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, and a comprehensive retrospective exhibition of the artist’s work was on view at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, through the spring of 2025.

The first installment of a major traveling European exhibition of Kusama’s work is currently on view at the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Basel, Switzerland, marking the first retrospective devoted to the artist in Switzerland. The exhibition will then travel to the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, through 2027.

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

Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived in Heaven

 features new work from the artist's critically acclaimed 2013 inaugural exhibition at David Zwirner, which spanned the gallery's three locations in New York. Kusama's extraordinary and highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design and interventions within existing architectural structures. 

Opening this book is a series of exquisitely produced color plates of brightly colored, large-format square paintings. Part of a recent body of work, they allude to universal spheres or basic life forms and highlight Kusama's unique amalgamation of representational and nonrepresentational subject matter. Also featured is the video installation, 

, in which the artist herself is seen performing a song she composed while an animated slideshow of selected artworks moves behind her and the two mirrored infinity rooms. 

Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away 

encompassed a cube-shaped, mirror-paneled room that featured a shallow reflecting pool as its floor; hundreds of multicolored LED lights were suspended at varying heights from the ceiling, flickering on and off in a strobelike effect. Another mirrored infinity room, 

, stands as one of Kusama's most immersive, kaleidoscopic environments to date. It was composed of a darkened, mirrored room illuminated by inflatable, tentacle-like forms—covered in the artist's characteristic polka dots—that extended from the floor and ceiling, gradually changing colors.

Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived In Heaven

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.