The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has opened a retrospective exhibition honoring the late Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, whose career spanned over seven decades. Originally scheduled to debut while Kusama was still alive, the exhibition now serves as a posthumous tribute following her death on August 14 at the age of 97. Running through January 17, the show marks the final stop in a tour following earlier presentations at Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland and the Museum Ludwig in Germany.
The exhibition highlights Kusama’s extensive and diverse oeuvre, featuring works rarely seen in Europe alongside site-specific installations created expressly for the event. Kusama, often recognized for her immersive mirrored environments and signature polka-dot motifs, is also celebrated here for the breadth and evolution of her artistic practice beyond those well-known themes.
Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama’s early artistic vision was shaped by her natural surroundings and early experiences with visual and auditory hallucinations. From the age of five, her work, as represented in the exhibition, demonstrates a distinctive use of dots and net-like patterns which she later described as ways to express and manage her psychological experiences. Early pieces reveal the persistence of these motifs, often overlaid on still lifes, village scenes, and floral compositions.
Kusama pursued formal art training in Kyoto before relocating to New York City in 1957, a move encouraged by her correspondence with American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. Although many of Kusama’s pre-New York works were destroyed in a bid to start anew, the exhibition includes a selection of delicate, sometimes haunting pieces from this early period, touching on themes such as the aftermath of the atomic bombings in Japan.
In New York, Kusama rapidly gained recognition for her "infinity net" paintings—large canvases covered with meticulously detailed, repetitive patterns in monochrome or limited color palettes. These works invite viewers into an enveloping visual experience that suggests endless variation within uniformity.
The exhibition also presents Kusama’s sculptural and performance art, which blend elements of Pop, Surrealism, assemblage, and body art. Notable are her "accumulation" pieces, where ordinary objects like furniture and clothing are covered in protruding forms painted in metallic or chalky tones. These works, some featuring phallic shapes, reflect Kusama’s exploration of anxiety, sexuality, and repetitive forms.
Later works, created after Kusama returned to Tokyo and lived in a psychiatric hospital from 1977 onward, continue her preoccupation with infinite patterns, especially polka dots and cellular forms. These pieces emphasize themes of self-obliteration and the dissolution of individuality into the cosmos.
A centerpiece of the show is Kusama’s newest "infinity room," an immersive installation filling an entire museum floor with large, inflated polka-dot tendrils reflected infinitely in mirrors. Within this space, visitors encounter a mirrored enclosure illuminated with golden lights resembling fireflies, inviting contemplation on themes of mortality and transcendence, poignantly underscored by Kusama’s final artistic reflections.
This retrospective not only celebrates Kusama’s enduring impact but also offers a comprehensive view of her complex artistic journey, inviting audiences to experience the expansive world she created over a lifetime.