German museum celebrates famed Japanese artist Kusama in vast new exhibit

The trek through the time and transformation of the now nonagenarian artist assembles works ranging from her first drawing in the mid-1930s to a newly commissioned “Infinity Mirror Room” made for the show.

Kusama, who turns 97 this month, has become a social media sensation with her use of bright colors and oozy shapes that reflect her feeling of awe about life. Her own life carried her from patriarchal postwar Japan to New York to the Flower Power and anti-Vietnam war movements in the 1960s. She returned home to Japan in 1973.

Curator Stephan Diederich says the exhibit, which runs through Aug. 2, is "very diverse, wide-ranging, and depicts an immensely rich, creative life spanning more than eight decades, still looking ahead.”

Works include her series “My Eternal Soul, 2009-2021,” including a patchwork of paintings, to “The Universe as Seen from the Stairway to Heaven” — made of mirror, glass and acrylic sheet. The museum entrance hosts her widely-recognized 2009 “Pumpkin” of fiber-reinforced plastic and polyurethane paint, belonging to Museum Voorlinden in the Netherlands.

The rooftop display features painted-bronze sculptures “Flowers That Speak All about My Heart Given to the Sky” from 2018, and “I’m Here, but Nothing,” whose origins date back to 2000, involves fluorescent stickers and ultraviolet fluorescent lights illuminating a room of household objects.

“Kusama is undoubtedly one of the most significant artists of our time," he said. “Her mirror rooms, balloon installations and polka dots have achieved cult status and are now iconic.”

Her multifaceted works often relate to the world of nature. She grew up in the greenhouses and fields of her family’s enormous seed nursery in Matsumoto, Japan. When Kusama was young, she began having vivid hallucinations, some of which involved polka dots or flowers spreading around her. She has fought through existential anxieties.

“In my more than 70 years as an artist, I have always been in awe of the wonder of life,” she said in a statement. “More than anything, this strong sense of the life force in artistic expression is what has supported me and gave me power to overcome feelings of depression, hopelessness and sadness.

“I have been guided by my belief in this power,” Kusama said.

Diederich said that Kusama has been living in relative seclusion in a Tokyo clinic for years, and communicated “indirectly” with the curatorial team. She still works every day, “as far as her health allows” and has taken an active interest in the show, he said.