A Blockbuster Yayoi Kusama Show Opens in Melbourne at NGV

Yayoi Kusama (b.1929), known as “the princess of polka dots,” is an extraordinary multimedia artist creating awe with her paintings, sculptures, performances, and installations. Her sensational blend of pop art and minimalism highlights her unique exploration with the limits of her dots. Kusama’s talent shines from her contributions to the avant-garde scene in New York in the 1960s, to her experimental years in postwar Japan. She thrills viewers with her consistent use of high sensory experiences utilizing space and scale. Kusama’s unique attraction to the simple shape began with her childhood hallucinations that drove her to create art for decades. 

Now on view at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne is the largest retrospective of the artists work to date in Australia. On view are close to 200 works, including the dizzying and dazzling immersive installations she’s know for. Whitewall spoke with NGV Director, Tony Ellwood, Senior Curator of Asian Art Wayne Crothers, and Akira Tatehata, Director of the Yayoi Kusama Museum about the major exhibition of Kusama’s practice, from early childhood drawings to her iconic polka dotted pumpkins. They walk us through the challenges, and insights of curating the nine themed exhibits becoming one of the most thorough retrospectives of the artist ever showcased. “Yayoi Kusama” is on display now until April 21, 2025 on the ground level of NGV. 

NGV Director Tony Ellwood Talks Yayoi Kusama in Australia

WHITEWALL: The NGV has described this Kusama retrospective as the largest  ever mounted in Australia. Could you elaborate on the curatorial vision and the  challenges of assembling over eight decades of Kusama’s work in one exhibition? 

TONY ELLWOOD: We wanted to do an exhibition that showed the breadth and depth of Kusama’s career,  exploring her early practice to her present-day work. This was partly to let our audiences  experience how the works for which she perhaps has the widest renown today – her brightly  colored and patterned immersive rooms and infinity mirrored rooms, and her large  sculptures of flowers and pumpkins – are the natural continuation of themes she began to  explore as a teenager in Japan.  

To present key works throughout her career required us to establish a strong partnership  with the artist and her gallerist in Japan, Ota Fine Arts, both of which are major lenders to  the exhibition. We are enormously grateful to both for lending us so many works, including  rare early works that illustrate the earliest period in Kusama’s professional life, and even  some works created when a child. 

Periods of Kusama’s career are best represented with archival material – photographs,  exhibition posters and flyers, drawings and magazines. Luckily Kusama has held on to this  material meticulously throughout her life, which is maintained in an archive at the Kusama  Museum in Tokyo. We have included a considerable array of this material to adequately  acknowledge what a pioneering and radical part of Kusama’s career this was. 

One of the things that surprised me is the sheer diversity of Kusama’s practice. This is an  artist who has not stopped creating and experimenting in over 8 decades – from painting to  performance, installations to inflatables, there is seemingly no limit to her creative vision. 

WHITEWALL: How did the NGV collaborate with institutions such as the Yayoi  Kusama Museum and other international partners to bring this project to life? 

TE: The richness and comprehensiveness of this exhibition would not be possible without the  support of Kusama herself, lending a great many works from her own personal archive and  collection, but also the public institutions and private collectors who have been passionate  supporters of her work over the last 8 decades. Major institutions and private collectors  across Japan, Southeast Asia and Australia have lent important works to this exhibition. 

An important aspect of the exhibition is the inclusion of works from museums across  Japan, including the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the National Museum of  Modern Art, Kyoto and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Smaller museums have  lent very significant works, including, for example, the important sculptural piece Genesis, 

1992-93, which was featured in the 1993 Venice Biennale and is in the collection of the  Iwami Art Museum, in Shimane prefecture. This is the first time this museum has lent this  work to an exhibition. They have also lent us fashion works that are rarely seen in Kusama  exhibitions. Similarly, the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum has lent a major infinity net  painting, one of the largest that survives from the late 1950s. The canvas had to undergo  conservation in order to be able to travel internationally.  

WW: Kusama’s new infinity mirror room will make its global debut here.  What does this premier work add to the narrative of Kusama’s career and its  connection to Australian audiences? 

TE: Kusama created her first infinity rooms in the 1960s and has been building upon and  perfecting the format ever since. This new work is the culmination of decades of  experimentation and, in my opinion, the most spectacular result to date. Standing inside  this room – with its endless horizon of twinkling lights – is a truly transcendental  experience. To have the opportunity to unveil a new, never-before-seen work by an artist of  Kusama’s global renown and prestige is something that is, quite simply, extremely rare for our corner of the world. But we’re so delighted that Australians will get to see this new work before audiences anywhere else in the world. 

“We’re so delighted that Australians will get to see this new work before audiences anywhere else in the world,” —Tony Ellwood

WW: Beyond the art itself, how do you see this exhibition impacting  Melbourne’s status as a cultural capital and its creative industries? 

TE: The NGV is proud to be listed in the top ten most visited destinations by tourists to Victoria.  This is due in no small part to major blockbuster exhibitions like Yayoi Kusama, which are  exclusive to Melbourne and draw thousands of people to Victoria from interstate and  overseas. Our visitor economy is worth nearly $40 billion dollars – and our creative  industries, buoyed by large-scale exhibitions like this, are central to the economic  prosperity of our State. 

WW: With Kusama’s groundbreaking work on display, how does the NGV  aim to continue pushing boundaries in hosting major international exhibitions? 

TE: The appetite for contemporary art and design in Victoria at the moment is insatiable and  unprecedented. Our most recent NGV Triennial was visited by more than 1 million people.  The public’s enthusiasm for these types of experiences only galvanizes us in our ambition  for The Fox: NGV Contemporary, which will be the nation’s largest gallery dedicated to  contemporary art and design and the future home of major exhibitions like Yayoi Kusama and her contemporaries. To be able to show multiple exhibitions of this size and scale  concurrently will redefine the arts and cultural landscape in this city. 

Wayne Crothers, Senior Curator of Asian Art at NGV, on the Impact of Kusama

WW: Wayne, as Senior Curator of Asian Art, how does Kusama’s work fit into a broader conversation about contemporary Asian art at the NGV? 

WAYNE CROTHERS: I think Kusama is a stand-alone figure in global contemporary art. She moves beyond—or  transgresses‚both the Asian and international art world. One overreaching aspect of Kusama’s practice is its worship of nature, and human’s place within an infinite universe. I believe this powerful association shares the same foundation that many Asian cultures have with nature worship.  

WW: Kusama’s practice spans several movements, including  minimalism, pop art, and feminist art. How does the exhibition address this evolution  and its relevance today? 

WC: Kusama’s life is one of the great 20^th – 21^st century art stories. Spanning pre-WW2 Asia, the  post war recovery and development of Asian societies, their interaction with the  international art world and currently Asia’s prominent place on the international cultural  and economic stage, can all be found in Kusama’s artistic practice and experienced in the  NGV exhibition. Being one of the few Asian artists to participate in the international Avant  Garde of the 1960s then after years of struggle during the 1970s and 80s to find herself at the pinnacle of the international art world is an amazing accomplishment. 

WW: Many of Kusama’s works in this exhibition are immersive and  participatory. How do these elements engage audiences, especially in the context of  Kusama for Kids? 

WC: Kusuma’s personal experiences, starting from her childhood, have always been immersive  and participatory. This has remained a central practice throughout her career. At her first  exhibitions in her hometown of Matsumoto drawings were displayed en masse with the  intention of immersing the viewer. This central aspect of Kusama’s work, where the artist and viewer interact with their surroundings, continues to this day and can be experienced  in Dots obsession (exhibited in Kusama for Kids) and other immersive works. 

WW: Kusama’s art transcends language and cultural boundaries. What do you  think Australian audiences will take away from this exploration of her work? 

WC: Kusama’s works present human experiences, emotions and aspirations we all share. Obsession, fragility, hope, celebration and wonderment. These transcend all human and cultural boundaries. Her works allow us to reflect on our own emotions and transports us to experiences beyond the everyday. 

“Her works allow us to reflect on our own emotions and transports us to experiences beyond the everyday,” —Wayne Crothers

WW: As someone deeply involved in the exhibition, do you have a  favorite piece or installation, and why? 

WC: In the spirit of experiential journey my favorite work keeps on changing as I walk through the exhibition. The beauty and emotion of early works, the experimentation and ambition of  the New York works, the inner struggles expressed in works produced after returning to Japan and a celebration of the universe and our oneness within it that is found in her recent  immersive rooms and paintings are all favorites. 

Akira Tatehata Director of the Yayoi Kusama Museum Discusses New Narratives

WW: Akira, having worked closely with Kusama and studied her work extensively, how would you describe her enduring influence on global contemporary art? 

AKIRA TATEHATA: On a philosophical level, she has been sending the message of saving the world through love, as exemplified by her words Love Forever. On an artistic level, in the 1960s, the  abstract, ascetic Infinity Nets had a profound influence on minimal art. More recently, as a  champion of the neo-pop movement, she has been influencing painting, including  figurative works, with a new pop sensibility today, opening up the possibility of a world filled with an Intimate pop sensibility. 

“On a philosophical level, she has been sending the message of saving the world through love,” —Akira Tatehata

WW: Kusama has often spoken of infinity and existential reflection in her  works. How does this new infinity mirror room align with these themes, and what new narratives does it introduce? 

AT: Kusama has always worked with infinite repetition as her principle, but in Mirror Rooms, she exhibits a peculiar sense of space, as if everything is buried in the vast expansion of images created by the mirrors’ reflections. 

WW: This exhibition includes rarely seen archival material. What role  do these artifacts play in shaping a deeper understanding of her life and art? 

AT: The exhibition displays Kusama’s history of various radical activities, which reveals her  relationship to the times she fought against and proves that she always had a message for her times.

WW: The Kusama Museum’s involvement in this exhibition  highlights international collaboration. How does this strengthen the global presence of Kusama’s work? 

AT: This exhibition and other exhibitions at various museums have taken new approaches and interpretations of Kusama to capture multiple aspects of her, and we believe that the Yayoi Kusama Museum has contributed to introducing Kusama’s multiple facets by cooperating with such exhibitions. 

WW: Kusama has described her art as a means to explore universal  feelings and experiences. How do you think her work resonates with audiences today,  amidst global challenges? 

AT: In her works, Kusama has conveyed messages such as saving the world through love and peace, even during the Vietnam War and pandemics. I believe her message has resonated with many audiences in this era of conflicts, epidemics, and natural disasters.