Friday, February 26, 2026 | 6pm to 7:30pm
25 West 43rd Street, 10th Floor, Suite 1000
between 5th & 6th Avenues, Manhattan
In-Person: RSVP | Zoom: RSVP
Join distinguished art historians and filmmaker for an insightful panel discussion reflecting on the visionary career and enduring impact of the late avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama.
Featuring Midori Yamamura (Kingsborough Community College/CUNY), author of Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular; Reiko Tomii, co-founder of PoNJA-GenKon and distinguished historian of modern Japanese art; Midori Yoshimoto (New Jersey City University), scholar of postwar Japanese women artists and author of Into Performance; and Heather Lenz, director of the acclaimed biographical documentary KUSAMA: Infinity. Together, this panel brings together the leading authorities who have documented and preserved Kusama’s story. They will examine her transformative journey—from her radical emergence in the 1960s New York avant-garde scene to her world-renowned installations—exploring her pivotal contributions to Pop art, minimalism, performance, and global contemporary art history.
Author Bio
Midori Yamamura is an Associate Professor of Art History at Kingsborough Community College/CUNY and an Alcaly/Bodian Distinguished Scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center. She specializes in feminist studies, eco-criticism, and global contemporary art, with a focus on Asia and its diaspora. She authored Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular (MIT Press, 2015), co-edited Visual Representations of the Cold War and Postcolonial Struggles: Arts in East and Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2021), and contributed to De-Nin Lee's edited volume Mountains and Rivers (without) End: An Anthology of Eco–Art History in Asia (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018).
Yamamura has received several distinctions, including predoctoral fellowships from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the CUNY Graduate Center’s Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, as well as a JSPS postdoctoral fellowship. Since 2024, she has been a participant in the CUNY Climate Hub. Her current work explores the intersection of art, economy, and environmental transformation. In Fall 2025, she will be a fellow at the Cordillera Studies Center at the University of the Philippines, Baguio, where she will research and write about the history and the four founding artists of the Baguio Arts Guild.
