Over the course of our daily trawling of the Internet for art-related goodies, ARTINFO has discovered a surprising (heretofore unknown to us) fact about Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama — since 1977, she has lived in a Tokyo mental institution. She even keeps a studio close by, so she can keep carrying out her globe-trotting art practice.

The Sydney Morning Herald tells the story, which we had to see in (digital) print to believe:

In 1975, after a decade spent sampling the highs and lows of avant-garde notoriety in New York, she checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the mentally ill in Tokyo.

After coming and going for two years, she re-entered the hospital in 1977 on a permanent basis. She remains there today, even though she has become one of the world’s most celebrated living artists, with an output of almost industrial proportions.

Kusama’s studio is a five-minute walk from her hospital bedroom, allowing her to return to the institution for meals, and spend the rest of her time making paintings, sculptures, prints and installations with a team of assistants. In the evenings she writes novels and poems with the same relentless creative energy.

Sounds convenient, right? It’s worth noting that Kusama has explained her polka-dot aesthetic as the result of a neurological disease that causes prolonged hallucinations, so maybe there’s a good reason for all of this.

Kusama is the subject of an upcoming retrospective at the Whitney, as well as a collaborator with Louis Vuitton for an upcoming project. And all from the safety of her ward!

Tags: Crazy Artists, Yayoi Kusama