A scuplture by Yayoi Kusama called Dancing Pumpkin dated 2020

’s (b. 1929) work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. Her highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.

Born in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama has been the subject of both solo and group presentations worldwide. She presented her first solo show in her native Japan in 1952. In the mid-1960s, she established herself in New York as an important avant-garde artist by staging groundbreaking and influential happenings, events, and exhibitions. Her work gained renewed widespread recognition in the late 1980s following a number of international solo exhibitions, including shows at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, both of which took place in 1989. She represented Japan in 1993 at the 45th Venice Biennale, to much critical acclaim. In 1998, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, co-organized 

, which toured to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1998-1999), and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (1999).

In 2011 to 2012, her work was the subject of a large-scale retrospective that traveled to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. From 2012 through 2015, three major museum solo presentations of the artist’s work simultaneously traveled to major museums throughout Japan, Asia, and Central and South America. In 2015, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, organized a comprehensive overview of Kusama’s practice that traveled to Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Helsinki Art Museum. In 2017-2019, a major survey of the artist’s work, 

, was presented at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Seattle Art Museum; The Broad, Los Angeles; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. 

, which marked the first large-scale exhibition of Kusama’s work presented in Southeast Asia, opened at the National Gallery of Singapore in 2017 and traveled to the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta. In 2019, 

 an exhibition tailor-made specifically for the Fosun Foundation, Shanghai, included more than forty works by the artist.

A comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s work was on view at Gropius Bau, Berlin, in 2021, and traveled to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2022. 

 was on view at The New York Botanical Garden in 2021. In 2022, several major exhibitions of the artist’s work opened, including 

Yayoi Kusama: DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE, 

One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection, 

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. A major retrospective of the artist’s oeuvre, 

was on view from 2022 to 2023 at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong, then traveled to Guggenheim Bilbao (2023) and Serralves Museum, Portugal (2024). Also in 2023, 

was on view at Aviva Studios, Manchester, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami presented the exhibition 

 was on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2024.

In 2023, a commissioned mosaic by Kusama, 

A Message of Love, Directly from My Heart unto the Universe

 (2022) was unveiled at the new Madison Concourse at Grand Central Station, New York, and will remain on permanent view.

Kusama has been represented by David Zwirner since 2013. The gallery’s inaugural exhibition in 2013 with the artist, titled

, spanned all three spaces at West 19th Street in New York. Her second gallery solo show, 

, was held at David Zwirner, New York, in 2015. Subsequent solo shows of the artist’s work at David Zwirner, New York include 

 in 2019. In 2021, David Zwirner, Victoria Miro, and Ota Fine Arts jointly presented 

I WANT YOUR TEARS TO FLOW WITH THE WORDS I WROTE

 in London, Tokyo, and New York. In 2023 at the gallery’s 19th Street location, the artist’s sixth solo exhibition with David Zwirner, 

Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers

Yayoi Kusama Museum, a museum dedicated to the artist’s work, opened October 1, 2017, in Tokyo with the inaugural exhibition 

Creation is a Solitary Pursuit, Love is What

. The museum’s fourteenth exhibition devoted to her work, 

Work by the artist is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate, United Kingdom; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among numerous others. Kusama lives and works in Tokyo.

Yayoi Kusama, 2021.  Photo by Yusuke Miyazaki

Sarah Suzuki is a Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Sarah Suzuki

Ellen Weinstein is a New York-based illustrator who has won multiple awards for her work, which appears in magazines, newspapers, books, and advertising including 

Ellen Weinstein

By Sarah Suzuki. Illustrations by Ellen Weinstein. Works of art by Yayoi Kusama

Growing up in the mountains of Japan, Yayoi Kusama dreamed of becoming an artist. One day, she had a vision in which the world and everything in it—the plants, the people, the sky—were covered in polka dots. She began to cover her paintings, drawings, sculptures, and even her body with dots. As she grew up, she traveled all around the world, from Tokyo to Seattle, New York to Venice, and brought her dots with her. Different people saw these dots in different ways—some thought they were tiny, like cells, and others imagined them enormous, like planets. Every year, Kusama sees more of the world, covering it with dots and offering people a way to experience it the way she does.

Written by Sarah Suzuki, a curator at The Museum of Modern Art, and featuring reproductions of Kusama’s instantly recognizable artworks, this colorful book tells the story of an artist whose work will not be complete until her dots cover the world, from here to infinity.

Yayoi Kusama: From Here to Infinity

Yayoi Kusama: From Here to Infinity | Books

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.