Silver Shoes

between 1976 and 1977

Yayoi Kusama American, born 1929

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About the Artwork

Kusama is one of Japan's best known living artists. Early in her career, Kusama moved to New York, over the objections of her family. There she quickly established herself in the mid-century avant-garde art scene, working in a broad range of mediums including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and performance art. This installation belongs to a series of works begun in 1962 in which she takes everyday objects, such as shoes, furniture, suitcases, and kitchen equipment, and transforms them into something strange by covering them with phallic forms that are hand sewn, stuffed with cotton, and patined. While Kusama has said that she uses this practice to come to terms with her sexual fears, the sculpture is also a humorous commentary on the art world. Her work is characterized by repetition, pattern, and obsession, and this form has been used as a recurrent vocabulary throughout her fifty-year career. From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)

Title Silver Shoes

Artwork Date between 1976 and 1977

Artist Yayoi Kusama

Life Dates born 1929

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. American

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. Unknown

Medium Shoes, cotton, and paint

Dimensions Storage: 9 3/4 × 48 × 22 1/2 inches (24.8 × 121.9 × 57.2 cm)

Classification Sculpture

Department Contemporary Art after 1950

Credit Founders Society Purchase, W. Hawkins Ferry Fund, with funds from the Friends of Modern Art

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 2000.46

Markings

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Provenance

2000-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

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Exhibition History

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Published References

Bulletin of the DIA 89, no. 1/4 (2015): 6 (ill.).

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Catalogue Raisoneé

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Credit Line for Reproduction

Yayoi Kusama, Silver Shoes, between 1976 and 1977, shoes, cotton, and paint. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, W. Hawkins Ferry Fund, with funds from the Friends of Modern Art, 2000.46.