Yayoi Kusama

In the center of this boundless visual universe stands Kusama herself. She is a groundbreaking artist and unique artistic persona whose work over the past six decades has played a key role in contemporary art.

Kusama immigrated from the Japanse provinces to the United States in the late 1950s, at a time when new art currents like Pop art and Minimalism were taking shape. She was part of that scene, while from her position as a non-Western, female artist she developed a singular visual vocabulary that today stands as a profoundly original contribution to postwar art.

Kusama gathers her artistic material from an inner reality. Her art has consistently revolved around the same basic themes: fantasies of infinity, dizzying psychological spaces you can disappear into, and a desire to be swallowed up by the world. Infinity in Kusama’s art is at once a cosmic space, a spiritual idea, and a psychological abyss both pleasurable and anxiety inducing.

This exhibition is a retrospective presentation of Kusama’s oeuvre across the many artistic media in which she has worked, from visual art to performance, film, literature, and design.

The exhibition is a collaboration between Louisiana, København, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Helsinki Art Museum and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter.