When Asexuality Becomes a Method: Asexual Resonances in Kusama Yayoi

What would happen if we looked at the world through an asexual perspective? The present work aims to search for an answer to this question, trying to re-examine the life and the works of Kusama Yayoi through an asexual lens. It makes use of the “resonance” based model described by Przybylo and Cooper, to explore how and where asexuality surfaces historically, in order to assemble an asexual historiography and archive. Firstly, a brief outline of the emergence of asexuality (and by extension, of sexuality) as a construct will be presented, as well as the current topics of debate within the field of asexual studies. For a more transnational vision, the Japanese context and its peculiarities will be discussed, too. It will be challenged what is currently defined as asexuality and what the limits of a definition of asexuality based on self-identification are. Finally, it will be explained how to use asexuality as a method for research. The instruments of analysis given by asexual studies will be applied to re-examine Kusama Yayoi. First, a brief overview of her life and themes of her works will be presented. Then, her life story will be observed through asexual lenses: how her fear of phalli can be something different from a symptom of an illness, and what her relationships can suggest about her view of love. Switching the attention to her production, selected works will be considered. If looked at with an asexual perspective, her Accumulations, “Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show”, and her “Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field” can become a gateway through which it is possible to get a glimpse of compulsory sexuality and the pressure it exerts. Similarly, the photographs she commissioned depicting herself with her works can become a reminder of how sexuality can often be imposed by society on (asexual, but not exclusively) subjects. Kusama Yayoi’s Happenings and her vision of free love, at first sight, may seem to have nothing in common with asexuality. But with a closer look, it becomes evident how the message of sexual liberation that both Kusama Yayoi and the asexual movement want to convey is fundamentally the same. The last work that will be addressed is the stage play Tokyo Leee, only partially available to the public. The story of the protagonist, Leee, will be analysed as representative of an asexual person’s journey in finding love, navigating through compulsory sexuality. What this research aims to do is contributing to the creation of an asexual archive, as well as helping tracing a positive definition of asexuality as more than just a “lack”. Hopefully, with this research, the radical and transformative potential of asexuality will become evident, and it will encourage other researchers to explore it even further.