intention, splattering the concrete floors of her studio with every colour of the rainbow, before returning to the hospital at nightfall. This dogged routine only came to an end recently, shares Professor Akira Tatehata, director of the Yayoi Kusama studio and museum. The artist is, after all, 95 years old.

Tatehata has seen Kusama at work on more occasions than he can count. We are speaking on the second level of her studio, which now houses Kusama's, a world-premiere retrospective five years in the making opening at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) this month.