The Story by Harrie Verstappen
Design by Tijs Visser together with Luc Derycke
Photography by Raoul van den Boom and Harrie Verstappen
This publication provides the first-ever overview of Kusama’s early performative activities. Her work from the sixties, when she was working in New York, is regularly shown in exhibitions around the world. Little known until now, however, is that much of her work originated in the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium, and was mainly documented by Dutch and Belgian photographers. Kusama, back then living in Amsterdam, regularly carried out unique actions for their cameras: naked and painted with dots, dressed in her self-designed “fashion”, in the streets and the sex shop, or just in the Dutch nature. Since 2005, the 0-institute has been collecting archive material with a team of art historians and conducting interviews with eyewitnesses, including artists, friends, and organizers. The recent discoveries of unpublished photos from forgotten archives led to the development of this publication that shines a different light on the artistic activities of Kusama, which are so colourful and cannot be contained under a single heading.
Harrie Verstappen (Curaçao, 1940) lived in Holland from 1954 until 1978, when he moved back to Curaçao. He worked for various photo companies in the Netherlands and started distributing Japanese movies. Later, he published photographs in virtually all Dutch newspapers and magazines and many international publications. He photographed rock groups, like Golden Earring, The Kinks, and Frank Zappa, worked as a sound engineer for Dutch television (1968–1970), and as a still photographer in feature- film production from 1969 onwards. He also wrote scripts and directed several movies. Recently he transferred opera- tions into the digital age and is working on a Virtual Reality simulation of Curaçao Island, upon discovery and later. He was also director of the Fotomatiko del Caribe festival.