Japan’s Yayoi Kusama had what has been described as an extraordinary seven-decade career that transformed polka dots, pumpkins, mirrors and repetition into one of the world’s most recognisable artistic languages.
One of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary artists, she passed away in Aug aged 97. But her work can still be appreciated across the country in museums and within the Japanese landscape, advises the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO).
These includes the Matsumoto City Museum of Art in her hometown, the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Shinjuku where her My Eternal Soul series opened in 2017 and reopened on this 08 Oct with a new exhibition, The Light Spreads Out, and Glittering Things Start Appearing All Around Me.
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, also holds Kusama works including Accumulation of the Corpses (Prisoner Surrounded by the Curtain of Depersonalization) (1950) and No. H. Red (1961). On Naoshima, a small island in the Seto Inland Sea’s Kagawa Prefecture, is her famous yellow-and-black polka-dot Pumpkin, was designed specifically for its setting, on a pier jutting into the sea. Kusama’s work can also be found at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. Kusama works can also be seen at Kurkku Fields in Kisarazu, Chiba; Kirishima Open Air Museum in Kagoshima; Hara Museum ARC in Gunma; and Towada Art Center in Towada, Aomori, which is currently running the memorial program Kusama Forever 1929-2026 until Dec. See more details details HERE.
