Not only is Yayoi Kusama the most expensive living female artist, but according to The Art Newspaper, she is also the most popular—even more popular than her male contemporaries.
This week, the publication announced that the dot-obsessed Japanese creative attracted over 2 million people to her traveling exhibit last year. The show, titled Infinite Obsessions, toured throughout South America and Central America, bringing in an average of 9,000 visitors a day—making it the most viewed exhibit in 2014. In fact, tickets to the Mexico City stop were in such high demand that the hosting museum had to stay open for 36 straight hours just to accommodate.
“Kusama is the only one of our artists who sells on every continent,” Glenn Scott Wright, co-director of Victoria Miro, told The Independent. “She’s very rare in that she has this kind of credibility within the art world establishment, but she also has a very broad popular appeal.”
The news is a milestone for the art world, considering female artists tend to get less exposure than males. According to The Guardian, about 76 percent of solo exhibits within the past six years have featured men. Pretty weak, but hopefully these new attendance figures will help change that.
[via Style.com]
