Take a Sneak Peek at Yayoi Kusama’s Hypnotic New Installation

We're dotty about it.

Portrait, 2016. Photo: Courtesy KUSAMA Enterprise, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London © Noriko Takasug.

From 25 May, internationally acclaimed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama will be exhibiting major new works at London’s Victoria Miro Gallery. Her largest UK show since the retrospective at the Tate Modern in 2012, Kusama’s latest exhibition will include new paintings, pumpkin sculptures as well as more of the artist’s infamous mirror rooms.

Variously crowned most popular artist in the world, second most expensive living female artist, and the sole visual artist to make it onto TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, Kusama’s work boasts global appeal. The international phenomenon has had an unbelievable decade at auction with collectors from around the world hoping to get their hands on one of her pieces. Kusama’s total sales by value have risen more than 262 percent, from $931,446 in 2004 to $35,455,059 in 2014, according to artnet Analytics.

In the past, her shows have had record-breaking attendance with die-hard fans camping out to ensure they get a chance to see the artist’s mesmerizing (and incredibly Instagram-able) work.

This new show is her most extensive at Victoria Miro yet and will feature several of her celebrated mirror rooms, which place the viewer within a cosmos of varying infinite reflections. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the major new works in the show:

1. All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016.

All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016. Photo: Courtesy KUSAMA Enterprise, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London © Yayoi Kusama.

All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016. Photo: Courtesy KUSAMA Enterprise, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London © Yayoi Kusama.

With All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, Kusama has returned to one of her favorite motifs and alter-ego of sorts: the pumpkin. The gourd has featured in many of her works and carries an element of nostalgia from when her family’s business stocked them in abundance during World War II. In keeping with her previous mirror sculptures, which place the viewer within a cosmos of infinite reflections and organic shapes, the yellow room is paradoxically repetitive and unpredictable. Hypnotizing.

Also being presented are new paintings from the ongoing series, begun in 2009, My Eternal Soul.

2. My Heart’s Abode, 2016.

My Heart’s Abode, 2016. Photo: Courtesy KUSAMA Enterprise, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London © Yayoi Kusama.

MY HEART’S ABODE, 2016. Photo: Courtesy KUSAMA Enterprise, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London © Yayoi Kusama.

This painting, is part of the series My Eternal Soul. Spend enough time with one of Kusama’s stunningly intricate works and it’s not hard to get lost its beauty.

4. Shedding Tears to the Season, 2015.

Shedding Tears to the Season, 2016. Photo: Courtesy KUSAMA Enterprise, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London © Yayoi Kusama.

SHEDDING TEARS TO THE SEASON, 2015. Photo: Courtesy KUSAMA Enterprise, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / Singapore and Victoria Miro, London © Yayoi Kusama.

The visionary monotone, Shedding Tears to the Season also features a dense map of psychedelic polka dots, expanding on Kusama’s already prolific and evolving oeuvre. The obsessive attention to minutiae and relentless repetition extend  Kusama’s lifelong experimentation with themes of the self and its relationship to the boundless universe.

The much-awaited exhibition at Victoria Miro will occupy all of the gallery’s spaces, including the waterside garden.

Yayoi Kusama” is on view at Victoria Miro from May 25 – July 30. 


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