The topsy-turvy world of fantasy discovered by a bored little girl named Alice after she fell down a rabbit hole remains a draw for artists. Originally illustrated in 1865 by Sir John Tenniel, later by Salvador Dali, Dorothea Tanning, Max Ernst, and John Steadman, and more recently by Kiki Smith, Dan Graham, and Adrian Piper, the fantastical events that Lewis Carroll invented in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland suspend the laws of nature, offering artists unlimited terrain for creativity.

Yayoi Kusama, who describes herself as “a modern day Alice in Wonderland”, is a natural for a new edition (Penguin Global 2012). Since childhood, Kusama has had a rare condition that makes her sees the world through a veil of colorful dots. These repetitive, hallucinogenic visions have formed the basis for some of the most iconic contemporary art of the past 50 years.

In fact, in 1968, when she was living in New York City, Kusama staged an Alice in Wonderland "happening" in Central Park, rallying naked friends with her assessment: "Alice was the grandmother of the hippies. When she was low, Alice was the first to take pills to make her high." Photographs of this event are included in the retrospective of her work, which continues at the Whitney Museum of American Art through September 30.

The new edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a beautifully produced volume, with a linen cover silkscreened with black and white dots, and heavy text stock gorgeously printed with Kusama’s illustration and interspersed with illustrative type treatments. In addition, a boxed limited edition print portfolio and book was produced by Louis Vuitton, which also enlisted the artist in a fashion collaboration with Marc Jacobs. Read an interview with Yayoi Kusama by Grady Turner in Bomb 66/Winter 1999.