Yayoi Kusama Never Stopped Looking Forward: Favorite Projects from Her Illustrious Career
In honor of the late icon, here are some attention-worthy projects that prove her continued relevance
Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who died this month at the age of 97, had a style that was instantly recognizable all over the art world, and a longevity that gave her the neat trick of surviving what for most artists—even those of her caliber—would call a career-summing retrospective at a crown jewel museum in a top city, only to come back to the same metropolis decades later for a victory lap at an institution of similar magnitude. Her 1998 “Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama 1958–1968” at MoMA in New York was followed by 2012’s “Yayoi Kusama” at the Whitney. In London, she had shows in 2000 and 2012 at the Serpentine and the Tate Modern, respectively, in addition to multiple major shows in this century in both Paris and Tokyo. Kusama did not rest on her laurels. She accumulated them.
Through it all, she put her stamp on a coveted list of collaborations and new works. Here are some of our favorite Kusama moments from the past few decades.
Limited Edition Louis Vuitton Yayoi Kusama Bag
The bag itself was an event when Vuitton released it in 2023 as the latest in a collaboration that began in 2012 under the direction of Marc Jacobs. Its afterlife on the auction market has been remarkable as well. This yellow and black pumpkin handbag set a world record for Louis Vuitton when it sold for $151,200 at Christie’s in 2024.
Narcissus Garden Restaged
First seen at the Venice Biennale in 1966, Narcissus Garden has had an eventful afterlife. The mirrored plastic orbs have since been installed at 425 Park Avenue, Fort Tilden for MoMA PS1’s Rockaway! festival, and the Phillip Johnson Glass House, to name but a few.
Bespoke Packaging for Veuve Clicquot’s La Grand Dame 2012
In 2020 Kusama’s unmistakable dots and flowers graced Veuve Clicquot’s La Grande Dame 2012, with limited-edition packaging for the prestige cuvée as well as a companion piece. Just 100 numbered editions of the riotous floral My Heart That Blooms in the Darkness of Night were made. The collaboration also had a neat historical symmetry: La Grande Dame honors Madame Clicquot, while Kusama had previously reworked a portrait of the pioneering Champagne figure for a 2006 charity auction in Tokyo.
Infinite Accumulation in London
In August 2024, a gleaming tangle of appeared outside the eastern Elizabeth line entrance at Liverpool Street station with Infinite Accumulation. Stretching roughly 109 yards and rising more than 10 yards high, the site-specific work enlarged one of Kusama’s most familiar motifs—the polka dot—into something approaching architecture. The sculpture was Kusama’s first permanent public artwork in the U.K. and, at its unveiling, was described by both Transport for London and Victoria Miro as her largest public sculpture to date.
Love Flies Up To the Skies at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
In 2020, the artist turned one of America’s most familiar spectacles into a venue for contemporary art with Love Flies Up to the Sky, created for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Derived from the faces in her My Eternal Soul paintings, the balloon combined biomorphic forms with more than 300 of Kusama’s signature dots.