Yayoi Kusama - Exhibitions

Exhibitions

In 1959, Kusama had her first solo exhibition in New York at the Brata Gallery, an artist's co-op. She showed a series of white net paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed by Donald Judd (both Judd and Frank Stella then acquired paintings from the show). Kusama has since exhibited work with, among others, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns. Exhibiting alongside European artists including Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury, Otto Piene, and Gunther Uecker, in 1962 she was the only female artist to take part in the widely acclaimed 'Nul' (Zero) international group exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. She represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and in 1998–1999 a major retrospective exhibition of her work toured the U.S. and Japan. Major exhibitions of her work include Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Fukuoka, Japan (1987); Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York (1989); "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969", LACMA, 1998 (traveling to Museum of Modern Art, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), 1998–99; Le Consortium, Dijon, 2000 (traveled to Maison de la Culture du Japon, Paris; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; and Artsonje Center, Seoul, 2001–2003); "KUSAMATRIX", Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2004 (traveling to Art Park Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo Art Park, Hokkaido); "Eternity – Modernity", National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (touring Japan), 2004–2005; and "The Mirrored Years", Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2008 (traveling to Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2009). In August 2010, Kusama exhibited at the Aichi Triennale 2010, Nagoya. Her works are exhibited inside the Aichi Arts Center, out of the center and Toyota car polka dot project. As of July 2011, several of Kusama's most intimate works are on display at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain.

As part of FINA Festival 2007, Kusama created Guidepost to the New Space, a vibrant outdoor installation for Birrarung Marr beside the Yarra River in Melbourne. In 2009, the Guideposts were re-installed at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, this time displayed as floating “humps” on a lake.

An exhibition of Kusama'a work opened at the Tate Modern in London on February 9, 2012. Described as 'akin to being suspended in a beautiful cosmos gazing at infinite worlds, or like a tiny dot of fluoresecent plankton in an ocean of glowing microscopic life', the exhibition features work from Kusama's entire career.