Published for the Yayoi Kusama Museum exhibition of the same name, Fighting Woman / Painting Girl traces two somewhat contradictory currents running through Kusama’s work.

One being the artist as combative, self-inventing public figure, and second, the artist as the intensely absorbed young girl, who never stopped drawing. The catalogue follows the way both identities recur across more than seventy years of practice. 

The New York years really stand out. There's the soft sculpture, happenings, nude performances and Kusama’s confrontations with the social and sexual codes of the 1960s, as they move into the later works of repetition, fear, fantasy, childhood and bodily obsession. Archival photographs include works such as Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field and her Anatomic Explosion happenings, while later pieces show how many of the same compulsions simply changed form. It is a good introduction to Kusama beyond the pumpkins-and-polka-dots shorthand. Japanese and English text throughout, with chronology and exhibition checklist.

Yayoi Kusama Museum / Yayoi Kusama Foundation, Tokyo, 2025. First edition. Hardcover. 56 pages, extensively illustrated. Very light handling wear only; internally clean and unmarked. Near fine condition.