Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) is one of the most influential contemporary artists of the past century, celebrated for her immersive installations and iconic polka dots. Born in Matsumoto, Japan, she studied traditional Nihonga painting in Kyoto before forging her own radical path. Driven by an early and unwavering commitment to art, she moved to the United States in the late 1950s, where she became a vital presence in New York’s avant-garde. Kusama’s work spans painting, sculpture, performance, fashion, and installation. Her early Infinity Net paintings, meticulously built from repeated gestures, introduced the obsessive patterning that would define her practice. Polka dots, mirrored rooms, and accumulative forms became her visual language, exploring themes of infinity, self-obliteration, and psychological experience. In the 1960s she staged provocative performances and anti-war happenings, positioning art as both personal expression and political act.

Kusama's work is held in numerous museum collections worldwide, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Centre Pompidou, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Tate in the United Kingdom, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, among many others.