Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary art, celebrated for her polka dots, mirrored environments, and explorations of infinity. Born in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama moved to New York in the late 1950s, where she became a pivotal figure in the avant-garde scene.

Alongside her early Infinity Net paintings, she staged bold performances and “happenings” in public spaces—body painting events, nude protests against the Vietnam War, and interventions in places like MoMA’s sculpture garden. These works challenged authority, confronted sexuality, and reimagined art as a form of both personal release and social critique.

Her practice has always been rooted in her inner world: hallucinations of repeating dots and proliferating forms, visions she has transformed into vast fields of pattern and mirrored rooms where viewers encounter a dissolving sense of self. Through repetition and reflection, Kusama turns obsession into transcendence, exploring themes of love, death, politics, and the cosmos.

Now in her nineties, Kusama continues to produce monumental paintings and installations from her Tokyo studio. Her work remains at once playful and radical, personal and universal—inviting us to see infinity not as an abstraction, but as something we can step into and experience.