Pumpkin (2024) marks a return to Serpentine for Kusama which was the location of her first retrospective exhibition in Britain in 2000. This major survey included paintings, collages, watercolours, sculptures, documentation of performances and films, all of which explored Kusama’s obsessions with dots, nets, food and sex.

The work on view in Kensington Gardens until November 2024, is Kusama’s tallest bronze pumpkin sculpture to date, standing at 6 metres tall and 5.5 metres in diameter. Installed prominently by the Round Pond, Pumpkin (2024) can be seen from a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives creating an intriguing dialogue with the surrounding environment of the Park.

Known for her immersive installations, large-scale sculptures and intricate paintings, Yayoi Kusama often features kabocha, or pumpkin, in her work. Since 1946 Kusama’s pumpkins have taken many forms, colours and shapes, but their surfaces are consistently covered in the artist’s signature repeating polka dot pattern.

Since it launched in 1970, Serpentine has had a long-standing commitment to bringing art out of the traditional gallery context and into the surrounding landscape, offering an opportunity for artists to engage with the immediate environment of Kensington Gardens.

Kusama’s Pumpkin situated at the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens is the latest in a long-standing series of remarkable public presentations in The Royal Parks since Serpentine’s foundation in 1970 which includes the recently inaugurated STRIP-TOWER (2023) by German luminary Gerhard Richter currently situated on the outdoor plinth at Serpentine South. As part of the public art programme, Atta Kwami’s mural DzidzƆ kple amenuveve (Joy and Grace) (2021-22) has been extended to 30 September 2024, and remains on display at Serpentine North.

Meanwhile in Porto, Portugal, the beautiful Serralves Foundation presents a retrospective show, covering around 160 pieces, spanning Kusama’s career from the early drawings she produced as a teenager during World War II to her most current immersive works. The fascinating show, which is arranged both chronologically and conceptually, takes viewers on a tour of Kusama’s entire body of work by breaking it down into five main themes. This exhibition is organised by M+, Hong Kong in collaboration with the Serralves Foundation and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, curated by Doryun Chong and Mika Yoshitake, supported by Isabella Tam. 

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Image: Yayoi Kusama Pumpkin, 2024 © YAYOI KUSAMA Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner Photo: George Darrell