Did you know?
Kusama’s flowers and recurring dots are influenced by childhood hallunications at her parents’ plant nurseries.
Country of Birth
Japan
Auction Record
£8,465,243
Untitled (Nets)
Phillips, New York
2022
Yayoi Kusama
Responsible for some of the most Instagrammable art of our times, Kusama creates bold, graphic sculptures of pumpkins, flora and slithering unidentified creatures, as well as bewitching Infinity Mirrored Rooms, featuring repeating displays of light and colour. Her pieces have a hallucinatory quality informed by time in 1960s New York and continuing mental illness (she’s lived voluntarily in a psychiatric institution since 1977): viewers in the rooms can immerse themselves in Kusama’s repetitive worlds, while her sculptures are outsized, paint box bright and decked out in polka dots.
Collections
- The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , Washington D.C., USA
- Tate Modern , London, UK
- Museum of Modern Art , New York, USA
- Centre Pompidou , Paris, FR
Exhibitions
- Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Rooms , Tate Modern, London, UK, 2020
- Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray For Love , David Zwirner, New York, USA, 2019
- Yayoi Kusama: Sculptures, Paintings & Mirror Rooms , Victoria Miro, London, UK, 2016
- Yayoi Kusama , Tate Modern, London, UK, 2012
- Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1969 , Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, 1999
- Represented Japan at the Venice Biennale , Japanese Pavilion, Venice, IT, 1993
Yayoi Kusama Editorial
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10 Aug 2026 3 min read
Yayoi Kusama breaks visitor records in Cologne
The record-breaking Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Cologne’s Museum Ludwig drew 480,335 visitors; the highest attendance in the museum’s history, before...
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23 Jul 2026 2 min read
A Reoccurring Motif: Pumpkins Across Kusama's Artistic Practice
The pumpkin is one of Yayoi Kusama's most enduring motifs, embodying themes of memory, repetition, comfort, and transformation that recur...
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19 Feb 2026 3 min read
Next Stop: Cologne for Kusama’s Landmark Tour
The Museum Ludwig in Cologne will host a major Yayoi Kusama retrospective from March 14 to August 2, 2026, celebrating...
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08 Jan 2026
Why January is the Best Time to Buy
January is often seen as a pause in the art world. In reality, it is one of the most constructive...
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16 Dec 2025 2 min read
Yayoi Kusama in 2025: A Titan in Motion
Yayoi Kusama continues to dominate the global art landscape in 2025, with record breaking exhibitions, major retrospectives and strong auction...
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18 Sept 2025
Kusama on Tour
Following Kusama's Melbourne retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria (which became the most attended exhibition in Australian history), the...
