Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist has died at age 97. Her signature motifs—polka-dotted pumpkins, mirrored Infinity Rooms and densely repeated patterns—defined a body of work that was exhibited in museums and galleries around the world and reached wide public attention.
Throughout a long career, Yayoi Kusama developed an approach that blended painting, sculpture and installation into immersive environments. Her pieces often relied on recurrence and optical play to produce hallucinatory or dreamlike effects, a visual language that resonated across generations of visitors and institutions. The artist’s practice brought non-traditional exhibition formats into mainstream museum programming.
Institutions and commercial venues incorporated Kusama’s works into permanent collections and temporary shows, and her installations became frequent draws for public audiences. The accessibility of her imagery—most recognisably the polka dot and the pumpkin form—helped bridge the specialist world of contemporary art and broader cultural engagement. Exhibitions of her pieces were staged in a wide range of contexts, from dedicated solo presentations to survey shows that placed her work within larger developments in late 20th- and early 21st-century art.
Kusama’s passing marks the end of an active artistic life whose visual motifs and immersive formats remain present in museums, galleries and public discourse. Her works continue to be part of institutional holdings and temporary exhibitions, ensuring ongoing public access to the environments she created. Curators, collections and audiences will continue to encounter and reassess that legacy as her work remains in view worldwide.
