Yayoi Kusama

The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) will present Yayoi Kusama, one of the most comprehensive retrospective exhibitions of the artist’s work ever presented globally.

Displayed across the entire ground floor of NGV International, Yayoi Kusama traces her entire career through a rich selection of nearly 200 works drawn from the artist’s personal collection and institutions and private collections across Japan and Australia. Featuring painting, sculpture, collage, fashion, film and installation, the exhibition reveals the astonishing breadth of Kusama’s multidisciplinary practice.

The exhibition includes many works not yet seen by Australian audiences, as well as a diverse display of the artist’s popular immersive rooms, including the global unveiling of the artist’s most recent immersive infinity mirror room work.

The exhibition also includes the Australian debut of Dancing Pumpkin, a towering five-meter-tall bronze sculpture newly acquired by the NGV. The exhibition also features the Australian premiere of The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe (2019), which visually entangles viewers within six-meter-high tentacular forms covered in yellow-and-black polka dots.

The NGV’s public spaces will also be transformed by Kusama’s signature polka-dots, extending the sensory experience of Kusama’s work beyond the exhibition galleries to include a site-specific artwork for the NGV’s iconic Waterwall and an installation of enormous balloons that will float playfully over visitors’ heads in NGV International’s Great Hall, titled Dots Obsession.

Learn more at the NGV.