Kensington Gardens, Serpentine Galleries, London
July 9–November 3, 2024
Serpentine and The Royal Parks are delighted to announce the unveiling of a new large-scale sculpture by Yayoi Kusama. Located by the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, Pumpkin (2024) marks a return to Serpentine for Kusama, which was the location of her first retrospective exhibition in Britain in 2000. This major survey included paintings, collages, watercolors, sculptures, documentation of performances and films, all of which explored Kusama’s obsessions with dots, nets, food, and sex.
The work on view in Kensington Gardens is Kusama’s tallest bronze pumpkin sculpture to date, standing at 6 meters tall and 5.5 meters in diameter. Installed prominently by the Round Pond, Pumpkin (2024) can be seen from a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives creating an intriguing dialogue with the surrounding environment of the Park.
Known for her immersive installations, large-scale sculptures and intricate paintings, Yayoi Kusama often features kabocha, or pumpkin, in her work. Since 1946 Kusama’s pumpkins have taken many forms, colors and shapes, but their surfaces are consistently covered in the artist’s signature repeating polka dot pattern.
Kusama’s relationship to the kabocha is rooted in her childhood: the artist’s family cultivated the plant’s seeds, and their home was surrounded by fields of this squash. Pumpkins frequently appear as stand-ins for self-portraits. Kusama admires them for their everyday quality, hardiness, and unique, frequently humorous forms.
"I am sending to London with love my giant pumpkin. Since my childhood pumpkins have been a great comfort to me, they are such tender things to touch, so appealing in colour and form. They are humble and amusing at the same time and speak to me of the joy of living." — Yayoi Kusama
Learn more at Serpentine Galleries.