The Beauty of Insanity, Relfecting on the Work of Japanese Artist Yayoi Kusama

Philosopher George Carlin once said, “The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”  When I began studying at university, I began meeting a lot of eccentric people. It was mainly the way people think that shocked me, but then it came to me; everyone is someone else’s weirdo.  The reason why I believe in that statement is because I realized that our standards on which we base what is acceptable and what is not, is disrupted by our personalities.

There is a saying in Arabic, which implies that if it weren’t for people’s different tastes then no business would be successful. The same goes to the way each of us thinks, if we all agreed on the same ideas, then there wouldn’t be different fields, and creativity and innovation will cease to exist.

“…a polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement… Polka dots are a way to infinity,” – Yayoti Kusama.

While some of us might consider the above excerpt gibberish, others consider it worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Miss Kusama, a Japanese author and artist, admitted herself to a mental institution in 1977. While she was in the institution, her hallucinations of polka-dots took over her. After a while she began to see those hallucinations that bothered her, as something beautiful. Kusama’s artwork sell up to 500,000 USD nowadays.

Just by looking at her work, one becomes astounded at the level of detail, creativity, and vivid imagination it takes to create such beauty. Her mixture of pop art, minimalism, and feminism is impeccable and absolutely astounding. There are so many details that undergo the process of creating this masterpiece. Details that would make us go crazy if we think about them.

Not to mention that in 2012, Kusama designed Louis Vuitton’s entire store on Fifth Avenue, New York.

Oscar Levant once said, “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.” We must be very careful about our judgments and subjectivity when dealing with others; some people do not have the same concepts and thoughts that our realistic brains consider normal. But that simple fact can be the reason behind the other person’s success, and we should always be open to that scenario.